It’s a cold January day. If one goes outside without a proper clothing hypothermia will become your friend pretty quickly. What does one do on such a day? Household chores, Listen to music, and maybe write something of no consequence just for the sake of creating something or accomplishing something of note despite it being just words on a screen… Today’s topic revolves around discovery of artists, musicians, or creative forces that one has neglected over the years. The title is a hint. I’m going to write about Frank Zappa, amongst others.

I’ve known about Frank Zappa for eons, but I have only seriously began examining his music, writings, and interviews recently. Outside of purchasing and enjoying Joe’s Garage and The Yellow Shark I have been neglecting his work. I remember I was introduced to Joe’s Garage at a party some years back where all of us had imbibed large quantities of really bad bourbon whisky and had run out of songs to sing in a slurred festival of drunkenness. I fell in love with the quirkiness of it all. The satire, the musicianship, and the strange way it all came together in an unconventional way. A few years later I came across Ensemble Modern’s recording The Yellow Shark at Borders Book Store. It had numerous Zappa compositions being played by a chamber orchestra late in Zappa’s life. I purchased it out of curiosity. It has some very intriguing stuff on it. I did not really have a clear picture of how this fit into the catalog of his life and music.

I’ve been browsing You Tube looking for interviews and vlogs of some of my favorite musicians over the past few years. I enjoy listening to how they process music cognitively, and how they describe their musical philosophies. It started with Neil Peart who had passed away from the same type of brain cancer that took my father. Then I started watching Rick Beato’s vlogs. He has some great interviews on his channel. His Sting, Stewart Copland, and Andy Summers videos made me re-listen to everything The Police ever made. Then I began watching, rewatching, or finding new material regarding these three. This led to several other musicians, and then about two months ago I saw a link for a Zappa documentary. This took me down a rabbit hole of intrigue. I have watched about 11-12 hours of interviews and Senate testimony regarding censorship and listened to so much music by him that I have become a huge fan of his work.

I think the reason why I love Zappa’s music isn’t for the parody or satirical look at American culture, but the creativity of combining so many influences into his recordings. He cites the composer Edgar Varese as an influence. I can hear it. I have a few recordings of Varese’s music that I picked up for a song and a dance. One can hear the development of the layered sounds woven into the motivic and harmonic development. We can also hear how doo-wop, blues, jazz, and other contemporary composers influence the work. I find it interesting how he can make a pseudo doo-wop (Strictly Commercial) record and incorporate major 7th’s and minor 9th’s into the vocalist melody (Montana.) I find his interest in how pitched speaking (sprechstimme,) chanting, singing, and normal conversation can all be manipulated on audio tape to create interesting sound textures. It appears to me that he processed sound cognitively in a different way than the normal musician. It reminds me of how Karlheinz Stockhausen or Pierre Boulez processed sound, but the comparison ends there.

Zappa had no formal artistic compositional training to develop his sound. He came to it through hard work, creativity, and a militant rehearsal schedule with his various incarnations of the Mothers of Invention. He wrote incredibly complex music for an expandable rock ensemble. Whereas Stockhausen and Boulez wrote complex music for acoustic and electronic mediums in the classical realm using their formal compositional training as a jumping point to new realms of electro-acoustic music. It is safe to say that Zappa never fit into one genre of music, and his more commercial recordings were used to finance his classical music projects. Unfortunately Zappa was not embraced by his American contemporaries, but the underground artists and fans did. Zappa was embraced by Europe, and was seen as an embarrassment or at least a pain in the ass by the Christian Nationalists in the U.S. What a strange artistic dichotomy to be in between one’s homeland and afar.

My fascination with Zappa is more than just musical. His viewpoints on economics, censorship, religion, and education fascinate me. I don’t agree with all of them, but their philosophy has some logic to it. Zappa did not believe in formal education as he felt it was indoctrination. He did believe in self-education though. I think he would have found common ground with education philosopher John Dewey. His view on censorship and religion were at great odds with lawmakers in the 1980’s and 90’s. His war on the Parents Resource Music Center and the Senate Committee that supported them was one versus many. The Nationalists won, but the war continues. It has shifted from music to the library. His economic philosophy is far more interesting to me and I am going to have to dig further before I can comment. I know he wanted the artist to have more control on their music, and the record companies should just be distributors essentially. His remaining economic theory has yet to reveal itself to me, but I’m sure Zappa would have been a great candidate for public office. He seemed to be a liberal on humanist doctrine and a libertarian on all things defense and business. Quite a wide variety of opinions and philosophies, just like an artist.

Zappa joins several other discoveries of mine that became a bit of an obsession for a time. A few have stuck around, some not so much. There was a group called the Gotan Project that fascinated me for a fat minute a while back. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQusfSWFt6M Imagine a hip hop/tango band with a flare for videography. Then there were Bela Fleck and the Flecktones. I’m still fascinated by Bela Fleck’s banjo virtuosity, but the Flecktones are no more as Jeff Coffin joined the Dave Matthews Band. The bass player from the Flecktones, Victor Wooten, is a beast on the instrument. Victor Wooten takes Jaco Pastorius’ skill to the next level. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9XDUBDMNuk Then there is my fascination with Allison Kraus. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SCOimBo5tg When she sings there is a clarity to it that brings goosebumps to my flesh. I appreciate the work with Union Station, but I am so impressed that she was able to out sing Robert Plant on their duet albums. If it isn’t out singing, then Robert allows her to be the star at least. It is a magical experience anyway.

One of my earliest musical discovery obsessions was the rock group Chase. This fusion band was led by trumpeter Bill Chase. Bill Chase was an incredible lead trumpet player who had played with Woody Hermann, Stan Kenton, and Maynard Ferguson. In 1971 he started a rock group that featured four trumpets. Songs like Get it On, Women of the Dark, and Close Up Tight still resonate with me 30 years after discovering them. They released three studio albums and I have all three on vinyl. There are a couple live albums out there and a tribute album with Walt Johnson on lead. This group was a great discovery and I would encourage others who are interested in jazz rock to check them out. Their musicianship was out of this world. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4SW2Z3_d8I

The beauty of music is that there is always a discovery around the next corner. Whether it is classical music, film music, or popular music of some kind new stuff is waiting to be heard, listened too, and digested for one’s enjoyment. Most recently for me this was Frank Zappa. What was your most recent discovery? What appealed to you about them? Dig in and enjoy! The beauty of a record is they spin around…