Eat That Question, the 4th track on the album, provides a humorous image of the tendency of free jazz and fusion to deconstruct tempo and harmony in the free interaction of small sounds: "In a burlesque of feeding Christians to the lions (or tiraal leon in Mexican slang), the solution to the problem of Questions (individuals who don't like music) is a literal one: a tank of undifferentiated tissue."
"Eat That Question" features George Duke's piano playing and the recording of the Fender Rhodes electric piano in a novel way. Most recordings of the instrument prior to "Eat That Question" were not of comparable sonic quality or production value as Duke's performance on the piece.
The track is a vehicle for George Duke's electric piano and begins with a rubato intro followed by the entrance of the full rhythm section in time. On this and several other tracks Zappa plays a flat top acoustic/electric guitar using a wah-wah pedal and a Maestro phase shifter or Leslie speaker for a chorale effect. The Barcus-Berry transducer used was at the time a novel way of amplifying the instrument instead of using a traditional magnetic guitar pickup.
In this same period in analog recording the number of tracks available was expanding. Multi-track recording was changing rapidly with "sound on sound" being supplanted by "sound with sound" tape technology. "Hot Rats" had been released a few years prior to "Wazoo" and was recorded on one of the first 16 track tape machines. It featured multiple tracks of clarinets, flutes, saxophones, piano and organ parts played by a single musician, Ian Underwood. At the time of "Grand Wazoo" the compositions were arranged for large ensembles which were conceived as studio recording vehicles, rather than live, touring bands.
The Zappa Plays Zappa (led by Dweezil Zappa) tours since 2006 regularly have featured "Eat That Question," with the song serving as a vehicle for both keyboard and guitar solos. Beginning in 2010, the ZPZ shows also have incorporated "Blessed Relief," usually introduced by Dweezil as an underappreciated Zappa composition.
Read more about this topic: The Grand Wazoo
Famous quotes containing the words eat and/or question:
“Was there ever a cat that didn’t like to eat fish?”
—Chinese proverb.
“I look on that man as happy, who, when there is question of success, looks into his work for a reply, not into the market, not into opinion, not into patronage.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)