Career
Napoleon Murphy Brock started his ascent to music accolades and recognition in the San Francisco South Bay Area in the late 60's with a 7 and 8 piece band he had organized named "Communication Plus". He was the star lead singer, song writer, and arranger of the band's strongly R&B-influenced Rock performances. He also played the saxophone and flute. He played in a variety of local clubs including The Brass Rail, The Mecca, and Gary Schmidt's, The Odyssey Room. He was discovered in the early 70's and was taken on by Frank Zappa. Napoleon's early days numerous performances with Zappa include the role of the "Evil Prince" on Zappa's Thing-Fish album. He has also performed with George Duke, Captain Beefheart and more recently with Neonfire and . He remains a regular performer at Zappanale.
Brock appeared in the 2005 film Rock School, a documentary about The Paul Green School of Rock Music, an extracurricular music program that he and Project/Object have closely supported for several years.
In 2006, he toured with Frank Zappa's son Dweezil on the latter's Zappa Plays Zappa shows. He also regularly tours with fellow Zappa alumnus Ike Willis and others with Andre Cholmondeley's Project/Object. Other Zappa related projects he's been involved with include the Tampa, Florida based band Bogus Pomp, and the 16 piece Ed Palermo Big Band from New York City.
He is most frequently seen fronting the Grande Mothers Re-Invented with Roy Estrada and Don Preston (the only Frank Zappa alumni from the Mothers of Invention regularly performing the music of Frank Zappa), performing over 91 times since 2002.
His own most recent release is the 2003 album Balls.
Mr. Brock is mentioned in the 2007 memoir, "My Lobotomy" by Howard Dully and Charles Fleming, which describes Mr. Dully's experiences before and after undergoing an icepick transorbital lobotomy in 1960, at 12 years of age. Mr. Brock, while studying psychology and music at San Jose State University, was employed in the mid-1960s as a counselor at Rancho Linda, a "residential center for special education" where Mr. Dully lived after the having the procedure and being released from juvenile hall and a mental asylum. Mr. Dully had fond memories of Mr. Brock, and described him having "played all kinds of instruments" and as "cool."
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