FRANK ZAPPA & THE MOTHERS OF INVENTION: ABSOLUTELY FREE
(Verve V-5013 © 1967, Rykodisc RCD 10502, © 1965)

TRACK LISTING
(All selections by Frank Zappa)
Plastic People
The Duke of Prunes
Amnesia Vivace
The Duke Regains His Chops
Call Any Vegetable
Invocation & Ritual Dance of the Young Pumpkin
Soft-Sell Conclusion
Big Leg Emma *
Why Don'tcha Treat Me Right? *
America Drinks
Status Back Baby
Uncle Bernie's Farm
Son of Suzy Creamcheese
Brown Shoes Don't Make It
America Drinks and Goes Home

PERSONNEL
Frank Zappa - guitar, keyboards, vocals; Ray Collins - guitar, vocals; Don Preston - keyboards; Roy Estrada - bass, vocals; Jimmy Carl Black - drums, percussion; Billy Mundi - drums, vocals; Bunk Gardner - woodwinds; Jim Sherwood - guiar, woodwinds, vocals; Don Ellis - trumpet; unidentified strings

REVIEW
I'm a big Frank Zappa fan and I've had this album for years, but I never knew that Don played on it until recently because he isn't given credit for it. He only plays on one track, "Brown Shoes Don't Make It"…a whirlwind suite of all-encompassing tape edits with a message that seems to be both anti-establishment and anti-ANTI-establishment all in the same breath. Don is just basically one of the background horns on the album. Get this album, and We're Only In It For The Money, for a good example of Zappa's early work.

(Of further interest is a version of "America Drinks and Goes Home" recorded by Woody Herman on the 1974 album Thundering Herd. It's a very different arrangement, as penned by Alan Broadbent, and is one of my favorite big band charts.)