The Purple Cucumber

The Purple Cucumber was a Frank Zappa memorial concert with music by Peter Vermeersch and several other composers. It was performed on 30 april 1995 in De Singel, Antwerp, by the BRTN Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by M. Foster. They were joined by the Zucchini Rocking Teenage Combo, a rock band created for the occasion consisting of Robert Martin (leadsinger, keyboards and saxophone player in Zappa's band from 1981 till 1988), Bart Maris, Danny De Cort (guitar player with Galileo's Left Wing), Johan Vandendriessche (saxophone) and Andy Jacobson (keyboards), Andy Treacey (drums) and Jake Newman (bass) from the band The Muffin Men.

The name "The Purple Cucumber" comes from an interview with Frank Zappa about the name of his orchestral suite The Yellow Shark, where he says: "As for the title of Yellow Shark, I would like to point out it's not the name of a certain musical piece, but of the entire project. It might as well have been called The Purple Cucumber, or whatever. Everything's better than "An Evening With Frank Zappa".

The concert was recorded and prepared for a release by Radio 1 producer Zjakki Willems, but legal and financial problems have long delayed its commercial release. Fortunately, the Italian label auditoriumedizioni agreed to release The Purple Cucumber in june 2003. You can order it at their website.

 Tracks

• Shut Up And Dye Your Shoes (George De Decker)
• Scorci Der Mocciolo (Frederik D'Haene)
• Walking The Phone (Peter Vermeersch)
• Blue Screen Boy (Peter Vermeersch)
• The End Of A Second (Peter Vermeersch)
• A Modest Proposal - Anno 1995 (Claude Coppens)
• The Black Lark's Ballad (Peter Swinnen)

Apart from these new compositions, the orchestra also played arrangements of Zappa songs, arranged by Luc Brewaeys. The Hardscore percussion trio, with Frank Nuyts, also played arrangements of Zappa songs.

 Links

• Zappa.com is the official page of the Zappa family.
• The page about The Yellow Shark at the official page.
• An interview (by Zjakki Willems) where Frank Zappa talks about The Yellow Shark/The Purple Cucumber.
• The discographic information at Auditorium Edizioni.

8 juni 2003
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