Frank Zappa was a composer, guitarist, songwriter, movie director, social critic, and above all a consummate artist. He is most widely known for his work as a rock n’ roll musician and band leader, but his musical output consists of ballets, operas, Broadway musicals, suites, chamber music, and large orchestral compositions as well.
He easily and masterfully weaved rock, classical, jazz, avantgarde, doo-wop, and others, often in the span of one song. Born in Maryland on December 21st, 1940, but mostly raised in Southern California, he died in Los Angeles at the age of 52 from prostate cancer on December 4th, 1993.
Frank Zappa's Early Musical Influences
Probably the most important on Zappa’s musical development was Edgard Varese, the French-born composer. At the age of thirteen Zappa was confronted with an album cover in Look magazine that bore the mad-scientist face of Varese. The music was described as: “a banging and clanging with sirens and stuff.” Zappa was entranced, and immediately bought the album.
One of the pieces on the album, entitled “Ionization”, was written entirely for percussion instruments and well as sirens. Instead of concentrating on melody and harmony Varese instead wrote with only timbre and rhythmic possibilities in mind. This percussive style had an enormous impact on Zappa, and throughout his career, especially in orchestral compositions, the influence of Varese is prevalent.
At the same time he listened extensively to rhythm and blues, as well as 1950’s doo-wop, which Zappa adored for its direct naivety. These, among countless other influences, helped Zappa create a style wholly unique and singular world of sound.
Frank Zappa at College
Zappa generally despised traditional academic curriculum, but he did attend junior college for one semester. At that time he took a music theory class which he later described as “really basic beginner mongoloid stuff.”
His education really came from his being an autodidact, and he absorbed practically everything that came his way, and then remade it his own.
The Mothers of Invention
After playing in high school bands and various Top 40 bar bands at a young age, the Mothers of Invention became the first band in which he acted as leader. The music was in the “rock band” context, but the classical influence was abundant.
Lyrics, all written by Zappa, were always irreverent, ironic, incredibly satirical, and always expressed Zappa’s disgust with pop-culture trends. Generally, he felt the high commoditization of “culture” dumb-downed the citizenry, and limited people’s authentic potential to be self-expressive individuals.
Their first album Freak Out was released in 1966. 1967 saw the release of Absolutely Free, which contains the song "Brown Shoes Don’t Make It", a mini rock-suite. In 1968 We’re Only In It For The Money was essentially an album’s length satirizing the “hippie” and “flower power” movement among his peers.
In the same year Lumpy Gravy was produced. Both 1968’s albums make heavy usage of musique concrete, which is the process of cutting and splicing together tape reels with razors and scotch-tape, in order to make sound collages.
Frank Zappa the Solo Musician
In 1969 Zappa released Hot Rats, which was his first release as a solo musician. As a solo musician Zappa was able to hire musicians who were highly trained and could read music. This enabled him to write music of greater difficulty, and the live album Roxy and Elsewhere is a great presentation of the diverse and disciplined capabilities of both Zappa and the musicians he met throughout his career.
Until his death in 1993 he produced, arranged, and composed the music for nearly 60 albums in a recording career that spanned 27 years.
References
Frank Zappa, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
Singers on Songwriting, Paul Zollo, pp. 318-328.
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