Frank Zappa

Frank Zappa

Frank Vincent Zappa (December 21, 1940 – December 4, 1993) was an American composer, musician, and film director. In a career spanning more than 30 years, Zappa established himself as a prolific and highly distinctive composer, electric guitar player and band leader. He worked in almost every musical genre and wrote music for rock bands, jazz ensembles, synthesizers and symphony orchestra, as well as Musique concrète works constructed from pre-recorded, synthesized or sampled sources. In addition to his music recordings, he created feature-length and short films, music videos, and album covers.

Although he only occasionally achieved major commercial success, he maintained a highly productive career that encompassed composing, recording, touring, producing and merchandising his own and others' music. Zappa self-produced almost every one of the more than sixty albums he released with the Mothers of Invention or as a solo artist. He received multiple Grammy nominations and won for Best Rock Instrumental Performance in 1988 for the album Jazz From Hell. Zappa was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995, and received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1997. In 2005, his 1968 album with the Mothers of Invention, We're Only in It for the Money, was inducted into the United States National Recording Preservation Board's National Recording Registry. The same year, Rolling Stone Magazine ranked him #71 on its list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time. In 2007, his birthtown Baltimore declared August 9 official "Frank Zappa Day" in his honor.

Politically, Zappa was a self-proclaimed "practical conservative", an avowed supporter of capitalism and independent business. He was also a strident critic of mainstream education and organized religion. Zappa was a forthright and passionate advocate for freedom of speech and the abolition of censorship, and his work embodied his skeptical view of established political processes and structures. Although many assumed he was using drugs, in particular in his early career, as did many musicians at the time, Zappa strongly opposed recreational drug use.

Zappa was married to Kathryn "Kay" Sherman (1960–1964; no children), and then in 1967 to Adelaide Gail Sloatman, with whom he remained until his death in December 1993 of prostate cancer. They had four children: Moon Unit, Dweezil, Ahmet Emuukha Rodan and Diva Thin Muffin Pigeen. Gail Zappa handles the businesses of her late husband under the company name the Zappa Family Trust.

Biography

Early life and influences

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A young Frank Zappa.

Frank Zappa was born in Baltimore, Maryland, on December 21, 1940 to Francis Zappa (born in Partinico, Sicily) who was of Greek-Arab descent, and Rose Marie Colimore who was of three quarters Italian (including Sicilian) and one quarter French descent. He was the oldest of four children (two brothers and a sister). During Zappa's childhood, the family often moved because his father, a chemist and mathematician, had various jobs in the US defense industry. After a brief period in Florida in the mid-1940s, the family returned to Edgewood, Maryland where Zappa’s father got a job at the Edgewood Arsenal chemical warfare facility at nearby Aberdeen Proving Ground. Due to the home's proximity to the Arsenal which stored mustard gas, Zappa's father kept gas masks on hand in case of an accident. This had a profound effect on the young Zappa: references to germs, germ warfare and other aspects of the defense industry occur throughout his work.

As a child, Zappa was often ill, suffering from asthma, earaches and a sinus problem. A doctor treated the latter by inserting a pellet of radium on a probe into each of Zappa's nostrils. Nasal imagery and references would appear both in his music and lyrics as well as in the collage album covers created by his long-time visual collaborator, Cal Schenkel. While little was known at the time about the potential dangers of living close to chemicals and being subjected to radiation, it is a fact that Zappa's illnesses peaked when he lived in the Baltimore area.^,

In 1952, his family relocated mainly because of Frank's asthma. They settled first in Monterey, California, where Zappa’s father taught metallurgy at the Naval Postgraduate School. Shortly thereafter, they moved to Claremont, then again to El Cajon before once again moving a short distance, to San Diego. During this period, his parents bought a record player, one event initiating Zappa’s interest in music, as he started collecting records. Television also exerted a strong influence, as demonstrated by quotations from show themes and advertising jingles found in some of his later work.

The first music Zappa purchased were R&B singles, and he began building a large collection he would keep for the rest of his life. He was, however, mainly interested in sounds for their own sake. In particular, the sounds of drums and percussion. He got a snare drum at age twelve, and started learning the rudiments of orchestral percussion. Events that initiated Zappa's deep engagement with modern classical music occurred after his reading of a LOOK magazine story on the Sam Goody record store chain that lauded its ability to sell an LP as obscure as The Complete Works of Edgard Varèse, Volume One. It further described Varèse's percussion composition Ionisation as "a weird jumble of drums and other unpleasant sounds." Zappa then became convinced that he should seek out Varèse's music. When he finally found a copy after a year of searching (he noticed the LP for the "mad scientist" looking photo of Varèse on the cover), Zappa convinced the salesman to sell him the store's demonstration copy at a discount. Thus began a lifelong passion for Varèse's music, and other modern classical composers' music.

