I know nothing about it. I'm not even interested in it ". Though Zappa managed eventually to reach the composer several weeks later, he would never meet the one at the heart of his musical passion. I am in no way qualified to. I can't even pronounce his name right. The only reason I have agreed to is because I love his music very much, and if by some chance this article can influence more people to hear his works, it will have been worthwhile. Frank Zappa surrounded himself with countless fictitious acolytes.
Born with an extremely rich imagination, the music and in particular the lyrics of Frank Zappa describe worlds undoubtedly Dada in character, filled with strange objects and characters.
However, behind these absurd titles and objects were often hidden meanings and a refined social commentary In , a young Frank Zappa, sharply dressed and with an even sharper mind was invited onto the Steve Allen Show , a variety television show with regular guests including comedians, actors, and musicians such as Elvis Presley, Fats Domino, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Louis Jordan What a surprise it must have been to see Frank Zappa arrive with two bicycles and drumsticks!
In November appeared the album Francesco Zappa. Recorded entirely on Synclavier a new synthesiser keyboard , the album is a collection of the chamber music works of Francesco Zappa, an unknown Italian composer from the 18th century. Zappa claimed to have come across the composer in the libraries of Congress and Berkeley, and even claimed he was related to the mysterious composer Francesco Zappa well and truly existed, but was quickly forgotten after his death.
Real, yes, but a long lost relative of Frank? Alas, no. His sojourn in the commercial world was brief, but gave him valuable insights into its workings. Zappa attempted to earn a living as a musician and composer, and played different nightclub gigs, some with a new version of the Blackouts.
The former score was commissioned by actor-producer Timothy Carey and recorded in It contains many themes that appeared on later Zappa records. During the early s, Zappa wrote and produced songs for other local artists, often working with singer-songwriter Ray Collins and producer Paul Buff. At that time, only a handful of the most sophisticated commercial studios had multi-track facilities; the industry standard for smaller studios was still mono or two-track.
With Captain Beefheart, Zappa recorded some songs under the name of the Soots. In , after his marriage started to break up, he moved into the Pal studio and began routinely working 12 hours or more per day recording and experimenting with overdubbing and audio tape manipulation.
This established a work pattern that endured for most of his life. It was renamed Studio Z. Zappa and a female friend recorded a faked erotic episode.
When Zappa was about to hand over the tape, he was arrested, and the police stripped the studio of all recorded material. He convinced the other members that they should play his music to increase the chances of getting a record contract. Wilson signed the Mothers to the Verve division of MGM , which had built up a strong reputation for its releases of modern jazz recordings in the s and s, but was attempting to diversify into pop and rock audiences.
Verve insisted that the band officially rename themselves the Mothers of Invention as Mother was short for motherfucker —a term that, apart from its profane meanings, can denote a skilled musician. With Wilson credited as producer, the Mothers of Invention, augmented by a studio orchestra, recorded the groundbreaking Freak Out! While recording in the studio, some of the additional session musicians were shocked that they were expected to read the notes on sheet music from charts with Zappa conducting them, since it was not standard when recording rock music.
Yet, there was a place for seemingly conventional love songs. He had full control over the arrangements and musical decisions and did most overdubs. Wilson provided the industry clout and connections and was able to provide the group with the financial resources needed. The track as it appears on the album was created to act as the backing track for a much more complex work, but MGM refused to approve the additional recording time Zappa needed to complete it, so much to his chagrin it was issued in this unfinished form.
Due to contractual problems, the album was pulled. Zappa took the opportunity to radically restructure the contents, adding newly recorded, improvised dialogue. After the contractual problems were resolved, the album was reissued by Verve in This proved successful and Herb Cohen extended the booking, which eventually lasted half a year.
One evening, Zappa managed to entice some U. He is credited by musicologists as making a fundamental contribution to the studies of how sound determines music, and music sound. From then on, Zappa produced all albums released by the Mothers of Invention and as a solo artist. This initiated a lifelong collaboration in which Schenkel designed covers for numerous Zappa and Mothers albums. It represented a collection of doo-wop songs; listeners and critics were not sure whether the album was a satire or a tribute.
