Frank Zappa - "Stolen Moments/Murder by Numbers (feat. Sting)"

Chicago: Auditorium Theatre, March 3, 1988. Frank Zappa runs into Sting before his concert. They meet, and Zappa asks if he'd like to do a song with the band. A couple hours later, this awesomeness happened. Zappa's 12-piece pocket big band tears off a fat, brassy cover of Oliver Nelson's classic minor blues "Stolen Moments," and after a great trumpet solo by Walt Fowler, FZ introduces Sting, who rants about the time a few years before when Jimmy Swaggart denounced The Police's "Murder By Numbers" and called them "The sons of Satan." Well, now, of course, Swaggart was embroiled in his own sinful problems, and Sting gleefully riffs on it and then croons a very smooth rendition of the song modified to fit over the Nelson chord changes. Brilliant. Pitches upward to a badass guitar solo by FZ and wraps with a return to the Nelson head.

On the CD these are two separate tracks and there's a bit of a fade-out toward the end of Fowler's solo, and a fade-in again as it clearly transitions to the Sting track. I did a little editing and managed to even things out and join them together as they actually happened and should be heard. As far as I'm aware, these two tracks are not available as one anywhere else on the web.

Great, great, great stuff from 'Broadway The Hard Way,' an album which earned Zappa his final Grammy nomination.

Today's upload date would have been his 70th birthday.

Personnel: Sting (lead vocals, commentary), Frank Zappa (lead guitar, vocal), Ike Willis (guitar, vocal), Mike Keneally (guitar, synth, vocal), Bobby Martin (keyboards, vocal), Ed Mann (percussion), Walt Fowler (trumpet), Bruce Fowler (trombone), Paul Carman (alto sax), Albert Wing (tenor sax), Kurt McGettrick (baritone sax), Scott Thunes (bass), Chad Wackerman (drums)