Zappa grew up influenced in equal measures by avant-garde composers such as Varèse, Igor Stravinsky and Anton Webern, R&B and doo-wop groups (particularly local pachuco groups), and modern jazz. His own heterogeneous ethnic background and the diverse cultural and social mix that existed in and around greater Los Angeles at the time were also crucial in situating Zappa as a practitioner and fan of "outsider art". Indeed, throughout his career he was deeply distrustful and openly critical of "mainstream" social, political and musical movements, and he frequently lampooned popular musical fads like psychedelia, bubblegum pop, rock opera and disco.

By 1955, the Zappa family moved to Lancaster, a small aerospace and farming town in Antelope Valley of the Mojave Desert, close to Edwards Air Force Base, Los Angeles, and the San Gabriel Mountains. Lancaster's location gave Zappa access to the exciting sounds of radio stations in Los Angeles and KSPC 88.7 FM in Claremont, where Zappa had his own Saturday night show. Zappa's mother gave him considerable encouragement in his musical interests. Though she disliked Varèse's music, she was indulgent enough to award Zappa a long distance call to the composer as a fifteenth birthday present. Unfortunately, Varèse was in Europe at the time, so Frank spoke to the composer's wife. Zappa later received a letter from Varèse thanking Zappa for his interest, telling him about a composition he was working on called "Déserts." Living in the desert town of Lancaster, Zappa found this very exciting. Varèse invited Zappa to see him if he ever came to New York. The meeting never took place (Varèse died in 1965), but Zappa kept the framed letter displayed for the rest of his life.

By age 15, Zappa had attended six different high schools. As a student, Zappa was bored and given to distracting the rest of the class with juvenile antics. He left community college after one semester, and maintained a disdain for formal education throughout his life, taking his children out of school at age 15 and refused to pay for their college.

Zappa's interest in composing and arranging burgeoned in his later high school years and he dreamed of being a composer. By his final year, he was writing prolifically and had not only composed, arranged and conducted an avant-garde performance piece for the school orchestra, but had also contrived to have the event both broadcast on local radio and recorded.

Zappa began his career as a musician on drums, and while attending Mission Bay High School in San Diego, he joined his first band, The Ramblers. Although he performed as a singer and guitarist for most of his later career, Zappa's original influence by classical percussion compositions made him retain a strong interest in rhythm and percussion and his bands have been noted for the excellence of their drummers and percussionists. His works such as "The Black Page" are notorious for complexity in rhythmic structure, featuring radical changes of tempo and metre as well as short, densely arranged passages contrasted by free-form breaks and extended improvisations.

In 1956 Zappa met Don Van Vliet (best known by his stage name "Captain Beefheart") while taking classes at Antelope Valley High School and playing drums in a local band, The Blackouts. The Blackouts, a racially-mixed outfit, included Euclid James "Motorhead" Sherwood (who later became a member of the Mothers of Invention). Zappa and Van Vliet became close friends, influencing each other musically, and collaborating in the late Sixties and mid-Seventies (e.g., on Van Vliet's Trout Mask Replica, which Zappa produced, and the 1975 Mothers of Invention live album Bongo Fury). They later became estranged for a period of years, but were in contact at the end of Zappa’s life.

In 1957 Zappa was given his first guitar. Among his early influences were Johnny "Guitar" Watson, Howlin' Wolf and Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown (he would in the 1970s and 80s invite Watson to perform on several albums). Zappa considered soloing as the equivalent of forming "air sculptures", and developed an eclectic, innovative and personal style. He eventually became one of the most highly regarded electric guitarists of his time.

In June 1958 Zappa worked for a time in advertising. His sojourn in the commercial world was another important influence on his work, and within a few years Zappa was co-opting the techniques he learned as a commercial artist. Zappa used them to deconstruct music, the music business, the media and society at large by combining them with the ideas he had gleaned from his studies of Dada, the Situationist International, and surrealism. Zappa thereafter always took a keen interest in the visual presentation of his work, designing some of his album covers and directing his own films and videos.

