"One Size Fits All" may very well be Frank Zappa's greatest album. It was commercially unsuccessful upon release, but has continually been placed by Frank Zappa fans the world over as their favorite.

Frank recorded the album with one of his most beloved versions of the Mothers, and this was the 1973-1975 group featuring George Duke, Chester Thompson, Ruth Underwood, Napoleon Murphy-Brock and Tom Fowler. This was arguably Frank's most polished and technically proficient band. The down side was that Frank thought that they were very boring people. The song on this album "Po-Jama People" was specifically written about this particular band. Maybe the band was boring, but the musicianship was spectacular.

Every track on "One Size Fits All" is stunning. There is almost a complete change of musical style from track to track, and that keeps the album sounding fresh even today.

Much is made in the music press about calling this period of Frank's career his "Jazz Fusion" phase. I find that kind of insulting, because Frank's musical scope and vision extended WAY beyond just "fusion". In fact, Frank regularly held a lot of jazz noodling musicians in contempt, and throughout his amazing career regularly wrote and demanded music from his musicians that covered a wide array of musical technique, chops, style, knowledge and attitude. This record just bristles with almost everything under the sun. Even the title "One Size Fits All" implies this: this recording features just about everything Frank could possibly do, and that's saying quite a lot.

"Inca Roads" may just about be the most amazing piece of extended music Frank ever created. From start to finish, the song is a powerhouse of constant musical wonder. The atmospheric opening melody (supposedly about UFO's and aliens) quickly gives way to technically "impossible to play" knuckle-breaking passages of group playing that will boggle the mind AND still make perfect musical sense. This isn't just "showing off", this is truly great, yet technically demanding music. The extended guitar solo has become over time one of the most celebrated that Frank ever committed to tape, and legend has it that famous guitarist Steve Vai fell in love with Zappa's guitar playing via this one solo alone, and can even to this day, sing every note of it perfectly. George Duke proves here that he was hands-down the finest keyboard player Zappa ever had, balancing his awesome jazz chops with powerful R&B/Gospel passages. Ruth Underwood plays mallet percussion passages that will take your breath away and leave the listener wondering how a human being can play that fast or accurately.

"Inca Roads" is just a blueprint for what the rest of the album has in store. "One Size Fits All" may also be the finest SOUNDING Zappa album in terms of its fidelity. The dynamic range of the production (1975) is STUNNING. The rich, deep bass presence is truly astounding, and the whole sonic/E.Q. spectrum just "sparkles" throughout. Later Zappa albums like "Joe's Garage" seem to sound very UN-bassy and very "thin" in terms of their dynamic range, but "One Size Fits All" blows them all away.

It's also very obvious that Frank really knocked himself out in terms of putting a lot of love and care into the production and preparation of "One Size Fits All". In the liner notes to a later live album "Zappa In New York" (1977), Frank bitterly asks the listener to check out "One Size Fits All", since not too many people bought the album, and since he worked so damn hard on it.

The consistently excellent level of music composition, instrumental arrangement, rich production and total love and care makes "One Size Fits All" the runaway favorite of Frank's distinguished career. It stands head and shoulders above the rest of his admittedly wonderful catalog, because of the way it succeeds in so many different areas.

This is one of the greatest albums of all time, and if you are not familiar with Frank Zappa and his music, I would definitely recommend that this is an amazing and fairly accessible place to start.

No further words could describe the beauty, power and wonder of the music contained in this album. Play it again and again, let it really get into your head, and last but not least, ENJOY IT!

Thanks, Frank, for creating this beautiful work of musical art.

Recommended: Yes

Great Music to Play While: Reading or Studying