Frank Zappa - Waka / Jawaka (1972)

#Musicaparaelencierro. Zappa parecia estar avanzando hacia un tipo mas elaborado de musica, explorando y creando nuevis pasajes de sonido, color e intensidad. Una continuación de "Hot Rats" que define la trilogía junto con "The Grand Wazoo", un disco con mucho jazz-rock en la línea de "Bitches Brew" o "In a Silent Way" de Miles Davis y de los primeros grupos que se registran en éste género, y las comparaciones van más allá de los musical, porque el genio inquieto de Zappa -al igual que como Miles- le impedía permanecer mucho tiempo haciendo lo mismo (hormigas en el culo dirían algunos). Más Zappa ahora de parte de Carlos el Menduco para que disfruten a lo grande, y que no se olviden del blog cabezón...  otro de los imprescindibles de Zappa y que conforma la gran trilogía jazzística de nuestro Frankie querido.

Artista: Frank Zappa

Álbum: Waka/Jawaka
Año: 1972
Género: Rock / Progressive rock / Experimental / Jazz / Psychedelic rock
Duración: 36:08
Nacionalidad: EEUU

Es el álbum inmediatamente posterior a "200 Motels", el que era el soundtrack de la película homónima experimental hecha por el mismo Zappa, con una combinación de rock, jazz y elementos de comedia musical. "Waka /Jawaka" es un puente entre la mencionada obra y una de sus mayores obras: la incursión de Zappa plenamente en el jazz orquestal, con una numerosa dotación de instrumentos de viento, percusiones y la infalible guitarra de Zappa, en su disco del mismo año que hoy ya presentamos en el blog cabezón; "The Grand Wazoo".
Atrapado en su silla de ruedas e incapaz de realizar giras, Zappa resurge con un  album basicamente instrumental, "Waka/Jawaja", una especie de "Hot Rats" Parte 2, pero con nueva direccion y estilo musical. Es calmado y conciso, con composiciones para "Grand Orchestra" a menudo compuesta por una veintena de musicos en un estilo "Jazzy Big Band" con instrumentaciones excelentemente pulidas.

Waka/Jawaka es un álbum del músico y compositor Frank Zappa, lanzado al mercado en 1972. El álbum es el precursor de influencia jazzística de The Grand Wazoo.
Fue remasterizado en CD por Rykodisc en 1989 y en 1995.

Wikipedia

Zappa decide que lo que quiere ahora en montar una big band de jazz, y para ello recurre a más de una quincena de músicos en los que se incluyen una enorme sección de vientos. El resultado son dos discos magistrales, infravalorados, que muestran unas composiciones llenas de vida, entre el jazz y el rock progresivo. Además de George Duke, Aynsley Dunbar o el bajista Erroneous, también están presentes, entre otros, el trompetista Sal Marquez, Tony Duran ayudando en las guitarras o el genial Ernie Watts al saxo tenor. También intentó una gira con la big band (The Grand Wazoo Band), pero los gastos que acarreaba frenó la idea, y diseñó una pequeña banda (The Pettit Wazoo) con la que sí estuvo de gira en otoño de 1972, gira que se recoge en numerosos discos pirata. Sorprende que después de la banda de rock humorística con Flo & Eddie, Zappa se decidiese a montar una big band de jazz donde desarrollar complejos, ricos y largos temas instrumentales… claro que entre las dos etapas hay un año y medio en el que Zappa se tuvo que retirar a consecuencia de un ‘accidente’ durante un show con las Madres, en el que fue agredido por un espectador. Estos dos discos no se editaron en España (sólo el tema ‘Eat That Question’, que aparecía sustituyendo a ‘Dinah Moe Hum’ en el ‘Overnite sensation’ por motivos de censura).
Primer disco con la big band, y un discazo en toda regla. Largos temas instrumentales en los que destaca tanto la guitarra de Zappa y los teclados de Duke como la enorme cantidad de instrumentos de viento. Desde ‘Big Swifty’, una joya basada en un solo de guitarra de una actuación de ‘King Kong’, con excelentes solos, hasta el tema que da nombre al álbum, con la big band en su máxima expresión, pasando por los otros dos temas del disco, más breves, cantados y menos inclinados al jazz.

Sebastián Ruffo

Como dato de color, en su primera edición tenía el subtítulo "Progresive rock" y que no significaba otra cosa que el interés de Zappa y compañía por romper todas las barreras del rock, recurriendo en especial al jazz como elemento catapultador.
En "Waka/Jawaka", el corte que da titulo al album, utiliza una banda mas pequeña, con un excelente juego de Sal Marquez en la trompeta con sordina, y Aynsley Dunbar, que toca en un estilo inusual para el. Hay una enorme riqueza de sonido, y Dunbar, el la baretia provee un solido ritmo, lleno de luz y ampliamente ampliado con sus platillos y costantes cambios de patron, esto resulta "Moderno" en un grupo de Rock "antiformalista" y la madurez y desarrolo de Dunbar se revelan como otro de los grandes activos musicales de Zappa.

