FINAL ALBUMS AWAIT RELEASE

So begins an article by Rip Rense originally published in the March 26, 1998, edition of the San Jose Mercury News and now available in its entirety on the Internet (see Lost Zappa Projects ). The article refers to four albums of all-new material by Zappa, the last music he completed before dying of prostate cancer in 1993. [One of these albums, Everything Is Healing Nicely, was finally released by the Zappa Family Trust in late 1999. For that reason, I have removed any reference to it in the following paragraphs.]

Rense, who wrote the liner notes for The Lost Episodes, says that Gail Zappa has chosen to "sit on" these albums, a decision he clearly deplores. Legally, of course, Ms. Zappa is well within her rights. Assuming she has no contractual obligation to Rykodisc or other record companies for delivery of additional product, she can hold back release of any remaining recordings indefinitely, even though this would infuriate the many fans who want to hear every scrap of tape Frank left behind.

But really, there is no need to choose between all or nothing at all. Concerning the final albums, I side with Rense. It is clear that Frank intended these albums to be released, and I would encourage the family to allow this. The rest of the unreleased material—hundreds of hours of raw recordings currently gathering dust in Zappa's massive climate-controlled tape vault—should probably be left where it is. After all, an artists "greatness" is determined by posterity, not by his own contemporaries. We who knew a living Frank Zappa are simply not equipped to mark his place in history. Dragging out unfinished and possibly inferior recordings will not help his case. If future generations retain an interest in Zappa's work, the lure of all that unheard music will probably prove irresistible. But that is a big "if."

For the moment, most of Frank's fans just want to know something about the unreleased albums. According to Rense, they are "...a handful of the most ambitious projects of his long, singular career." A brief description of these recordings is provided below. Let's hope we'll have the opportunity to hear them soon.

• Trans-Fusion

  "This is another in a series of Zappa's all-guitar-solo albums; it is perhaps the most spectacular, with a suite feel to it and a thrilling conclusion."

• Dance Me This

  "An album of Synclavier works in the tradition of Zappa's Grammy-winning Jazz From Hell. It was named for a remarkable track featuring Tuvan 'throat-singers,' members of a northern China tribe able to sing in nasal multitones."

• The Rage and the Fury: The Works of Edgard Varese

  "The dying Zappa was not able to conduct this project, but he closely supervised conductor Peter Eotvos in recording members of the Ensemble Modern in one of the most stylistically unusual renditions of Varese ever made, and possibly the best-recorded. Varese, rightly regarded as one the country's pioneers of avant-garde orchestral sound-sculpture, was Zappa's greatest inspiration to become a composer."

  [NOTE: Rip Rense has written on a variety of subjects. Check out some of his other commentaries at Essays by Rip Rense.]