Zappa moved to Los Angeles in 1959 and spent most of the rest of his life there.

1960s

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"Studio Z."

Among Zappa's earliest professional recordings were two scores for the low-budget films The World's Greatest Sinner (1962) and Run Home Slow (1965). In 1963, he began playing professionally around Los Angeles and bought the small Pal Recording Studio in Cucamonga (now Rancho Cucamonga, California), which included a unique 5-track tape recorder built by Paul Buff. At this time, only a handful of the most expensive commercial studios had multitrack facilities, the industry standard for smaller studios was still mono or two-track. Zappa renamed the studio "Studio Z," moved into it, and began routinely working 12 hours or more per day. This set a pattern that would endure for almost all of his life.

While at "Studio Z", Zappa accepted an offer of $100 to produce a suggestive tape for a customer's stag party. Zappa and a female friend jokingly faked an "erotic" recording. Unfortunately, the customer was an undercover member of the Vice Squad and Zappa was jailed for ten days on charges of supplying pornography. His entrapment and brief imprisonment left a permanent mark, and was a key event in the formation of his anti-authoritarian stance.

After a short career as a professional songwriter — his elegiac "Memories of El Monte" was recorded by Doo-Wop group The Penguins — in 1964 Zappa joined a local R&B band, The Soul Giants, as a guitarist. Soon he assumed leadership, renaming the band "The Mothers." They gradually began to gain attention on the burgeoning Los Angeles underground "freak scene" and in 1965 they were spotted by leading record producer Tom Wilson, who had earned acclaim as the producer for Bob Dylan and Simon & Garfunkel. Wilson was also notable as one of the few African-Americans working as a major label pop producer at this time. Wilson signed The Mothers to the Verve label, which had built up a strong reputation for its modern jazz recordings in the 1940s and 1950s, but was then attempting to diversify into pop and rock, with an "artistic" or "experimental" bent. Verve Records insisted that the band officially re-titled themselves "The Mothers of Invention" because "Mother" was short for "motherfucker" — a term that apart from its profane meanings can denote a skilled musician. Around this time, Zappa also met and signed with longtime manager Herb Cohen.

With Wilson credited as producer, The Mothers recorded their groundbreaking double album debut Freak Out! (1966), a mixture of R&B, doo-wop and experimental sound collages that attempted to capture the "freak" subculture of Los Angeles at that time. One of the first record albums united by an underlying theme, it was also only the second double LP of rock music ever released, and firmly established Zappa as a radical new voice in rock music. Wilson is also credited with producing the follow-up Absolutely Free; but for the third LP, Wilson was listed as "Executive producer," and Zappa took over as producer for all the Mothers and solo Zappa recordings issued from that time on. Even on the two first albums, Zappa was already responsible for virtually all of the musical decisions, with Wilson providing the industry clout and connections to get the unknown group financial resources needed. During this period, Wilson also had Zappa collaborate with The Animals on the song "All Night Long" on their album Animalism.

The early Mothers' anarchic stage shows were legendary — during a 1967 performance at the Garrick Theatre in New York, Zappa managed to entice some marines from the audience onto the stage, where they proceeded to dismember a collection of baby dolls, having been told by Zappa to imagine that they were "gook babies".

Zappa's second and third studio albums were landmarks of record production highlighted by liberal use of 'cut-up' editing techniques. Absolutely Free (1967) continued Zappa's lyrical preoccupations with the hypocrisy and conformity of American society, with the alleged suppression of underground and alternative culture. It was followed by the album widely regarded as the peak of the group's late Sixties work, We're Only In It For The Money (1968) which featured some of the most radical audio editing and production yet heard in pop music, and ruthlessly satirized the hippie and flower power phenomena. The cover photo parodied that of The Beatles' Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

This was book-ended by two closely linked companion pieces. The audio collage Lumpy Gravy (1968) — released as a solo album under the name Francis Vincent Zappa — took Zappa's production techniques to a new level and, according to Zappa, took nine months to edit. It mixes a multitude of musical styles and orchestra line ups. His next album was a tribute to the doo-wop genre Cruising with Ruben & the Jets (1968).

