DVD Review-In the 60's

In the 60's

 So when I read about the release of this DVD, I had to get it immediately! The only thing disappointing about it (though it is not surprising) is that there are only snippets of the MOI onstage. (What I would give for a complete '67 Mothers performance at NY's Garrick Theatre!) But the good news is that those who tell the story of the original Mothers do a very good job, with the contributions of former Mothers Bunk Gardner, Jimmy Carl Black, Artie Tripp and Don Preston being particularly valuable (too bad they couldn't have gotten Roy Estrada, Ian Underwood, Billy Mundi or Ray Collins.) An in-depth analysis of the Mothers' mid to late-Sixties albums from "Freak Out" to "Uncle Meat" is very well done, with lots of newly revealed information and anecdotes.
One of the music critics states that this was the best group of musicians that Zappa ever assembled. Well J.C. Black was no Terry Bozzio and Don Preston was no George Duke or Tommy Mars, but, in spirit, maybe they were after all. To this day, I feel that Zappa's most memorable and
iconoclastic music was done with the original Mothers - one critic even suggests that Zappa's music since the late-Sixties was basically a recycling of the ideas he expressed on those great records. That may be going a bit too far, but those first five or six Mothers albums will always be the ones I go back to first. And the members of Frank's band were important components in making the albums and performaces so groundbreaking. These guys were real characters and added so much to the Mothers' output. Especially touching are the words of Jimmy Carl Black (particularly since he passed away recently.) Jimmy Carl clearly loved Frank Zappa and his creativity. But he also makes clear that Zappa was often very demanding and difficult to work with. And after some 35 years,
he is still very hurt that Frank broke up the band at a time when the members interviewed say that the band was peaking. But he also says that he is still buzzed about playing with the "best rock and roll band there ever was." And about that, he just might be correct. I would recommend this to all Zappa fans, especially the ones whose first exposure to Frank Zappa was "Don't Eat the Yellow Snow" or "Dinah-Moe Humm." This DVD offers an excellent history lesson into the first years of a musical genius.