Zappa - the importance of being Frank.

Those who know me will be surprised that it has taken me so long to get round to writing about Frank Zappa in this blog. I never met him but I did see him playing live and life was never quite the same again. He has been a lifelong inspiration and challenge to me, as I hope will become clear. At present there are five books about Zappa on my bookshelf and that is not counting magazines, articles and a pictorial history. On my computer and in my CD collection I have more music by this man than any other artist.  The greatest musical challenges I have faced have been indirectly or directly posed by him. All of which begs the question - why? What is/was the importance of being Frank.

The concert I attended was in Newcastle City Halls in ( I think) 1969. The Mothers of Invention at that time consisted of:

Jimmy Carl Black - drums
Art Tripp - drums, marimba
Don Preston - keyboards
Motorhead Sherwood - baritone sax, percussion, vocals
Ian Underwood - alto sax, piano
Bunk Gardner - tenor sax
Buzz Gardner - trumpet
Roy Estrada - bass, vocals
Frank Zappa - guitar, drums, vocals

I was seventeen years old and had never seen anything quite like these freaky looking Americans and the nonchalant way they played complex musical arrangements and clowned around at the same time.  Zappa himself was a brooding, chain-smoking presence who , even then, had that wry, mocking way of talking to his audience. After that concert I was very difficult to impress and, over the years that have elapsed since then, I have been at many memorable concerts but for me  forty-three years later, that is still the one.

Back then in the late sixties, Zappa was something of a hero for the "counter-culture". Anti-establishment, long- haired and outspoken, with the freakiest looking band imaginable and a complete disdain for commercialism, he was a natural.  But, with Frank, nothing was ever that simple. He quickly managed to fall out with the hippy orthodoxy over a number of issues. At a teach-in in the London School of Economics he managed to alienate his revolutionary audience by asking them difficult, practical questions about what to do after "the revolution" and by declaring that, "Revolution is just this year's flower-power." Even more heretical was his attitude to drugs. When all around people were turning on, tuning in and dropping out, Zappa regarded drugs as a waste of time and a wilful waste of many talented artists' lives. Looking back at the history of the era, it is difficult to contradict him.  Asked by Nicky Campbell (yes honestly) in an interview about drug-taking and the pros and cons, he said, "Well, it all depends on what you want to do after you take them..."

And politics...

American politics to me ( like many of my countrymen) is difficult to follow sometimes but when Zappa declared he was a Conservative, it was hard for me to accept. How could he be so against the excesses of modern life, so critical of big business and corruption, so ready to side with the oppressed and yet be a Conservative?  Isn't a Conservative always a Conservative? The answer lies in American politics, where I always thought it would. Enshrined in the constitution are various truths - all concerned with equality, freedom and the right to think for yourself. These are extremely inconvenient for politicians on the take, businessmen out to cheat ordinary people and TV evangelists trying to make money - all the people Zappa fought. As a "libertarian Conservative" he sought to fight these people by using the self-evident truths of the constitution against them - in much the same way as he cut his hair and donned a suit and tie to battle with hypocrisy and vested self-interest on American TV.

But, much as I admire the various stands he took socially and politically, the music is why he is  important to me. Back in 1969 in Newcastle City Halls,  he stood at the mic and said (and I still remember his exact words after all these years), "I hear that  Newcastle has a reputation for having difficult audiences. Well, this is the one if you're waiting for a chance. This is a hard one to play..." We were then treated to the Mothers playing a fantastic live version of  "Brown Shoes Don't Make It"  This would have been not hard but impossible for most bands of the era to play live but not for the Mothers as they were then. I had worn the grooves of "Absolutely Free" album nearly flat listening to that very song and if they had made any mistakes I would have spotted them - this was seriously unusual musicianship for the time. Since those early days Zappa had various different incarnations of the Mothers before he abandoned the  name (to my regret) and the sheer volume of music he put out defies description in a short piece but I said at the outset that I would try to explain why he was so important and  music is the key. The first serious guitar solo I "learned" - not note-for-note but true to the spirit of the piece was "Son of Mr Green Genes" from the Hot Rats album and my own playing ability and understanding of what I was playing and why was immeasurably increased thereafter. If you haven't checked this track out, it is based on a melody from the Uncle Meat album and, for me, was far ahead of the other guitarists of the era - and this was very much the era of the guitarist.



A much maligned piece of guitar playing by Zappa, "Watermelon in Easter Hay" is another of my favourites. Many intellectual Zappa fans dislike this piece as they regard it as conventional and sentimental but they are wrong. The melodic hook is (for Frank) very accessible and emotional, hence the intellectuals' disdain, but the criticisms of this piece are wrong-headed and elitist and ignore three very important facts:

1. Its place in the narrative structure of Joe's Garage. Joe's last imaginary guitar solo ever - shouldn't really have to explain further...

2. The musical irony (so often lost on "intellectuals" who can only spot verbal irony).

3. The edge that the unusual time signature (taken at a slow tempo) gives the soloing. It's the perfect remedy for slipping into cliche - not that Zappa did much of that.

I could write about Frank Zappa and what he means to me for the next year and not be finished. However, I will mention that, as a composer, he has had the admiration and affection of those who were lucky enough to work with him, including, Pierre Boulez, Nicolas Slominsky, Kent Nagano, The Ensemble Moderne (probably the best classical orchestra in the world) and a whole host of rock giants like Terry Bozzio, Scot Thunes, Steve Vai and so on to infinity...

Finally, as I said at the beginning, I never met the man but I do so admire the dignity with which he died and the tenacity and creativity of his life. Whatever his faults - and we all have them - he was honest and true to himself, creative, talented, original - and sadly missed today.

PS - here is a link to my own version of Watermelon in Easter Hay
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4gzNbJN7zE