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Frank Zappa (far right) and the Mothers of Invention in a BBC television show, 1968

During the late Sixties, Zappa continued to develop as an artist. He increasingly used tape editing as a compositional tool. A prime example being the double album Uncle Meat (1969), where the track "King Kong" is edited from various studio and live performances. Zappa further evolved a compositional approach — which he dubbed "conceptual continuity" — that ranged across virtually every genre of music. His work combines satirical lyrics and pop melodies with virtuoso instrumental prowess, where long, jazz-inflected improvisational passages are counterbalanced with densely edited and seemingly chaotic collage sequences that mix music, sound effects and snatches of conversation. Conceptual continuity clues are found throughout Zappa's entire oeuvre.

He became famous for regularly quoting musical phrases that influenced or amused him — one of his most famous and regular quotes was the riff from the perennial Sixties rock hit "Louie Louie", which appears in various forms in numerous recordings over the whole span of his career. He also frequently quoted from or referred to TV show themes (e.g., The Untouchables and the The Tonight Show), from famous rock & pop songs such as "My Sharona," "Stayin' Alive," "Do You Really Want to Hurt Me?", "Let's Dance," "Whip It," "Owner of a Lonely Heart," and from classical works such as The Rite of Spring, Boléro and The Planets.

In the late 1960s, Zappa began regularly recording his concerts, beginning with a simple two-track portable recorder and eventually progressing to a portable 48-track digital system in 1988. In the process, he built up a vast archive of live recordings. In the late 1980s some of these recordings were collected for the 12-CD set You Can't Do That on Stage Anymore. Because of his insistence on precise tuning and timing in concert, from the 1970s on Zappa was able to augment his studio productions with excerpts from live shows, and vice versa. Later, he would combine recordings of different compositions into new pieces, irrespective of the tempo or meter of the sources. He dubbed this process xenochrony (alien time).

Although they were lauded by critics and their peers and had a rabid cult following, mainstream audiences often found much of Zappa and the Mothers' music, appearance and attitude impossible to comprehend, and the band was often greeted with derision. More importantly, the financial strain and interpersonal tensions involved in keeping a large jazz-rock ensemble on the road eventually led to the group's demise in 1969, although numerous members would remain with or return to Zappa in years to come. Remaining Mothers recordings from this period were collected on Weasels Ripped My Flesh (1969) and Burnt Weeny Sandwich (1970).

After he disbanded the original Mothers, Zappa released the acclaimed solo instrumental album Hot Rats, featuring his jazz-inflected guitar playing backed by jazz, blues and R&B session players including violinist Don "Sugarcane" Harris, drummer John Guerin, multi-instrumentalist Ian Underwood, and bassist Shuggie Otis. It remains one of his most popular and accessible recordings and undoubtedly had a major influence on the development of the jazz-rock fusion genre.

During this period Zappa also produced the double album Trout Mask Replica for Captain Beefheart (who also appeared on Hot Rats), and releases by Alice Cooper, Tim Buckley, Wild Man Fischer, The GTOs as well as Lenny Bruce's last live performance.

1970s

Around 1970, Zappa put together a new version of The Mothers that included British drummer Aynsley Dunbar, jazz keyboardist George Duke, previous Mothers member Ian Underwood, Jeff Simmons (bass, rhythm guitar), and no fewer than three members of The Turtles: bass player Jim Pons, who before joining The Turtles had been the lead singer of The Leaves (of "Hey Joe" fame); and singers Mark Volman and Howard Kaylan, who due to persisting legal/contractual problems adopted the stage-monikers "The Phlorescent Leech and Eddie," or "Flo & Eddie" for short.

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Frank Zappa composing in the early 1970s.

The new lineup debuted on Zappa's next solo LP Chunga's Revenge, which was followed by the soundtrack to the movie project 200 Motels, featuring both The Mothers and The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. At the time George Duke was in the band and appears both in the film and on the soundtrack as a musician. He left the band to play with Cannonball Adderley and was replaced by Don Preston from the original Mothers, who acted in the film, but is not playing on the soundtrack.

This double album was followed by two live sets, Fillmore East - June 1971 and Just Another Band From L.A., which included the 20-minute track "Billy The Mountain," Zappa's satire on rock opera, set in Southern California. The low-concept cover art of the Fillmore album — satirizing the bootleg albums that had recently become popular, and of which Zappa was a favoured target — appeared just at the apex of the era of great rock "album cover artwork".