In New York, Zappa increasingly used tape editing as a compositional tool. Zappa had begun regularly recording concerts, [86] and because of his insistence on precise tuning and timing, he was able to augment his studio productions with excerpts from live shows, and vice versa.
Everything was connected, and musical themes and lyrics reappeared in different form on later albums. During the late s, Zappa continued to develop the business sides of his career. Records , as ventures to aid the funding of projects and to increase creative control. In and , Zappa made two appearances with the Monkees. Zappa and the Mothers of Invention returned to Los Angeles in the summer of , and the Zappas moved into a house on Laurel Canyon Boulevard, only to move again to one on Woodrow Wilson Drive in the autumn.
Despite being a success with fans in Europe, the Mothers of Invention were not faring well financially. In there were nine band members and Zappa was supporting the group himself from his publishing royalties whether they played or not.
In late , Zappa broke up the band. Remaining recordings with the band from this period were collected on Weasels Ripped My Flesh and Burnt Weeny Sandwich both released in It became a popular album in England, [] and had a major influence on the development of the jazz-rock fusion genre. In Zappa met conductor Zubin Mehta.
Jimi Hendrix was one of the notable musicians who came down to jam. But in many ways, it was the audience who often provided the real entertainment. Here, during the height of the Vietnam War, Zappa one night convinced three drunken Marines to attack a baby doll with a bayonet on stage.
According to eyewitnesses, the ensuing spectacle made a more powerful anti-war statement than any protest song or political speech ever could. If the universe was gonna insist on being inherently stupid, Zappa was determined to find some positive, creative use for all that stupidity.
His entrepreneurial energies were boundless. This double-album set is another landmark Zappa work, exhibiting a compositional flair and a gift for woodwind arrangement that far exceeded anything that had come before.
Zappa had never abandoned the interest in moviemaking that he developed back in his pre-Mothers Studio Z days. Also, it has become a perennial favorite among zonked-out midnight movie patrons everywhere.
The accompanying soundtrack album is an essential Zappa work for several reasons. Zappa disbanded the original Mothers in , largely for economic reasons.
By this point, by the way, he was firmly ensconced back in Los Angeles. True to form, Zappa had surrounded himself with a fantastically diverse assortment of musical personalities. In stark Zappa-esque contrast, Motels was also one of the first albums where Frank played really heavy guitar.
And you hope that the people who are working with you on stage are also interested in inventing music on the spot. I can snag it. Zappa was incontestably one of the most interesting guitar soloists of all time. His blues grounding gave him an insistent earthiness, while his sense of avant garde, dadaist absurdity pushed him in directions that confounded all expectation. But more than anything else, it was his tone that made him a fiercely distinctive player.
His guitar sounded like a gander with a bad sinus condition. He made brilliant use of a wah wah pedal, and was one of the few guitarists of the '70s and '80s to exploit the lower strings and fret positions to their full potential. He laughed when I complimented him on this. Zappa really came into his own as a gonzo guitarist in the '70s. His prolific orchestral output was bisected by an unexpected Top 40 hit, "Valley Girl," performed with his daughter, Moon Unit, which funded more of his less commercially viable musical projects.
Outside of playing music, Zappa directed music videos, short films and features, and he became obsessed with the infinite possibilities synthetic music offered because it could accommodate almost most anything he dreamed up. Stints as a guest speaker on social activism emerged after his Senate testimony about censorship in music.
Bush soon quashed the appointment. Thereafter, Zappa briefly considered running for U. While the general public's perception was often one of a kook, Zappa was deeply respected as a consummate musician and composer, an innovative filmmaker, and a prolific cross-genre artist. Frank Zappa died from prostate cancer on December 4, , at the age of 52, in Los Angeles. After Zappa's death, his family released the statement: "Composer Frank Zappa left for his final tour just before 6 p.
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