George Duke

The 1974 unreleased made-for-TV concert movie ‘Cheaper Than Cheep’ is finally being released 50 years later! This never-before-heard-or-seen two-hour concert reveals the most intimate performance ever captured from the 1974 Mothers line-up, direct from the lovingly resurrected and restored original vault audio and videotape masters.

With the help of more than 10,000 dedicated Zappa fans, this is the long-awaited definitive documentary project of Alex Winter documenting the life and career of enigmatic groundbreaking rock star Frank Zappa. Alex also utilizes in this picture thousands of hours of painstakingly digitized videos, photos, audio, writing, and everything in between from Zappa's private archives. These chronicles have never been brought to a public audience before, until now.

No plot available for this movie.

Utilizing potent TV interviews and many forgotten performances from his 30-year career, we are immersed into Frank Zappa’s world while experiencing two distinct facets of his complex character. At once Zappa was both a charismatic composer who reveled in the joy of performing and, in the next moment, a fiercely intelligent and brutally honest interviewee whose convictions only got stronger as his career ascended.

A Frank Zappa show goes way beyond a mere concert – it is an experience…a flight of improvisation, musicianship, and cerebral cynicism. An unparalleled Composer and Guitarist, Zappa redefined rock n roll paradigms by introducing into the mix his favorite influences from classical music, jazz, blues, Doo-wop, traditional and non-traditional music. And he did so with unparalleled humor and audacity. But it was the music itself that influenced generations of musicians and, quite frankly, blew minds. Roxy: The Movie, filmed over three nights in December 1973, at the Roxy Theatre in Hollywood, CA, is a powerful display of this experience, and reveals what made him such a pioneering musical revolutionary.

Featuring the only footage Zappa cut together from his legendary 1973 Roxy concerts, "Cheepnis" sings the praises of low-budget monster movies. This short documents the director, bandleader, songwriter and musician at work. (American Cinematheque program notes)

After disbanding the original Mothers of Invention in '69, Frank Zappa unleashed a second incarnation of the band by '70. This film focuses on the sophomore Mothers and this often-overlooked period in Zappa's career. Featuring rare footage, exclusive interviews, and contributions from many who worked with him, which all at once provide for the first film to tackle this phase in the Zappa legend

Frank Zappa: A Token of his Extreme is the 1974 television special recorded at Kcet in Hollywood that was produced by Zappa and aired only in France and Switzerland. The program, as thoroughly tweezed and produced by Zappa for his own Honker Home Video label, includes the following musical performances by Zappa and his band: T”he Dog Breath Variations/ Uncle Meat,” “Montana,” “Florentine Pogen,” “Stink-Foot,” “Pygmy Twylyte,” “Room Service,” “Inca Roads,” “Oh No,” Son of Orange County,” “More Trouble Every Day” and “A Token of My Extreme.” In the words of Zappa himself as he said it on The Mike Douglas Show in 1976, “This is put together with my own money and my own time and it’s been offered to television networks and to syndication and it has been steadfastly rejected by the American television industry.

On the liner notes to Freak Out!, the 1967 debut album by Zappa's original band the Mothers of Invention, Zappa listed some seventy-two names on the liner notes and cited them as influences. The Freak Out List intends to explore who these artists are and what influence they had on Zappa's music. This listing encompasses all sorts of music, from classical composer Edgar Varese to R&B star Johnny "Guitar" Watson to jazzman Eric Dolphy to flamenco guitarist Sabicas. You can hear for instance, how the esoteric classical influence of Varese shaped Zappa's long-form epics like "Lumpy Gravy" or how Dolphy's instrumental prowess led Zappa to incorporate jazz-fusion on albums like Weasels Ripped My Flesh! (1970), which even included a song titled "The Eric Dolphy Memorial Barbecue." Interviews with various Zappa biographers and music historians as well as musicians George Duke, Ian Underwood, and Don Preston, all of whom played in the Mothers at one time or another, help add additional context.

Kirk Whalum presents this music documentary-cum-live concert performance exploring the impact of jazz on modern retellings of the Gospel. The film includes performances by Kirk Whalum himself along with George Duke, Lalah Hathaway, Doc Powell and Kevin Whalum.