In December 1971 there were two serious setbacks. While performing in Montreux, Switzerland, the Mothers' equipment was destroyed when a flare set off by an audience member started a fire that burned down the casino where they were playing —an event immortalized in Deep Purple's song "Smoke on the Water." The event and immediate aftermath can be heard on the bootleg album Swiss Cheese/Fire, released legally as part of Zappa's Beat the Boots II compilation. Later that month, Zappa was attacked at the Rainbow Theatre, London. An audience member pushed Frank off the stage and into the orchestra pit. The man, Trevor Howell, gave two stories to the press: one was that he felt the band hadn't given him value for his money; the other was that Zappa had supposedly been making eyes at Howell's girlfriend. Zappa suffered serious fractures, head trauma and injuries to his back, leg, and neck, as well as a crushed larynx (which caused his voice to drop a third after healing). This left him wheelchair bound for a time, forcing him off the road for over a year. (He was wearing a leg brace for a period thereafter, had a noticeable limp and couldn't stand for very long while on stage.) He said one leg healed "shorter than the other" (a reference found in the lyrics of "Zomby Woof" and "Dancin' Fool"). Meanwhile, the Mothers were left in limbo, and eventually formed the core of Flo and Eddie's band as they set out on their own.

In 1971-72 Zappa released two strongly jazz-oriented solo LPs, Waka/Jawaka and The Grand Wazoo, which were recorded during the forced layoff from concert touring, using floating lineups of session players and Mothers alumni. He began touring again in late 1972, first with a scaled-down version of the big band appearing on The Grand Wazoo - appropriately known as "Petit Wazoo." He then formed groups that variously included Ian Underwood (reeds, keyboards), Ruth Underwood (vibes, marimba), Sal Marquez (trumpet, vocals), Napoleon Murphy Brock (sax, flute and vocals), Bruce Fowler (trombone), Tom Fowler (bass), Chester Thompson (drums), Ralph Humphrey (drums), George Duke (keyboards, vocals) and Jean-Luc Ponty (violin).

He continued a high rate of production through the early 1970s, including the albums One Size Fits All and Apostrophe, Over-Nite Sensation and Roxy & Elsewhere featuring ever-changing versions of a band though still called the Mothers. These albums were notable for the highly technical jazz-fusion the bands were renowned for, demonstrated on such pieces as "Inca Roads," "Echidna's Arf (Of You)" or "Be-Bop Tango (Of the Old Jazzmen's Church)."

Frank Zappa at the Armadillo World Headquarters on September 13, 1977.

In the mid 1970s Zappa prepared material for Läther (pronounced "leather"), an intended four-LP project. Läther encapsulated all the aspects of Zappa's musical styles —rock tunes, orchestral works, complex instrumentals, and Zappa's own trademark tube distortion-drenched guitar solos. Wary of a quadruple-LP, Warner Bros. Records refused to release it. Zappa soon appeared on the (at the time) influential Los Angeles radio station KROQ, allowing them to broadcast the Läther album and encouraging listeners to make their own tape recordings. A lawsuit between Zappa and Warner Bros. followed, during which the major parts of the album were issued as Zappa in New York (1978), Studio Tan (1978), Sleep Dirt (1979), and Orchestral Favorites (1979), with limited promotion. Läther was released posthumously in 1996, containing tracks ranging from "Titties 'n Beer" to a semi-accurate rendering of "The Legend of the Illinois Enema Bandit" to "Revised Music for Guitar & Low Budget Orchestra".

Zappa's relationship with long-time manager Herb Cohen ended in 1976. The breakup was an acrimonious affair, exacerbated by Zappa's ongoing feud with Warner Bros. Cohen had created DiscReet Records with Zappa as a label of Warner Bros., in order to be used as a business venture to aid funding of Zappa albums. Zappa however discovered that Cohen had been skimming more than he was allocated from the label, and he also alleged that Cohen had used some of Frank's money to fund recordings for other artists. Cohen filed a lawsuit against Zappa in return, due to Zappa taking the master copies of Zoot Allures (1976) directly to Warner Bros., thus bypassing DiscReet completely. While it is unknown what became of the lawsuits, Zappa and Cohen would never work together again. Zappa eventually gained the rights of all his material created under the Warner Bros. contract.

During the late 1970s Zappa made two appearances on the popular NBC television show Saturday Night Live. His appearance in December 1976 as a featured musical guest, included an impromptu musical collaboration with cast member John Belushi during the instrumental piece "The Purple Lagoon". Belushi appeared as his Samurai Futaba character playing the tenor sax with Zappa conducting. Also, "I'm The Slime", featuring a voice-over by SNL booth announcer Don Pardo, was performed. In 1978 Zappa served both as host and musical act, and as an actor in various sketches.

