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Music / Musik » alt.fan.frank-zappa » Zappa's son reinvents himself in order to reintroduce Frank's original songs
| Zappa's son reinvents himself in order to reintroduce Frank's original songs [message #283167] |
Mo, 12 Juni 2006 09:27 |
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POP MUSIC
Zappa's son reinvents himself in order to reintroduce Frank's original
songs
By Joan Anderman, Globe Staff | June 11, 2006
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/living/articles/2006/06/11/ zappas_son_reinvents_himself_in_order_to_reintroduce_franks_ original_songs/
NEW YORK -- Most people remember Frank Zappa as a weirdo: the hairy
guy from the '70s who sang ``Don't Eat the Yellow Snow" and named his
kid Dweezil . And most people know Dweezil Zappa (and his sister Moon
Unit) as the original oddly named celebrity offspring.
When Frank died of prostate cancer in 1993 , he left a legacy of
maverick musicianship and widespread misconceptions. Dweezil, now 36,
has set out to preserve the former and skewer the latter with Zappa
Plays Zappa , a.k.a. the Tour de Frank , which is circumnavigating the
globe and stops at the Orpheum on Tuesday.
Introducing Frank Zappa's music to a new generation is no easy task,
mainly because it involves actually playing Zappa's music. In addition
to an absurdist wit and subversive pundit, Zappa was an accomplished
composer and iconoclastic arranger. With his group The Mothers of
Invention and a series of subsequent touring ensembles, Zappa fused
rock, funk, jazz, and classical music in often wildly theatrical and
technically intricate works.
It's no wonder Dweezil, a disciple of Eddie Van Halen , gave himself a
two-year ``guitar makeover" in preparation for Zappa Plays Zappa.
``I had to learn some new techniques and music theory elements," says
Dweezil. ``Frank's music is hard to play."
That's an understatement, and this is no casual tribute band. Frank's
son readily concedes that he's on a mission.
``The important thing," says Dweezil, ``is that people need to
recognize he's not Weird Al Yankovic . That's not to slam Weird Al.
He's good at what he does. But the perception is if you use humor in
your music then you don't take yourself seriously and therefore what
you do isn't really valid. Frank took what he did very seriously."
While there's no doubting Dweezil's efforts to hip the world to his
father's estimable gifts, it's clear during an interview at Madison
Square Garden before the 2006 Jammy Awards that the motive isn't
merely musical altruism. Labor of love seems to be an especially apt
description of Zappa Plays Zappa. Talking about it brings Dweezil to
tears.
``I don't want his music to disappear in my lifetime," he says, wiping
his eyes. ``It's tough. It means a lot to me."
Zappa has put together an ensemble that includes seasoned veterans of
his father's road shows -- among them vocalist Napoleon Murphy Brock ,
drummer Terry Bozzio , and guitarist Steve Vai -- as well as a core
ensemble of young talent. In order to find musicians with the right
blend of virtuosity and spirit, Zappa orchestrated a challenging
audition process. Prospective keyboardists, for example, were given
three days to learn ``The Black Page " and ``Inca Roads " -- without
sheet music. Zappa wanted them to transcribe the songs by ear and play
each the way they heard it on the original recordings.
``The only way for people to discover Frank's music at this point is
for us to re - create it live on stage," says Zappa, ``because it's
never going to be on the radio. My goal was to have a younger band so
that we could attract a younger audience, make it feel more
contemporary. I don't want it to seem like a circus act or a nostalgia
act. I also wanted to train them from the ground up. Frank's music
needs to be played in the correct manner."
Like everything else about this project, the set list is personal.
Dweezil chose the material that meant the most to him growing up: the
tunes he heard around the house as a child. Much of the 30-song set is
culled from a handful of albums (out of 70 Zappa released in his
lifetime): ``Apostrophe (') ," `` Over-Nite Sensation," ``Roxy &
Elsewhere ," and ``Sheik Yerbouti ."
``When you're 10 years old and you hear `St. Alfonzo's Pancake
Breakfast,' " says Dweezil, ``it's pretty cool."
The lead vocalist in Zappa's live band during that period was Brock, a
former light opera singer whom Frank discovered in 1972 fronting an
R&B cover band in Honolulu. (Zappa's mid-'70s ensemble also included
George Duke and Jean-Luc Ponty .) In recent years Brock has been hired
to perform Zappa's music with numerous classical ensembles and big
bands, and when Dweezil called the singer last October to ask if he
wanted to participate in the ultimate Zappa concert, Brock didn't
hesitate.
``Here we are 30 years later and I'm able to do this with the son. . .
.. It is so beautiful," says Brock, who lives in San Jose, Calif. ``You
realize that the music was so far ahead of its time, and that it's
timeless. Frank is sitting up there going `Yeah. Finally.' "
Zappa Plays Zappa staged its first public show in April at the Jammys,
where Frank was honored posthumously with a lifetime achievement
award. The irony of the setting wasn't lost on Dweezil, who is well
aware of his father's attitude toward the peace-and-love scene.
``He was known for sort of poking fun at certain traditional kinds of
communities that would get together for this kind of behavior,"
Dweezil says, and that's putting it diplomatically. Zappa and The
Mothers of Invention devoted an entire album, 1968's ``We're Only in
It for the Money," to painting hippies as phonies. ``He would be
magnanimous about saying there's a place for everybody. It's all
valid. But it's not what Frank was about."
It's not what Dweezil is about either. Zappa the younger released his
debut album, ``Havin' a Bad Day ," in 1986, and over the next 12 years
put out three more largely ignored guitar-rock records. Best known for
his marriage to singer-songwriter Lisa Loeb , which ended in 2004,
Zappa worked briefly as an MTV VJ and on a sitcom, ``The Normal Life,"
with his sister Moon Unit . He and his brother Ahmet released a pair
of albums in the '90s as the band Z.
Perhaps not coincidentally, Dweezil's first solo album in six years,
titled ``Go With What You Know," is being released in conjunction with
the Zappa Plays Zappa tour. It includes a rendition of the elder
Zappa's classic instrumental ``Peaches En Regalia " that features a
father-son guitar solo -- along the lines of Nat King Cole's
posthumous duet with his daughter Natalie on ``Unforgettable ."
In classic rock-spawn fashion, Dweezil is destined to keep tripping
along the crooked line that separates his own identity from his very
famous, very talented parent.
``I think it's mutually beneficial," Zappa says. ``We're both
misunderstood. People know me because they heard my goofy name when I
was born. They might know I play guitar but have never heard me
because I've never been on any popular records. So they'll see me
playing Frank's music and go `OK, I get it, he's actually a good
guitar player, ' and maybe they'll be interested in what I do besides
play Frank's music.
``But we're not playing any of my music on the tour," Dweezil hastens
to add. ``It's all Frank."
Joan Anderman can be reached at anderman [at] globe.com
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