En los años setenta, el Jazz le pegó muy fuerte a Frank Zappa.  Tal es así que, Waka/Jawaka es álbum de Jazz experimental que marca una continuación de lo que venía haciendo.
Waka/Jawaka se puede dividir en dos partes: por un lado sus dos grandes suites de improvisación instrumental y por otro sus temas más cortos donde incorpora su interpretación vocal. Uno creería que el primer grupo de canciones es lo mejor que tiene para ofrecer el disco pero no.
El comienzo del álbum tenemos a «Big Swifty», que arranca con una locura total en la variedad de sonidos e instrumentos que aparecen. Después el jazz es más claro, toma más nitidez y está más articulado.
De todas formas, Zappa no pierde esas ganas de mantener esa locura al pie de cañón. El problema es que en sus más de 17 minutos de duración, se torna un tanto reiterativo y eterno.
A partir de «Your Mouth» incorpora interpretación vocal y es un poco mas pop. Mientras que en «It Just must be» lo perfecciona aún más, incorporando una paleta de pasajes y melodías, sin perder estilo marca registrada de Frank. Y por eso es el mejor tema del disco.
Finalmente, la homónima «Waka/Jawaka» es un cierre instrumental a todo pulmón. Su melodía marca una pequeña mejora respecto de «Big Swifty», y por eso es más tolerable, aunque sinceramente no es un tema que trascienda en sus más de 11 minutos de improvisación.
Waka/Jawakaes un buen álbum, pero dentro de la infinidad de trabajos que podemos encontrar de Zappa se queda a mitad de camino.

Persy

Hot Rats part 2 and just like its predecessor it is also a solo album. This album is probably my fave along with Wazoo (but that one is a Mother album). Along with the usual Underwood, we find Dunbar, Duke, Preston, and a bunch of lesser-known musicians as guests. A weird and very green faucet artwork doesn't really pay that much a compliment to the superb music on this album, but it allows Frank to give it the Hot Rats reference on the tap handles.
Opening on the awesome sidelong Big Swifty, this is about as close as Zappa gets to Bitches Brew, Mwandishi or Body Electric and he does a very credible job, in part due to Ainsley Dunbar's incredible drumming. Dunbar is always remembered as a blues drummer as he started with his Retaliation groups, his John Mayall and Jeff Beck collabs, but his best works are with Zappa and the first two albums of Journey. Anyway, Swifty is a superb journey in the arcades of jazz-rock, and in a way prefigures what's coming in The Grand Wazoo.
The flipside starts rather average on the surprising (but not really in a pleasant way) Your Mouth that features some rather strange (for Zappa albums) vocals on a straight blues-rock tune with brass arrangements. Definitely the low point of an otherwise perfect album. Up next is One-Shot Deal that picks up where Your Mouth left out, but with a jazzy slant, especially in the instrumental break, where Francesco plays a twangy Hawaiian guitar solo. The closing title track is another shot at pure jazz-rock (and a recall of Big Swifty), but more in the later 70's fusion-type the brass section kicks-off in big-band (or Chicago Transit Authority) style and later a Moog-style solo, but again Ainsley is the unsung hero. Most people that have been through the Mothers come out of that band as fully accomplished musicians, and from hearing Ainsley on this one but especially the following one, you know that the man is ready for leadership in a jazz way as Hiseman in Colosseum & Tempest or Bruford in his various groups etc...
Swifty and Jawaka are of course the highlights on this one but don't be fooled with the line-up described on this pafe, this is not yet the big band to come with Wazoo (there is less brass on this one). as Zappa decided to forget his usual derision for a while, this album reaches the five stars level, but then again there is still a remain of humour in the music itself, or alse this would not have been a Zappa album. One thing, though: the album is a bit short with its 36-mins, especially when you know that Zappa regularly surpassed 45 mins in most of his albums.

Sean Trane

It's difficult to appreciate it at its first listen, but after being in the habit with his experimental stuff, this album can be essential in every "prog collection", even though the whole material is a bit out of such "progressive genre"... I suggest you to listen to every song carefully, and then you can enter his magical world more easily!!
Recommended!!