Zappa's 1970s period ended with the releases of Sheik Yerbouti (1979), which contained Zappa classics such as "Dancin' Fool", "Bobby Brown (Goes Down)", and "Jewish Princess," which received some controversial attention, as well as the triple LP Joe's Garage (1979), which features lead singer Ike Willis as voice of "Joe". Joe's Garage features a coherent story line about the suppression of freedom of speech (and music), and mixes catchy songs like "Catholic Girls," "Lucille Has Messed My Mind Up," and the title track, with long guitar solos taken from live concerts and mixed with studio material (cf. the aforementioned process xenochrony). Finally, the album contains what would become one of Zappa's most famous guitar "signature pieces," "Watermelon in Easter Hay." Joe's Garage went on to be named one of the top-25 drumming performances of all time in a 1993 Modern Drummer magazine article. Sheik Yerbouti was a commercial success mainly due to the song "Bobby Brown (Goes Down)." Due to the explicit lyrics about a young man's encounter with a "dyke by the name of Freddie," the song did not get airplay in the US, but it topped the charts in several European countries and is still popular in countries where English is not the primary language. In 1992 Zappa told Matt Groening that "I don't think anything has outsold Sheik Yerbouti, partly because ‘Bobby Brown’ keeps becoming a hit every ten years . . . I think it was back on the charts again in Norway. For no apparent reason, it was back."

1980s

In 1981, the double album You Are What You Is was released. Most of the album was recorded in Zappa's brand new UMRK (Utility Muffin Research Kitchen) studios. It featured 19 songs, which included such complex instrumentals as "Theme from the 3^rd Movement of Sinister Footwear", but mainly focused on rock songs with Zappa's sardonic social commentary. "Dumb All Over," is an example of this, being a devastating tirade on religion, as is "Heavenly Bank Account," wherein Zappa rails against people such as Jerry Falwell for relying upon the US administration to finance the religious organization, the "Moral Majority," while simultaneously embezzling the funds. The album is also notable for the presence of guitar virtuoso Steve Vai, who joined Zappa's touring band in the Fall of 1980.

In the same year, Tinsel Town Rebellion was released, a mixture of songs taken from a 1979 tour, one studio track and the rest were taken from the last tour of 1980. The album is a mixture of complicated instrumentals, of which "The Blue Light" is a salient example, demonstrating Vinnie Colaiuta's dexterity around a drum kit, and Zappa's use of sprechstimme (speaking song or voice), a compositional technique utilized by such composers as Arnold Schoenberg, and Alban Berg.

1981 also saw the release of three instrumental albums Shut Up 'N Play Yer Guitar, Shut Up 'N Play Yer Guitar Some More, and The Return of the Son of Shut Up 'N Play Yer Guitar, which were initially sold via mail order by Zappa himself, but were later released commercially through CBS label due to popular demand.As the titles reveal, these albums focus exclusively on Frank Zappa as a guitar soloist. Frank Zappa's guitar solos had been a trademark during his career, and now he decided to release albums focusing on his work as a guitarist. The guitar tracks on the albums are predominantly live recordings from 1979-80, and highlight Zappa's exceptional improvisational skills and unique sound. The albums were subsequently released as a 3-album box set, and were in 1988 followed by the album Guitar focusing on recordings from 1981-82 and 1984. A third guitar-only album, Trance-Fusion, completed by Zappa shortly before his death, featuring solos recorded between 1979 and 1988 (with an emphasis on 1988) was released in 2006.

In May of 1982, Zappa released Ship Arriving Too Late to Save a Drowning Witch, which featured his biggest selling single, "Valley Girl" (topping out at #32 on the Billboard charts). In her improvised "lyrics" to the song, Zappa's daughter Moon Unit satirized the vapid speech of teenage girls from the San Fernando Valley, which popularized many "Valspeak" expressions such as "gag me with a spoon" and "barf out."

1983 saw the release of two different projects, beginning with The Man From Utopia, a rock-oriented work. The album itself is eclectic, featuring the vocal-led "Dangerous Kitchen" and "The Jazz Discharge Party Hats," both continuations of the sprechstimme excursions shown on Tinseltown Rebellion. The second album was the first fully orchestral recording of Zappa pieces, something he had been waiting to accomplish for some time. Conducted by Kent Nagano and performed by the London Symphony Orchestra, it featured the compositions "Sad Jane," "Pedro's Dowry," and "Mo 'n Herb's Vacation." A second record of these sessions saw release in 1987, containing "Bogus Pomp." Frank was not pleased with the LSO recordings as they were not perfect performances of his compositions. The most notable example is "Strictly Genteel," which was recorded after the trumpet section had gone out for drinks on break. This track took an immense amount of edits to get a passable version.

