There's some kind of association with a painter called John Alexander, because he has a painting called Feeding the Monkey at "Ma Maison" (1985) which Sotheby's sold in 1996.
Artist: John Alexander (American, born 1945)
Title: Feeding the monkey at "Ma Maison", 1985
Medium: Oil on Canvas
Size: 210.8 x 195.6 cm. (83 x 77 in.)
This album is dedicated to Maestros Pierre Boulez and Elliott Carter & Halo Zappa
On Jul 3, 2012, at 8:37 PM, Arjun von Caemmerer wrote:
Dear Gail, A question re the dual dedication to Elliott Carter and Pierre Boulez on the back of Feeding the Monkies at Ma Maison: is this dedication directly attributable to Frank, or is this a ZFT addition for this release?
No, nor did I claim it to be so. Any more than I claimed the addition of the 2 tracks to this work attributable to FZ. The dedication is mine alone (as Executive Producer) for my own admiration for them as Composers and Citizens of the World. I am grateful for the opportunities I have enjoyed being with them and for their kindnesses toward me and particularly in the case of M. Boulez, in appreciation for his deep regard for Frank Zappa as a fellow traveller.
CD Compilation by Gail Zappa & Joe Travers, 2010
"Feeding The Monkies At Ma Maison"—the album master—as hand-labeled by FZ, existed of just the first three tracks. The composer intended it as a vinyl release. This is a compilation because Joe and I decided to include the last two tracks for CD. (This does not mean you will never hear it on vinyl.)
On Nov 11th [2015] Universal will release Feeding The Monkeys on vinyl in Europe. Single LP, EAN: 0824302001219
Frank Zappa
Feeding The Monkies at Ma MaisonDETAILS
Format: LP
Label: Zappa Records
Release type: 'RSD First' ReleaseMore Info:
"Feeding The Monkies At Ma Maison" is a work originally intended for vinyl by Frank Zappa and realized on his Synclavier. (Consider FZ's Grammy Awarding-winning "Jazz From Hell" as an introductory prequel, having been created earlier in the same year.) Cut directly from 1630 Digital Master by Chris Bellman at Bernie Grundman Mastering, 2015. First time the three performance will appear on vinyl. Bright orange vinyl.
Track List
"Feeding the Monkies at Ma Maison", "Buffalo Voice", "Secular Humanism"
Comparing this track with the Resolver+Brutality tape, it matches in all its length what is called "Resolver ED" on the tape, only with some different samples and some changes in the tonality (some or all of them maybe due to the tape speed).
The grout at the beginning [0:00-0:12] of Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery [on Congress Shall Make No Law . . . ] is from Feeding The Monkies At Ma Maison (18:22-18:34).
This is an attempt to compare both officially released versions. There are mixing differences but not so many in the timbres and the samples used. Corrections and comments welcome.
| FTMAMM | CPIII |
|---|---|
| 00:00-02:46 | 00:00-02:45 |
| 02:46-02:51 | |
| 02:51-02:54 | 02:45-02:49 |
| 02:54-03:03 | |
| 03:03-04:33 | 02:49-04:19 |
| 04:33-04:40 | |
| 04:40-05:24 | 04:19-05:03 |
| 05:24-11:16 | |
| 11:16-11:26 | 05:03-05:12 |
In this case the mix is very different and there is a lot of different samples used in both versions, so sometimes it's very hard to tell if some sections actually match or not. Again, corrections and comments welcome.
| FTMAMM | CPIII |
|---|---|
| 00:00-00:50 | 00:00-00:50 |
| 00:50-01:08 | |
| 00:50-02:28 | |
| 02:28-02:44 | 01:08-01:25 |
| 02:44-02:56 | |
| 01:25-01:40 | |
| 02:56-03:31 | |
| 03:31-03:52 | 01:40-02:01 |
| 03:52-04:15 | |
| 04:15-04:26 | 02:01-02:12 |
| 04:26-06:33 | |
| 02:12-02:41 |
Thou Shalt Not Bear False Witness Against Thy Neighbor (on Congress Shall Make No Law...) starts with twelve seconds of Synclavier music. [...] In fact, this whole piece of grout is a snippet from the FTMAMM version of Secular Humanism (0:33-0:45, to be specific).
And the grout at the beginning of Thou Shalt Keep Holy The Sabbath Day [0:00-0:06] is also from Secular Humanism (0:04-0:11).
The grout at the beginning of Thou Shalt Have No Other Gods Before Me [0:00-0:05] is from Secular Humanism (0:46-0:51).
Thou Shalt Not Covet . . . [0:00-0:19] is from Secular Humanism (4:57-5:15).
Were the [Civilization Phaze III] Synclavier sections composed after listening to all this older material, or had you been sketching them out all along?
You've got to understand what the Synclavier process is like, as opposed to writing for any other medium. Imagine being a sculptor, okay? And imagine making your own mountain and then going to the mountain periodically and hauling your own hunks or marble back to the shop so that you can whack away on them. Sculpture is a subtractive medium, and you start off with more than you wind up with. So the analogy here is that the raw material that I'm working with is whatever is in my imagination versus what samples are at my disposal. And building the mountain is building your collection of samples. After you've recorded the individual instrument, or jackhammer, or whatever it's going to be—you can't deploy it into a composition unless it's been captured. You know, it needs a start mark and an end mark put on it, and all this really drudgerous bookkeeping kind of stuff, which Todd does for me. So I've got far more samples on tape now than I even have access to in the Synclavier, just because it takes months to prepare the raw material. And as the new samples come on-line, they are deployed into compositions which have been worked on over periods of years. In other words, the day I start a certain composition, I have one set of samples, and it makes the composition sound a certain way. But as new sounds come along, and they're plugged into the composition, the notes may be the same, but the whole sound of the piece changes.
Less than half a minute of the piece is used at the beginning of Video From Hell.
| FTMAMM | Video From Hell |
|---|---|
| 00:00-00:09 | |
| 00:09-00:37 | 00:00-00:28 |
| 00:37-05:26 |
Premiered by the Ascolta ensemble at Radialsystem, Berlin, July 14, 2007.
| FTMAMM | Ascolta Ensemble, July 14, 2007 | Ascolta Ensemble, November 29, 2008 |
|---|---|---|
| 00:00-08:02 | Synclavier | 00:00-08:02 |
| 08:02-11:28 | Ascolta Ensemble | 08:02-11:33 |
Additional informant: Charles Ulrich
Research, compilation and maintenance by Román García Albertos