Lorenzo

A prologue to "The Grand Wazoo" and a very good big-band Jazz/Fusion record overall. I would not consider this as a "Hot Rats" part two though, since they're both in different styles to each other, but that's not really important. The two shorter songs here kinda ruins the albums epic style to it, but still manage to keep the albums overall mood, though it would have been quite a bit better without them. The instrumentation is great and arrangements flow well, though it's predecessor, "Grand Wazoo", turned out even better. This is still a highly recommended album for any fans of Zappa or regular Jazz/Fusion

Björnar Lunde

Frank Zappa made so much music in his lifetime. Each album was differant and varied, bringing new styles and genres into the mix. In the early/mid seventies, Zappa made two very Jazz-infulinced albums; Waka/Jawaka and The Grand Wazzo. Waka/Jawaka is my favorite of the two. The album opens with "Big Swifty", an 18 minute long big-band swing piece full of improv and solos. After losing yourself in the opening tracks, you find yourself in "Your Mouth", a slow, odd Jazzish rock ballad. Then comes my favorite Zappa song, "It Just Might Be a One Shot Deal". It starts off as a slow country song with teird-sounding, mumbling vocals. After a serise of time signature and theme changes, it's back to a country song, but fast this time. After an instumental passage, Zappa breaks in with the final line of the song, which abrutptly ends and goes straight into the title track, an eleven minute big-band swing song, much like the opener.
Favorites from the album:
"Big Swifty" "It Might Just be a One Shot Deal" "Waka/Jawaka"
This is a fantastic album, especialy if you're looking for something jazzy and avant.

Andrew

Everything on this album is great! the instrumental begining, the interlude with "Your Mouth", the magnifiscent end with Waka Jawaka....! Even the "cover" paint I like..at the Zappa Style, I think this is not a 2nd part of Hot Rats....do not has to see anything with it, I think this material is comparable with The Grand Wazoo because the instrumental sounds... Very recomendable, and not only for those dead Zappa fans as said of the last reviewer.....you may not miss this great material. I give this four stars, Zappa gives you a great interpretation, with strong structural harmonic sounds, feeling like Jazz-Classic fusion.

Otoniel Ramirez

4 tracks only, including one track for the entirety of the first side (Big Swifty, radically the best track here). Maybe not as great as Hot Rats, The Grand Wazoo or Uncle Meat. Indeed, radically different (even if there is some points of comparison with Hot Rats). I really like this album, even if this is not one of my favorites from Zappa. Not one of his best works also. Efficient, and short, very short (36 minutes) album.

Damien Barthel

With Hot Rats and The Grand Wazoo (this album is the second part of the impressive album Hot Rats) it follows the line of Avant-Jazz-Fusion, this album is made up of four songs:
Big Swifty: this piece is only instrumental and combines a base of jazz with movements of big band, the great unfolding of instruments that they go from the guitar to synthesizer, although its seventeen minutes the song can become a little boring, but is worth the trouble to listen to it.
In your mouth: Here there is a blues base, this song if there are voices, the choirs of women are very good, which if it does not have is single of guitar but believe me that does not need it.
Deal It just might be to one-shot: they follow the voices in this song, the drummer really makes an excellent work. Later a fantastic solo from guitar, and it mantains a base of country and the band maintains a jazzy base simultaneously. Finishes with a base of blues and voices.
Waka/Jawaka: The song begins with a domination of the wind instruments, has a jazz base, continues with a solo of synthesizer and a other of guitar. the drummer for constant changes and has been seeming automatic, does a solo really fantastic. It finishes with a great unfolding of wind instruments and an acceleration.
This album for the lovers of the jazz is recommendable and for which he does not know Frank Zappa is a good beginning.

Javier

After his stage accident in 72' it seemed like Zappa got better at what he did. No more Flo and Eddie, which is good if you want more music and less stage madness as well.
Overall all these songs are fantastic, people have posted that it drifts, or it jams in a rough improvised manner. Completely untrue, considering Zappa wrote all of the stuff on paper. He didnt improvise he worked 15 hours a day average until he died.
Fantastic horn sections and professional as always Zappa guitar that will make you groove and you'll at the very least be inspired to move your feet around. Drink Turkish coffee with Zappa music.

