King Kong: Jean Luc Ponty Plays The Music Of Frank Zappa

Jean-Luc Ponty | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (July 13, 1993)
• Original Release Date: 1969
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Blue Note Records
• ASIN: B000005HE8
• Also Available in: Vinyl  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #24,142 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)
  • #7 in Music > Indie Music > Jazz > Jazz Fusion
  • #61 in Music > Indie Music > Rock > Progressive

Editorial Reviews

No Description Available
No Track Information Available
Media Type: CD
Artist: PONTY/ZAPPA
Title: KING KONG
Street Release Date: 07/13/1993
Domestic
Genre: JAZZ

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Perfect intro. to Zappa's 'softer' side, January 7, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: King Kong: Jean Luc Ponty Plays The Music Of Frank Zappa (Audio CD)

If you can't quite handle Frank Zappa try this for size - following work on such classics as Hot Rats (on a par with Sugarcane Harris on Sleep Dirt) Ponty took a number of instrumental works (which had not necessarily featured violin originally) and gave them a very credible re-working. The result is an excellent 'soft' introduction to Zappa (apart from the word 'bastard' in one title) which should point the novice listener in the direction of Uncle Meat; The Grand Wazoo; Sleep Dirt; Orchestral Favorites and Studio Tan before moving on to more mainstream works (if that term can ever be applied to FZ!). I have to give this album 5 stars despite the fact that it is a 'spin off' rather than one of FZ's own. Sit back and enjoy.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Don't mind the cover: this is great!, February 10, 2003

By 

critic-ailleurs (Montreal, Qc) - See all my reviews

This review is from: King Kong: Jean Luc Ponty Plays The Music Of Frank Zappa (Audio CD)

This was released in the spring of 1970. It is a must-have for any fan of the music of Frank Zappa who particularly enjoys his composing style from this era, his most fertile IMO. It should also please fans of late 60s West Coast electric jazz and of violinist Jean-Luc Ponty's dry and vibrato-less stylings of this period. If you are anything close to a Zappa completist, you need to get "King Kong", not only because the mustachioed wrote all of the arrangements and played a guitar solo on Ponty's own piece, but also because you actually get lots of Zappa writing that you cannot get anywhere else. "Music for Electric Violin and Low-Budget Orchestra" is a much longer version than Zappa's equivalent for guitar, as heard on "Studio Tan", and very differently orchestrated too. Although the Ponty album one does not exactly flow smoothly all the time - it is said to include countless edits - it has many "new" sections as compared with the Studio Tan version, with a feel similar perhaps to the composer's "Lumpy Gravy". "Twenty Small Cigars" and "America Drinks and Goes Home" also include beautiful additional writing from Zappa that is not available otherwise, to my knowledge. A nice little break in "America Drinks" is smack in the spirit of "Hot Rats" ("It Must be a Camel")! The musicians that perform on the jazz pieces are particularly wonderful here. Not that there is anything wrong with the other chaps that play on the more avant-garde bits... Just that in this context of likely limited time for rehearsal, the jazz guys really bloom... George Duke, Ernie Watts, John Guerin... all smoke big time! Mother Ian Underwood conducts the 11-piece band track (probably has the uncredited free-style tenor sax break on this one too) and plays on the head of the title track. Get it soon! However, the J.-L. Ponty fans of his fusion era must be warned: this is VERY different stuff!

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent music, very underrated album..., June 18, 2007

By 

Music Lover - See all my reviews

This review is from: King Kong: Jean Luc Ponty Plays The Music Of Frank Zappa (Audio CD)

This is by far one of the most original albums I have ever heard. 6 of Frank Zappa's best pieces, all played by world class jazz musicians: George Duke, Ernie Watts, John Guerin..., all conducted, composed, and arranged by Frank Zappa himself, sounds pretty impressive, right? I only have a few critiques...

The only improv time is given to Ponty, which is quite a dissapointment, given that there are so many good musicians on this album. Also, the sound quality is good, but not great. I'm not an expert in audio, but the album sounds a little too thin. These annoyances are small though, and don't take too much away from the album.

Sorting through Zappa's catalouge is painful and stress inducing, so I will try too tell you what kind of album this is. Thus begins the difficult task of classifying a zappa album (sigh)--

This album is kind of a jazz album. I say this because a couple songs have a jazz feel, all are played by jazz musicians and it has lengthy complex improvisations. And like about 30 percent of Zappa's catalouge, it doesn't come very close to being a rock album. And just to spice things up, Zappa added a few modern classical orchestrations.

--Thus, I will classify it as an Orchestral Jazz album.

This is a must have for any experimental jazz fan. And if you're a jazz fan trying to get into Zappa this would certainly be the best album for you. It is too often overlooked as yet another schizophrenic, rambling Zappa album. This, and Zappa's other fusion albums (Hot Rats, The Grand Wazoo), need to be much more well known because their musical significance and their contributions to jazz.