For the remainder of his career, much of Zappa's work was affected by use of the synclavier as a compositional and performance tool. In 1984, he released four albums within a few months. Boulez Conducts Zappa: The Perfect Stranger, which juxtaposed orchestral works commissioned and conducted by world-renowned conductor Pierre Boulez and premiere synclavier pieces; Thing-Fish, an ambitious three-record set in the style of a Broadway play dealing with a dystopian "what-if" scenario involving feminism, homosexuality, manufacturing and distribution of the AIDS virus, and a eugenics program conducted by the United States government. New vocals were combined with previously released tracks and new synclavier music. Francesco Zappa a synclavier rendition of works by 17^th century composer, Francesco Zappa (no documented relation); Them or Us, a two-record set of heavily edited live and session pieces.

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Frank Zappa testifies before the US Senate.

On September 19, 1985, Zappa testified before the US Senate Commerce, Technology, and Transportation committee, attacking the Parents Music Resource Center or PMRC, a music censorship organization founded by then-Senator Al Gore's wife Tipper Gore and including many other political wives, including the wives of five members of the committee. In his prepared statement, Zappa said

The PMRC proposal is an ill-conceived piece of nonsense which fails to deliver any real benefits to children, infringes the civil liberties of people who are not children, and promises to keep the courts busy for years dealing with the interpretational and enforcemental problems inherent in the proposal's design. It is my understanding that, in law, First Amendment issues are decided with a preference for the least restrictive alternative. In this context, the PMRC's demands are the equivalent of treating dandruff by decapitation. (...) The establishment of a rating system, voluntary or otherwise, opens the door to an endless parade of moral quality control programs based on things certain Christians do not like. What if the next bunch of Washington wives demands a large yellow "J" on all material written or performed by Jews, in order to save helpless children from exposure to concealed Zionist doctrine?

Zappa put some excerpts from the PMRC hearings to music in his composition "Porn Wars" from the 1985 album Frank Zappa Meets the Mothers of Prevention. Zappa is heard interacting with Senators Fritz Hollings, Slade Gorton, Al Gore (who admitted to being a Zappa fan), and, most notably, an exchange with Florida Senator Paula Hawkins over what toys the Zappa children played with. Zappa would also go on to argue with PMRC representatives on the CNN's Crossfire in 1986 and 1987.

The album Jazz From Hell, released in 1986, brought Zappa his first Grammy Award in 1988 for Best Rock Instrumental Performance. Except for one live guitar solo, the album exclusively featured compositions brought to life by the synclavier. Although an instrumental album, Meyer Music Markets sold Jazz from Hell featuring an "explicit lyrics" sticker (a warning label introduced by the Recording Industry Association of America in an agreement with the PMRC).

His last tour in a "rock band format" took place in 1988 with a 12-piece group which was reported to have a repertoire of over 200 (mostly Zappa) compositions, but which split in acrimonious circumstances before the tour was completed. The tour was documented on the albums Broadway The Hard Way (new material featuring songs with strong political emphasis), The Best Band You Never Heard in Your Life (Zappa "standards" and an eclectic collection of cover tunes, ranging from Maurice Ravel's "Boléro" to Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven"), and Make a Jazz Noise Here (mostly instrumental and experimental music). Parts are also found on You Can't Do That on Stage Anymore, Vols. 4 and 6.

In the late 1980s Zappa's passion for American politics was becoming a bigger part of his life. Throughout the 1988 tour, he regularly encouraged his young fans to register to vote, and even had voter registration booths at his concerts. He was also considering running for President of the United States under the United States Libertarian Party ticket.

During this period, Zappa was also simultaneously undertaking a comprehensive re-release program of his earlier recordings. He personally oversaw the remastering of all his classic 1960s, 1970s and early 1980s albums for the new compact disc medium. Certain of these re-issues were, however, criticised by some fans as being unfaithful to the original recordings.