Ghadinbrod Introronous

This album and Wazoo are quite possibly my favorite Zappa albums (though that is difficult to say with the mass of material he has........there are so many favorites for me). The only thing that brings it down for me is the two vocal numbers. They are not particularly bad, but they are the kind of "comedy music" that I just can't get into from Zappa. But the two instrumentals, making up more than a third of the playing time, more than make up for it. Fantastic jazz oriented music with great solos by all involved. For me, this is essential Zappa. I wavered between 3 and 4 stars because for the most part with Zappa it is hard to say any of his ablums are an "Excellent addition to any prog music collection" because you can't really pigeon hole his music as being "prog" in the first place. He certainly was progressive in the most literal sense though. So take my 4 stars to indicate how much I like it, but if you are not familiar with Zappa or don't like a lot of his other work, approach with caution. For myself, I love just about all the instrumental work I've heard from Zappa, but am not crazy about most of the vocals (though there are a lot of exceptions). So for myself, I have to give 4 stars, though I would say I prefer Wazoo due to it having one vocal number I like as well as great instrumentals.

infandous

The beginning of a new era for Zappa after scrapping Flo & Eddie following the "wheelchair incident", Waka/Jawaka starts the what I call "Prog Big Band" era of his career. If some of you want to call this a sequel to Hot Rats, then this is Hot Rats with more improvisation, less structure and a bigger band. Aynsley is still there as well. Well, Big Swifty starts the album reaching 18 minutes of dissonant jazz-rock, completely free-form for the majority of it. It's pure chill freak-out music, and you'll hear something new each time you listen, pay attention to Frank's guitar, where he twists the Swifty melody sly-like. The 2 middle songs in the album are not really like Big Swifty, more conventional songs. They're not particularly memorable, they're the (dare I say) passable parts of the album. Heading into the title track you get something like Big Swifty again, and it's just as good if not better depending on what you like. Waka is a more big-band sounding song, summarizing the album and foreshadowing the likes of The Grand Wazoo.

slack4justice

There's some real beauty here. Some times there's 10 minutes of clock-watching, too. To me, that's FZ all over. He can bore me, or impress the hell out of me. That's why this is such a great album. One shot deal is supreme. Waka Jawaka is like a high school band on steroids, acid and cough syrup. Aint no Hollaback Girls there. Great and wierd and shuffling along. Awesome. The other two don't move me as much, but so what ... the two songs I like, will be with me forever, their sound is so tireless.
To all the non-believers, I say ... peace

dgarsenault

Personally, I don't think there is any better way to herald a hot summer afternoon than the first few notes of "Big Swifty". When, this past Monday" I walked out into the bright sunlight, sunglasses on, headphones affixed to skull, and this came flowing into my ears, I knew it was summertime and a bounce found its way to my step and I was off to stroll around Philadelphia, with my old pal Frank Zappa.
In 1970 Frank Zappa was pushed offstage during a show at London's Rainbow Theatre. The injuries he sustained took a full year to heal. He took up convalescence in his studio, giving most of the Mothers the year off and turning his attention towards more serious composition. Although there are five records between 1969's classic Hot Rats and Waka/Jawaka this is the first since 1969 to be recorded and intended to be heard as a whole (the others being compilations). It's a logical next step. While Hot Rats mated Hard Rock and Jazz with furious and fruitful success, Waka/Jawaka adds some more ingredients to the stew. There's funk, Bop, big band, and even a little country in here. Zappa enters into Miles Davis and John Coltrane realms here and predates much of P-Funk's experimentation. This is beautiful, baffling, challenging music.
My favorite moment on the record. About a minute-a- a-half into "It Just Might Be a One- Shot Deal" there is a pedal steel solo. accompanied by strummed guitar, mandolin, bass, and drum. It's a transcendent few minutes, some of the most beautiful ever captured on record. It features Burrito Brother Sneaky Pete Kleinow, one of the greatest (and unsung) musicians of our time.
Just perfect for a sunny stroll though Philadelphia- Greg Trout

www.MagnaPhoneMagazine.com

Lista de Temas:
1. Big Swifty
2. Your Mouth
3. It Just Might Be a One-Shot Deal
4. Waka/Jawaka

Alineación:
- Frank Zappa / guitar (acoustic), guitar, percussion, keyboards, sound effects, vocals
- George Duke / keyboards, piano (electric), vocals, tack piano, ring modulated keyboard
- Don Preston / synthesizer, piano, moog synthesizer, mini moog
- Sal Marquez / trumpet, chimes, flugelhorn, vocals
- Jeff Simmons / bass, guitar, vocals, Hawaiian guitar
- Aynsley Dunbar / guitar, drums, tambourine, Washboard
- Sneaky Pete Kleinow / pedal steel
- Mike Altschul / bass, flute, clarinet (bass), flute (bass), piccolo, sax (Baritone), sax (Tenor)
- Billy Byers / trombone, horn (Baritone)
- Alex Dmochowski / bass
- Tony Duran / vocals, slide guitar
- Erroneous / bass (electric), vocals, fuzz bass
- Janet Ferguson / vocals
- Joel Peskin / sax (Tenor)
- Chris Peterson / vocals
- Kenny Shroyer / trombone, horn (Baritone)
- Ian Underwood / guitar, keyboards, wind