I Am All Day And Night: The Music Of Frank Zappa

Remember Barry’s post “Odds & Ends” back at the end of January? One of the “Ends” he mentioned was the CBC Radio 2 – Inside The Music program, “I Am All Day And Night: The Music Of Frank Zappa” written and produced by Philip Coulter.

That interview…

explores Zappa as a composer, and is told through the memories of some of those who knew him best — family, his friends, and some of the musicians who worked with him. You’ll hear from Zappa’s wife, Gail Zappa, Ruth Underwood, the percussionist who first heard him at a famous concert at New York’s Garrick Theatre in 1967; Elliot Ingber, a guitarist in the early Mothers of Invention, and Joe Travers, drummer and vaultmeister of the Zappa archives.

Part Three of which has been copied and uploaded to YouTube (Thanks to ‘tomtiddler’) in the clip above (and in Parts 2/3/4/5).

Enjoy! Especially if you didn’t hear it the first time around!

Listen to Parts One and Two at the Inside The Music Audio Archives (while still available for re-listening).

Author: urbangraffito

I am a writer, editor, publisher, philosopher, and foole (not necessarily in that order). Cultural activist and self-described anarchist.

14 thoughts on “I Am All Day And Night: The Music Of Frank Zappa”

  1. I found this thoroughly enjoyable…and it is no mystery that the ZFT failed to promote it as it provides a balanced view on composition/band methods.

  2. the FZT did in fact advertise it on their site and contributed to it extensively. And it was two more hours long!!!!
    what you get with these 5 unauthorized youtube clips is only a third of the program.
    Just the facts pete. Y’know, lest we back ourselves into another war or Texas secedes from the union.
    cheers!

  3. “the FZT did in fact advertise it on their site”
    I did not know that – and now I’ve checked, and did not find it. Where was it?

  4. [quote comment=”5248″]“the FZT did in fact advertise it on their site”
    I did not know that – and now I’ve checked, and did not find it. Where was it?[/quote]
    Virtually nothing on zappa.com has a permanent link (“permalink”). One has to wonder if there’s a reason for this..?

  5. It was nice to hear Vai play a large portion of “What’s new in Baltimore” acoustically. I love playing that song on guitar and always thought it would sound good on acoustic. It just needs some frenetic Tommy Mars like scatting over the stacatto chords near the end. And now i can hear what those chords actually are on the guitar! =)

  6. I don’t know, Punky. It is not listed on the WHAT’S NEW page…all other entries are there. I’m pretty sure the full thing is still up on the Candaian Broacasting site…I’d link but I’m on the run.

  7. oh my!
    there had been a thing on the what’s new page and it’s NOT there now…
    just the link to the pacifica radio and the KPFK fundraiser links that no longer work…
    Still there was notice of it and there was much involvement whether you like what wc or gz etc have to say, it even seems that the CBC broadcast may have been timed to coincide to an extent with the Lumpy Money release
    that 3 part radio how is so good

  8. Yes, “these 5 unauthorized youtube clips” are just Part 3 of this audio documentary, Punky. When the other parts of this audio documentary appear on youtube, you can bet they’ll soon be updated here. It’s not my job to determine the ethics of uploading to youtube, rather to make Zappa related material available to the KUR community in whatever shape or form that material comes in. The rest is up to the community to discuss.

  9. [quote comment=”5249″][quote comment=”5248″]“the FZT did in fact advertise it on their site”
    I did not know that – and now I’ve checked, and did not find it. Where was it?[/quote]
    Virtually nothing on zappa.com has a permanent link (“permalink”). One has to wonder if there’s a reason for this..?[/quote]

    I think the answer to that question is pretty obvious, Barry. They are a business, and their focus is business — not supplying information to the public regarding FZ (except wherein supplying that information coincides with their business interests) — while our focus IS education and information, right?

  10. So anyways how bout the acoustic WNIB? I think Vai should record it. If he doesn’t I will.

  11. Also i believe the title should have been “I am all days and all nights,” “Ich bin alle tage und naechte,” not singular.

  12. [quote comment=”5251″]It was nice to hear Vai play a large portion of “What’s new in Baltimore” acoustically. I love playing that song on guitar[/quote]
    I’d love to hear that! I also try it sometimes, in my amateurish way… (btw I have the TAB for that song, a really correct one, if you’re interested…)

  13. pete you’re right! I coulda swore it was there…
    sorry for the confusion.
    I’ve never liked Steve Vai’s guitar work. There, I said it. Of course, he’s a crazy technical face melter. Sure. Never liked the arpeggios, the wheedly ’80’s digitized tone, all flash and no ummph! Vai even called FZ’s guitar work ‘visceral’. YEAH! That’s right, I thought. ‘So why do I never hear that with Vai’, I would say to myself. And the answer of course, is that Vai has his own style, his own journey. OK. But I didn’t have to like his guitar, right? Even when I saw him with ZPZ and I was there in the front row stuck in front of Vai and I was just so disappointed and he saw it on my face. BAD FAN! I know!!
    But when I heard Vai play that What’s New In Baltimore on that CBC broadcast in January… I lost all 25 years + of disregard for Mr Vai’s playing.
    All the animosity and begrudging spitefulness I had held onto … it just all melted away. It’s crazy, sitting here typing this out, NPR is on in this room,there are constant traffic noises outside and the neighbors are doing something loud and electrical next door — all these conflicting noises while thinking about Vai’s guitar and my pals at KUR, the slow melody of Sleep Dirt is playing silently —
    IN MY HEAD!!
    urbangraffito: I’m glad you posted it. I hope more people get to hear it. I don’t like authority either.

  14. [quote comment=”5267″][quote comment=”5251″]It was nice to hear Vai play a large portion of “What’s new in Baltimore” acoustically. I love playing that song on guitar[/quote]
    I’d love to hear that! I also try it sometimes, in my amateurish way… (btw I have the TAB for that song, a really correct one, if you’re interested…)[/quote]
    Yes I am interested is there any chance you could host it somewhere?

    I also agree with punknaynowned. Vai’s tone live is way to brittle and squealy. I’ve also never like the arpeggios he uses. They sound very open, i believe he uses a lot of 5ths and octaves in them. The thing I’ve realized is that Vai’s style is based around playing notes in an unorthodox way. He’s always doing some crazy circular vibrato, hammering his tremolo to get traumatized notes and doing all this kind of stuff. He isn’t very visceral either, his playing is way more airy. The only real visceral recording i’ve heard of him was “Fuck yourself” Its down and dirty.

    I do find it strange though that after transcribing and in doing so playing so many of Frank’s solos that he barely has any of that sound in his own style. He rarely plays the insane rhythms that he had transcribed for Frank. I guess he wanted to make his own mark.

    Still I love his music and I think he writes great compositions. It would be nice if he did another album with a band like Sex and Religion.

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