Ian Underwood

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Ian Underwood (New York, NY, 22 May 1939) is an American musician. He was 'multi-instrumentalist' within the Mothers of Invention. He graduated from Yale with a BA in composition in 1961 and completed a Masters degree in compostion at UC Berkeley in 1966. He was a concert pianist specializing in Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

Married Ruth Komanoff in 1970.

Apart from his work with Zappa he has contributed to many recordings by artists ranging from Gabor Szabo to Barbra Streisand. He also performed on Sandy Hurvitz's Sandy's Album Is Here At Least (1969), Captain Beefheart's Trout Mask Replica (1969), Alice Cooper's Pretties for You (1969), Jean-Luc Ponty's King Kong: Jean-Luc Ponty Plays the Music of Frank Zappa (1970), Flo & Eddie's Illegal, Immoral and Fattening (1975) and Moving Targets (1976), as well as Gabor Szabo's Macho (1975), Chunky, Novi & Ernie's eponymous 1977 debut album.

Since the 1980s he has worked on many film soundtracks including Blade Runner, Aliens, Honey, I Shrunk the Kids and Titanic.

Zappa and Ian Underwood

Ian's "story" of meeting and joining Zappa is chronicled in the track Ian Underwood Whips It Out on the Uncle Meat release. Underwood provided piano, organ, keyboards, woodwinds, guitar, and/or vocal for:

Original Albums

Beat The Boots