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Music / Musik » alt.fan.frank-zappa » Frankly Zappa - Son's tour introduces late icon to new generation
| Frankly Zappa - Son's tour introduces late icon to new generation [message #283389] |
So, 18 Juni 2006 05:16 |
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Frankly Zappa
Son's tour introduces late icon to new generation
Michael Senft
The Arizona Republic
Jun. 18, 2006
http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/ae/articles/0618zap pa0618.html
He was an instantly recognizable figure, with his trademark
mustache and soul patch.
But to most people, Frank Zappa's music is little more than the
equivalent of bathroom graffiti: sonic smut like the 1979 shocker
Bobby Brown Goes Down, and throwaway novelty tunes like 1982's
Valley Girl.
But Zappa was more than a purveyor of musical pornography. When
he died in 1993 from prostate cancer, the world lost a true
original, a satirical songwriter and innovative guitarist whose
massive oeuvre spanned popular and classical music.
Now his family is showing the public the many sides of Zappa's
musical legacy.
"Valley Girl and Dancin' Fool are good songs, but they are only a
facet of what he did. A lot of people don't go any further; they
see Frank as someone like Weird Al Yankovic," says son Dweezil,
who is presenting a concert of his father's music, dubbed "Zappa
Plays Zappa."
The tour features a band of young players joined by former Zappa
band members Napoleon Murphy Brock, Terry Bozzio and Steve Vai.
They'll perform many of Frank's beloved and most intricate songs
when they stop at the Dodge Theatre on Wednesday. Dweezil wants
to introduce a new generation of music fans to his father and his
music.
"It is the first official presentation of Frank's music since his
death. We've taken the most popular arrangements of his songs and
are playing them the way he wanted them performed," he says.
Incorporating jazz, rock
Dweezil is faced with a daunting task not only in performing his
father's music, but in merely selecting pieces to perform. Zappa
released more than 50 albums during his lifetime, starting in
1966 with his band the Mothers of Invention and the
groundbreaking album Freak Out.
A satirical look at the hippie subculture of Los Angeles, the
album featured twisted R&B tunes like Go Cry on Somebody Else's
Shoulder, as well as longer experiments like Help I'm a Rock. It
wasn't a bestseller, but it was an influential album in the late
'60s.
"The first garage band I was in had Freak Out. We couldn't work
up a version of Trouble Every Day, but we did 'freak out'
versions of Louie, Louie, and every other party song that we
did," says Pastor Roger Thompson of Grace Lutheran Church in Phoenix.
Over the next 30 years, Zappa's music careened through doo-wop
(Cruising With Ruben & the Jets), jazz fusion (The Grand Wazoo)
and straight-ahead rock and roll (Overnite Sensation). In his
later years he poked fun at punk rock (I'm So Cute) and country
music (Harder Than Your Husband), as well.
"Hearing the stuff, even in high school before I really knew what
it was, before I understood what he was saying, I recognized
there was something special and unique about what he was doing,"
says guitarist Eric Hendel, 28, of Phoenix. "He was the king of
playing any style he wanted, he was so incredibly versatile."
Thompson agrees.
"Much of Frank's appeal to junior high-/high school-age American
males had to do with the 'gross-out factor,' but for those of us
who played, the music was just so head and shoulders above stuff
like the Monkees. Listen to one of the satire songs and realize
that it is in 13/8 or something with all the Stravinskyesque
chords and melodies and the Spike Jones sound effects. It was
just like coming off of another world."
Jaw-dropping guitar
Whether leading the Mothers of Invention in a freak-out in 1966
or fronting the 12-piece big band on his final tour in 1988, one
of the things that stood out in Zappa's music was his
jaw-dropping guitar playing.
"It was mind-blowing being onstage with him - I'd be practically
hyperventilating onstage listening to him play the guitar solo in
Inca Roads.
"I'd just stop and watch the magic," says Mike Keneally, who
played guitar in Zappa's 1988 band and helped Dweezil with the
musical arrangements for the Zappa Plays Zappa Tour.
His percussive, expressive solos, like Watermelon in Easter Hay
and Zoot Allures, inspired generations.
"There's so much to learn from his playing - I've tried to copy
some of his stuff, but I can't even come close," Hendel says.
Joseph Klein, of the University of North Texas College of Music,
explains Zappa's unique approach to the guitar:
"They aren't so much solos as they are conversations. They flow
with the same rhythms of the human voice.
"Think of the voice of the teacher in Charlie Brown cartoons -
that wah, wah wah wah wah sound - that was how Zappa structured
his guitar solos." To perform his father's songs on the current
tour, Dweezil needed to completely reinvent his guitar playing.
He spent nearly two years re-learning to play the guitar.
"(Frank) called his solos 'air sculptures,' which is a different
space to be in (compared) to the typical guitar player, who is
just looking for the next tricky lick to throw into a solo," he says.
"I needed to figure out how I would make an air sculpture, and I
needed to make sure they would fit into the context of his songs.
Have a musical conversation the way he did."
20th-century classical
Rock and roll wasn't Zappa's only musical outlet. In addition to
the blues and doo-wop, Zappa was enamored with 20th-century
classical music, especially Igor Stravinsky and Edgard Varèse,
whose exclamation, "The present-day composer refuses to die"
became a mantra for Zappa.
"The Chrome-Plated Megaphone of Destiny, on (1967's) We're Only
in It for the Money, borrows heavily from Varèse, and there are
pieces on (1970's) Weasels Ripped My Flesh which directly quote
Stravinsky," Klein says.
Even his "straightforward" work, such as Peaches en Regalia and
Sofa, shows classical influence.
Toward the end of his life, Zappa had found his own compositional
voice and concentrated almost exclusively on classical music. His
final studio albums, 1986's Jazz From Hell and the posthumously
released Civilization Phaze III, were almost entirely composed
and performed on the Synclavier, a synthesizer/computer popular
in the '80s.
Impossible music
"The Synclavier allowed Frank to create impossible music - we
actually tried to play some stuff in '88, but humans cannot play
that stuff," Keneally says. "He wanted to write, compose and hear
music that humans couldn't possibly play."
Klein says Zappa's classical work is what he will be remembered for.
"His pop music may be the dominant form, but it was always
secondary to him," Klein says. "He viewed his pop music as
product - it was something to pay for his more ambitious work.
And already orchestras are performing his work."
Zappa's classical music won't be featured Wednesday, but Dweezil
promises a show that will reveal many facets of his father's
musical career, with intricate rock and jazz and a little bit of
bathroom humor.
"This tour is an education in many ways," Dweezil says. "There is
a generation who didn't grow up with Frank's music, and I want
them to see a variety of what made him a unique musician."
And it's working.
"On the second night, I looked down from the stage and saw two
girls who couldn't have been more than 15 years old. Not your
stereotypical Zappa fans. Yet they knew every word and every lick
of every song."
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