MY FAVORITE INSTRUMENTAL BREAK OF ALL TIME...

...is in this song, Frank Zappa's "Fifty-Fifty":



I first came across this one, from FZ's 1973 album Over-Nite Sensation, during my second year in college, when I and it seemed almost all of my friends were voraciously ingesting as much Zappa as we could. At first, I noticed only the song's violin solo because it sounded remarkably like Jean-Luc Ponty, a jazz violinist who I had gotten into a few year earlier when I was in high school. I checked the liner notes, and, sure enough, it was Ponty. Upon repeated listenings, I started to really groove on how it fit so nicely between a synth solo, played by jazz pianist George Duke, that sounded like a mad calliope, and a guitar solo that has to rank among Zappa's finest. Then I started to really dig the entire solo section.

The song itself is simply a setup with some closure, a sort of manic and bluesy, but simple, tune, sung by a guest vocalist in the style of Screamin' Jay Hawkins, existing only to justify that fabulous instrumental break. And for this purpose, the song does its job. Really, that was something of a Zappa method of operation: song as platform for brilliant soloing.

Do check it out. And pay close attention when the mad calliope starts!

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