| Album notes by Gail Zappa - 2011
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| “Feeding the Monkies at Ma Maison” - the album master - as hand-labeled by FZ, existed of just the first three tracks. The composer intended it as a vinyl release. This is a compilation because Joe and I decided to include the last two tracks for CD (This does not mean you will never hear it on vinyl). We hope that this finds a happy home betwixt the ears of all those who loved “Jazz from Hell” and the music for which it stands.
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| In 1994 Ryko was determined to understand the difference between FZ’s Classical music and everything else in his “catalog”. To protect his legacy and my right to control the licensing of certain works in the manner intended by FZ we had to come up with a definition that worked. They were halfway to declaring that the difference was in the “songs” played by the touring “rock” bands and anything orchestral (But that left out all spontaneous compositions, oratorios, ballets, electronica, solo instrumental, Synclavier-realized works, ad infinitem). Clearly, FZ should have the last word. And so the definition we settled on was never neither and oftentimes both. And that definition is: “jazz from hell”.
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| Album notes by Todd Yvega - July 31, 2011
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| From the time I started working with Frank in 1989, I had intermittently been hearing the compositions featured on this disc, but not exactly as they appear here. I heard them in their various incarnations, always being further refined and streamlined. I chose the words “refined” and “streamlined” very deliberately and I would like to elaborate on them before proceeding.
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| Refined: Over time Frank and his helper minions developed an ever more sophisticated technique on the Synclavier. This was paralleled by improvements in the Synclavier’s underlying technology (Moore’s Law: processing power and memory capacity double every two years). These factors together resulted in an evolution among Frank’s Synclavier pieces. In my opinion, a certain quality generally improves with later recording dates. For lack of better words I usually describe this quality as “nuance” or “finesse”. One can hear this evolution when comparing Frank’s Synclavier works as released in chronological order:
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| 1984 “Boulez Conducts Zappa - The Perfect Stranger” and “Francesco Zappa”
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| 1985 “Frank Zappa Meets the Mothers of Prevention”
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| 1986 “Jazz from Hell”
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| 1994 “Civilization Phaze III”
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| 1996 “The Lost Episodes” (Track 22)
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| Streamlined: Much as a comedian fine-tunes his material, gradually whittling away all non-crucial verbiage until the jokes perform optimally, Frank chiseled away at the pieces making them tighter, more concise and tailoring them to fit within the context of the entire album. Take for example two of the compositions on the present disc: “Buffalo voice” and “Secular humanism”. They were first released to the public on the 1994 album “Civilization Phaze III” 8 years after the recordings featured here. Compare the track lengths:
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| “Buffalo voice” 11:35, 5:12
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| “Secular humanism” 6:37, 2:41
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| If you do the math you’ll see that 55% of “Buffalo voice” and 59% of “Secular humanism” was edited away in 8 years (Extrapolating, if Frank were still with us today perhaps those pieces would be whittled down to mere jingle length by now).
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| Now that I’ve explained my opening statement (“Fyeww”) I have the context needed to make my points about this release.
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| First, as I see it, this release provides a previously missing link in the evolution among Frank’s Synclavier works between “Jazz from Hell” and “Civilization Phaze III”. Although “Jazz from Hell” was released in 1986 and the tracks on this disc were reportedly recorded in that same year, a simple listen tells me that the “Jazz from Hell” material was produced and recorded earlier. I hear a profound difference in the “nuance” or “finesse” quality which indicates a later date for the recording of the “Feeding the Monkies” tracks. To me it’s as clear as hearing a 19th Century classical work and knowing that it post-dates the Baroque period.
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| Second, I regard this disc as an interesting time capsule giving a peek into several evenings at the UMRK toward the end of 1986. Referring to the longer versions of “Buffalo voice” and “Secular humanism”, Joe Travers the Vaultmeister had stated: “Here we have the complete pieces as written in 1986”. In deference to Joe, I suspect he made that statement in haste, but I’m glad he did because it gives me the opportunity to address a common misconception: using this statement as an example, it gives a false impression that the pieces were written to completion in 1986 which then implies that all subsequent tweezing has been something other than composition and that the resulting later versions are less complete. Frank rarely regarded any composition as completed, and often at the end of a long day of work at the Synclavier he would record the composition on tape, in whatever condition it was currently in, just to have a record of it and perhaps to use as placeholder material in a draft version of an album. So I think it would give the most realistic idea to state: “Here we have longer versions of these pieces as Frank put them on tape one day in 1986”.
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| Third, for those familiar with “Buffalo voice” and “Secular humanism” as they appear on “Civilization Phaze III”, this release provides an opportunity to hear the 55% to 59% that had been edited out (I especially appreciate that). The track “Worms from hell” provides the opportunity to hear the full-length version of the music used in the opening credit sequence of the 1987 Honker Home Video release “Video from Hell”. Finally the tracks “Feeding the monkies at Ma Maison” and “Samba funk” provide the opportunity to hear two previously unreleased pieces.
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| Album notes by John Alexander - July 2015
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| The Beverly Hills restaurant, Ma Maison, was often referred to as “the clubhouse to the stars”. After a bizarre lunch there in the mid 1980s, I was compelled to do a painting based on my experience.
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| Frank first saw the painting in 1985 at my New York studio and immediately expressed his desire to use the image for a new album cover. Unfortunately, it never came to fruition during his lifetime. Now thirty years later, the fact that it is finally happening makes me smile and gaze toward the heavens.
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.jpg "(Front)")
 Art by John Alexander.jpg "(Front of digital download) Art by John Alexander")
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Songs list
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