December 1971 brought about an event which turned Zappa’s world upside-down and which would influence his life and career to his last day. Zappa and the new Mothers had just finished playing a show at the Montreaux Casino in Switzerland when the venue was set on fire and the entire thing burnt down with all of their equipment conveniently left inside. Forced to play with rented instruments and gear they chose to shorten their tour and headed off to London to play their last shows. That’s when it happened. A young man jumped on stage and pushed Zappa off into the orchestra pit ten feet below.
Greatly injured, Zappa was rushed to the hospital where he stayed for a month. The following four weren't much better as they were spent in a plaster cast up to his hip. As we know by now, Zappa loved control and this period of ‘helplessness’ drove him mad.
Although everyone was always complaining about how unsentimental Zappa was, the guy who pushed him even claimed that he had done it because he was sick of Zappa treating the audience like dirt, everyone immediately came to visit him in hospital. The Mothers line-up showed up as soon as they could to check in on Zappa and Gail flew in to stay by his side – although on her arrival she had to push away two rival girlfriends! (Other girls were always around and once they were back in the U.S. and Zappa was still recovering, Nigey Lennon moved into his basement studio and almost tore his marriage apart with her presence.)
However, the accident also had a positive effect on his creativity and songwriting. He listened to jazz fusion excessively while in hospital and was inspired to make his own band: The Grand Wazoo Orchestra. The band was comprised of George Duke and Aynsley Dunbar from The Mothers and Alex Dmochowski from one of Aynsley’s old bands. They were joined by L.A. session musicians (6 woodwind, 4 brass, 2 percussion, Sal Marquez on trumpet and Tony Duran on slide guitar.) The band released Waka/Jawaka followed by The Grand Wazoo in 1972.
Zappa then put together a twenty piece orchestra, billed them as The Mothers and hit the road. In fact the only Mothers left were the Underwoods and the rest were session musicians. This time around Gail was sure to accompany him and keep an eye on things, and Zappa made sure to bring along a bodyguard. His paranoia after the attack in London was so great that a bodyguard would become a permanent fixture. Twenty people soon proved too hard to keep on the road so he came up with a stripped down version, Petit Wazoo, which only required ten.
The Flo & Eddie Mothers were never officially broken up, but as Zappa was keeping busy with other projects the two went on to start their own musical endeavors.
As far as performances went, the Wazoo was an “electric symphony orchestra ... we’re not going to have people jumping around on stage or falling down with tambourines and saying zany stuff – we’re not supplying that this season,” explained Zappa [Miles p.227].
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