The Last
(Prague and Budapest) Gigs of FZ
report by
Istvan Fekete
In the following I had to omit the accents from the czech & hungarian
words.
Prague
Frank was a guest at the concert of the band 'Prazsky Vyber'.
The event celebrated the withdrawal of soviet troups from Czechoslovakia.
(C.A. = Soviet Army)
The czech guitar player tried to provoke FZ into a guitar duel.
FZ who didn't play for 3 yrs left a little bit angry.
This is available on the following CD:
Prazsky Vyber: Adieu C.A.
Catalog No.: AP 0001-2311
Track 6: Improvizace v A Dur s Frankem Zappou
Budapest
'Taban' was the location of the concert. It is a part of Budapest
where the houses were demolished at the beginning of the 20th century.
Now it is an empty hillside which is sometimes used for open-air concerts.
Szinpad = stage. 'Taban szinpada' would be 'stage of the Taban'.
Neil Slaven in his book gives the location wrongly as 'at the Tabanban'.
'Tabanban' means 'at the Taban'.
The band consisted of FZ and 4 hungarian (gypsy) jazz musicians
who were invited to support FZ. So this was a different setup
to Prague.
There was a soundcheck in the morning, where they played for
about 15 minutes. In the evening, FZ was introduced by mayor
Gabor Demszky who had invited him to Budapest for the Summer Festival.
Then Frank said the song they're going to play will be called
'One of a kind'. They jammed for about 20 minutes,
and they came back for a 10 minute encore. That was it.
Frank didn't play too much, most of the time he left the band play
(or conducted it) and waited for the right moment to join them.
My favorite is the soundcheck, but his other solos are worth a listen too.
His guitar sounded really beautiful.
This performance hasn't been officially released. Yet. (Oops, I
didn't say anything ;-).) Anyway, I have it all on video
along with what was shown on TV in a program titled
'Zappapest': a cruise on the Danube, Frank (and Gail) visiting
an old man demonstrating some traditional hungarian instruments,
Frank talking about running for president (and admitting he doesn't
have a real big chance: 'George Bush has more balloons than I'.), etc.
(Looks like Clinton had 99 balloons :-) more than Bush.)
Any additions?