Frank Zappa - guitar, vocals; George Duke - keyboards; Ian Underwood - keyboards; Aynsley Dunbar - drums; Howard Kaylan - vocals; Jeff Simmons - bass; Mark Volman - vocals
This wonderful and sonically superb recording of Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention dates back to the fall of 1970, when the band played memorable shows at both the Fillmore East and West.
From the very beginning of the set, with "Introduction / Have Gun Will Travel / Paladin And Hey Boy," the fun begins and never lets up. Older classics such as "Call Any Vegetable" and "Sharleena" are balanced against lesser-known, but just as interesting tracks, such as "Mother People," "The Sanzini Brothers," " El Porko The Magnificent," and the hysterical, "Dog Breath." He closes with the rockin' riff track, "King Kong."
Taken from the archives of Fillmore founder and promoter Bill Graham, this show is among many that Zappa and his early '70s version of the Mothers of Invention played at the Fillmore between 1970 and 1972. By now, Zappa was releasing most of his albums simply under his own name, but he still kept the Mothers tag around for nearly another four years.
This version of the band lasted from late 1969 through 1972, when Zappa, playing a show at the Rainbow Theater, was thrown off the stage by a deranged fan in London, breaking both his legs, forcing him to spend nearly a year in two hip casts.
This was probably the best-loved version of the Mothers, containing a hybrid version of top flight jazz musicians (George Duke), high octane studio rockers (Aynsley Dunbar and Jeff Simmons), and the remnants of a '60s pop band (Howard Kaylan and Mark Volman, better known as Flo & Eddie, from the Turtles). The connection to the Turtles came in the fact that Zappa's manager and business partner, Herb Cohen, was Kaylan's first cousin.