Frank Zappa (electric guitar, percussion), Ian Underwood (all saxes and clarinets, flute, piano, organ), Max Bennett (electric bass) and John Guerin (drums). From the album Hot Rats (1969).
In 1986 Zappa signed a contract with the independent label Rykodisc to reissue his albums on CD personally supervising all remasterings of his recordings from the 1960s, 1970s and early 1980s. He then released the instrumental album Jazz From Hell, in which he also uses the Synclavier, on cassette and vinyl with his own label Barking Pumpkin and on CD the following year with Rykodisc. With it he won in 1988 the Grammy Award for Best Rock Instrumental Performance.
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Also in 1986 he made his last tour in the United States and Europe, documented in the albums Broadway the Hard Way, The Best Band You Never Heard in Your Life and Make a Jazz Noise Here, in which the band was dissolved before the tour ended. He then published Guitar with guitar solos from live performances between 1979 and 1984. In 1989, using a home video, he recorded Uncle Meat and Video from Hell on VHS tape, and the documentary The True Story of 200 Motels showing how he filmed 200 motels.
He also wrote with Peter Occhiogrosso his autobiography The Real Frank Zappa Book, which went on sale that same year, and travelled to Russia to offer himself as a business liaison. In Eastern European countries he was considered a cultural hero because of his influence on their avant-garde music and underground scene during the 1970s and 1980s. Zappa not only attacked power, but also opposition, including pacifism, which he considered unable of challenging the system. In 1990 the president of Czechoslovakia, who was also a fan of his, asked him to become the country’s trade representative, but the U.S. administration pressured him to withdraw the appointment.
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