1990s

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Frank Zappa conducting Ensemble Modern, Alte Oper, Frankfurt, September 1992

In early 1990, Zappa visited Czechoslovakia at the request of President Václav Havel, a lifelong fan, and was asked by Havel to serve as consultant for the government on trade, cultural matters and tourism. Zappa enthusiastically agreed and began meeting with corporate officials interested in investing in Czechoslovakia. Within a few weeks, however, the US administration put pressure on the Czech government to withdraw the appointment. Havel made Zappa an unofficial cultural attaché instead.

Zappa's political work would come to a halt all too soon, however. In 1991, he was diagnosed with terminal prostate cancer. After his diagnosis, Zappa devoted almost all of his energy to modern orchestral and synclavier works.

Although ill, in September 1992, he appeared as a guest conductor with the classical "Ensemble Modern" in a series of concerts in Germany and Austria devoted to his compositions, recordings from which appeared on The Yellow Shark.

During his final years, he edited numerous CD collections of concert recordings made throughout his career. In 1993, prior to his death, he completed Civilization, Phaze III, a major synclavier work he had begun in the 1980s. He stated in interviews that he was working on hundreds of synclavier pieces, most of which remained unfinished.

Frank Zappa died on December 4, 1993, age 52, from prostate cancer. He was interred in an unmarked grave at the Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Westwood, California.

Discography

Main article: Frank Zappa discography

Further reading

See also: Cultural references to Frank Zappa

• Courrier, Kevin (2002). Dangerous Kitchen: The Subversive World of Zappa. Toronto: ECW Press. ISBN 1-55022-447-6.
• Rausch, Andreas (2005). Zappaesk. Köln: Egmont EHAPA. ISBN 3-7704-2888-9.

• The Words and Music of Frank Zappa, by Kelly Fisher Lowe, Praeger Publishers (April 2006), an extensive chronological review of Zappa's work and its deeper meanings, ISBN 0-275-98779-5
• No Commercial Potential—The Saga of Frank Zappa, by David Walley
• Lunar Notes-Zoot Horn Rollo's Captain Beefheart Experience, by Bill Harkleroad, contains several references about Zappa's collaboration with Don Van Vliet.
• Mother! the Frank Zappa Story, by Michael Gray
• Electric Don Quixote: The Definitive Story of Frank Zappa, by Neil Slaven
• Necessity Is... The Early Years of Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention, by Billy James
• Cosmik Debris: The Collective History and Improvisations of Frank Zappa, by Greg Russo, Crossfire Pubns; 2nd Rev edition (January 9 2003), ISBN 0-9648157-0-2
• My Brother was a Mother, by Patrice "Candy" Zappa
• Frank Zappa, Captain Beefheart, and the Secret History of Maximalism, by Michel Delville and Andrew Norris. Cambridge: Salt Publishing, 2005.
• Academy Zappa: Proceedings of the First International Conference of Esemplastic Zappology, edited by Ben Watson and Esther Leslie, (London: SAF, 2005), ISBN 0-946719-79-9
• Frank Zappa en el infierno. El rock como movilización para la disidencia política, by Manuel de la Fuente Soler (Madrid, Biblioteca Nueva, 2006).

External links

• The Official Frank Zappa Site
• Information Is Not Knowledge Comprehensive discography (vinyl and CD), songlists, chronology, filmography, lists of musicians, etc.
• The Zappa Patio Includes "The Frank Zappa Versions Guide;" detailed discography including bootlegs and differences between vinyl and CD releases.
• ARF: Frank Zappa Scholars Web Page Includes detailed FAQs on nearly every song on every released album.
• United Mutations Constantly updated web site about the Zappa community, including Zappa's backing musicians, worldwide.
• Frank Zappa at IMDb
• Frank Zappa's Musical Language Detailed analyses of various compositions.
• The FZShows homepage Setlists for most Frank Zappa shows.
• Harry Pipco's Home - A Tribute to Frank Zappa Detailed biographical material, links to interviews, etc.
• The Highway 57 Zappa Zone Includes searchable discography.
• The Planet Of My Dreams Includes list of all Frank Zappa shows and line-ups chronology.
• Touring Can Make You Crazy Detailed tour info, and in-depth analysis of selected tours.
• Zappa Wiki Jawaka A Wiki exclusively about Frank Zappa.
• Brown Shoes Don’t Make It – The Music of Frank Zappa: Panel discussion with Bill Milkowski, Linda Yohn, Michael G. Nastos, Napoleon Murphy Brock, Ed Palermo, Ralph Armstrong.

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