Studio Tan

To call Zappa's music orchestral jazz is inaccurate and misleading.The music on Studio Tan is much closer to Western 20th century classical music than jazz. I would venture to call it post-jazz classical music (informed by jazz, while continuing to push the limits of classical music). The Adventures of Greggery Peccary is one of Zappa's greatest achievements. Although Greggery Peccary is often abstract, dissonant, and disjunct, it is quite palatable. Studio tan is overflowing with the rhythmic energy and melodic inventiveness that Zappa is famous for. The melodies are a prime example of Zappa's post-atonal melodic style. Although only vaguely tonal (closer to the atonal side of the tonality continuum), the melodies sound catchy and somehow intuitively right (a description which calls to mind the melodic style of Thelonius Monk). ...For every famous band, there are 1,000 bands just as good playing in a garage somewhere that you will never hear ("product of the media" famous bands are obviously not chosen for musical talent, but for "more marketable" features such as sex appeal). There was, however, only 1 Frank Zappa. One more thing, the version of RDNZL on this release is OK, but I prefer the live versions of this one (such as can be heard on You Can't Do That On Stage [Vol. IV?]).