John Lennon and Yoko Ono: Live Jam

Disc 2:

When Zappa was giving his three concerts at the Fillmore East in June, he was introduced to John Lennon and Yoko Ono, who had recently moved from London to New York. It was proposed that John and Yoko would do a guest appearance at the end of the late concert that day. Four pieces were prepared, a regular cover song called "Well" and three improvisations. The ensuing live jam session is more interesting because it's weird, than for its musical content. The first improvisation, named "Jamrag" by John and Yoko, consisted of John and Yoko stuff and Mothers routines, including Zappa's "King Kong" theme. The second one, "Scumbag", was another joint jam, this one around a vamp. The four bars vamp was made up of John chanting "scumbag" every two bars and a bass motif, played with several variations during this song. The vamp tends to dominate, but there's no use in listening to the "scumbag" line as if it were a lead melody, it simply won't change. The song gets better listenable when you devote most of your attention to what the other parts are doing. The score below might help; the "scumbag" notes are only a minor part of what's going on in total. As composers of "Scumbag" Lennon, Ono, Kaylan and Zappa get jointly credited. Yoko is singing and squealing through all pieces and gets a chance to show what sounds her vocal chords can produce in the last improvisation, while John is feedbacking. It's titled "Au" by John and herself and "A small eternity with Yoko Ono" by Zappa. The next day it was agreed upon that both would release a version of their own on their upcoming albums and Zappa gave John a copy of the tape. John and Yoko included this live jam as a bonus on their 1972 double album "Some time in New York City". It's a political pamphlet with so-called protest songs, half of them by John, half of them by Yoko. It sold poorly for Lennon standards. Whereas Zappa had parodied the Sergeant Pepper album sleeve of the Beatles, John now parodied Zappa's Fillmore East cover on his turn, writing all over it in red. Zappa may have liked this, but he wasn't amused by that he didn't get co-credited for "Jamrag". On the recent 2005 single CD issue Yoko appears to have skipped most of the jam, the double CD is the original version. For contractual reasons Zappa couldn't bring out his version that year. It only resurfaced in 1992 on "Playground psychotics". "Jamrag" got split into "Say please" and "Aaawk", leaving out the "King Kong" theme. The mix of Zappa's "Scumbag" is quite different from what John's producer Phil Spector did. The guitars aren't in the foreground no more and Howard Kaylan, who was almost mixed out, is back in business.

LIVE JAM

with the Plastic Ono Superband, Lyceum Ballroom, 15th December 1969

Cold Turkey

Don’t Worry, Kyoko (Mummy’s Only Looking For Her Hand In The Snow)
Personnel (pseudonyms by JL)

Eric Clapton – ‘Derek Claptoe’: guitar.

Delaney & Bonnie – ‘Bilanie & Donnie’: guitar, percussion (and friends, brass, percussion)

Jim Gordon – ‘Jim Bordom’: drums.

George Harrison – ‘George Harrisong’: guitar.

Nicky Hopkins – ‘Sticky Topkins’: electric piano (overdubbed in N.Y. as organ was lost)

Bobby Keyes – ‘Robbie Knees’: sax.

Keith Moon – ‘Kief Spoon’: drums.

Billy Preston – ‘Billy Presstud’: organ.

Klaus Voormann – ‘Raus Doorman’: base (sic).

Alan White (’Yes’ drummer) – ‘Dallas White’: drums

Jim Price: trumpet.

with Frank Zappa and The Mothers, Fillmore East, 5th June 1971

Well (Baby Please Don’t Go)Jamrag Scumbag Au
Personnel John Lennon: guitar, vocals.

Yoko Ono: bag, vocals.

Aynsley Dunbar: drums.

Bob Harris: keyboards, vocals.

Howard Kaylan: vocals.

Jim Pons: bass guitar, vocals.

Don Preston: Mini-Moog.

Ian Underwood: keyboard, vocals, Woodwinds.

Mark Volman: vocals.

Klaus Voormann: bass guitar, vocals.

Frank Zappa: guitar, vocals.