Allan Zavod

Jazz pianist Allan Zavod (sometimes credited as Alan Zavod) was part of The Mothers in 1984. An Australian whose father - Edward Zavod - was a violinist, Zavod was classically trained on piano, and at the age of twelve he was taken on the road to the United States as his father’s accompanist. He studied at the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music and Berklee College of Music in Boston. Upon graduation, he began his professional career in New York - in the early 1970s as a big band pianist, working with the Glenn Miller Orchestra, Woody Herman, Mike Gibbs and Gary Burton, Maynard Ferguson, and the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis orchestra, joining Jean-Luc Ponty in 1976. He remained with Ponty for eight years.

"Alan Zavod, our 1984 keyboard player... ...would

end his solo with this thing that everybody called 'The Volcano.' He held the sustain pedal down and churned and smashed away to get a big blur going, and then topped it off at the end with a flourish. It worked every time, but it got to be a band joke. In fact, Alan really is a great pianist (and film composer). It's just that maybe -- because he was working in a rock and roll band -- he thought that

type of solo was the appropriate vehicle to project his aura across vast continental areas."

— Frank Zappa, The Real Frank Zappa Book

Allan Zavod Played On

• Does Humor Belong In Music?
• Frank Zappa: Guitar
• You Can't Do That On Stage Anymore Vol. 1
• You Can't Do That On Stage Anymore Vol. 3
• You Can't Do That On Stage Anymore Vol. 4
• You Can't Do That On Stage Anymore Vol. 6
• Trance-Fusion.

Allan Zavod's Performances Can Be Seen In These Zappa Films

• Does Humor Belong In Music?.

Interviews

• Allan Zavod interview by Avo Raup

See Also

• Allan Zavod's Website