Zappa & Jazz

[Jazzrook]

Despite once saying that "jazz is not dead... it just smells funny", Frank Zappa had a close affinity with many modern jazz musicians and jammed with Roland Kirk as well as recording with his friend Archie Shepp.
All this is revealed in Geoff Wills' enlightening recent book 'Zappa and Jazz'(MATADOR).
Several jazz musicians have also played FZ compositions and recorded tribute albums.
Here, for example, is Italian pianist Stefano Bollani's solo version of 'Peaches en Regalia' from 'Sheik yer Zappa':

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzRSo9r2o98

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0yUvQFD7xk

[Serial_Apologist]

Way back in 2003, R3 broadcast 3 very informative programmes titled "Jazz from Hell", introduced by "Slowhand" author Charles Shaar Murray. Zappa sidemen came on stating that Zappa could not have achieved either the levels of virtuosity or the turn-on-a-sixpence spontaneity needed for realising his complex scores, let alone coping with his musical and temperamental unpredictabilities.

Back in the 1970s, a friend who joined the leftist organisation I was in threw out all his Zappa LPs. Asked if this was owing to his sexism, he said, "No, his misanthropy in general".

[Beef Oven!]

Despite once saying that "jazz is not dead... it just smells funny", Frank Zappa had a close affinity with many modern jazz musicians and jammed with Roland Kirk as well as recording with his friend Archie Shepp.
All this is revealed in Geoff Wills' enlightening recent book 'Zappa and Jazz'(MATADOR).
Several jazz musicians have also played FZ compositions and recorded tribute albums.
Here, for example, is Italian pianist Stefano Bollani's solo version of 'Peaches en Regalia' from 'Sheik yer Zappa':

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzRSo9r2o98

www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0yUvQFD7xk

Interesting Peaches - two pianos would have been better, IMV. Thanks for posting the link

[Jazzrook]

Ed Palermo Big Band plays Frank Zappa:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vB1AhuMgczQ

[Jazzrook]

FZ himself playing 'Watermelon in Easter Hay':

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9DqykUsqRY

[Bryn]

Way back in 2003, R3 broadcast 3 very informative programmes titled "Jazz from Hell", introduced by "Slowhand" author Charles Shaar Murray. Zappa sidemen came on stating that Zappa could not have achieved either the levels of virtuosity or the turn-on-a-sixpence spontaneity needed for realising his complex scores, let alone coping with his musical and temperamental unpredictabilities.

Back in the 1970s, a friend who joined the leftist organisation I was in threw out all his Zappa LPs. Asked if this was owing to his sexism, he said, "No, his misanthropy in general".

Zappa often trumpeted his 'misanthropy' loudly. However, such proclamations should not be taken at face value. He agreed with Einstein regarding the preponderance of stupidity in the universe. A better idea of where he was coming from might be grasped from such quotes as "The first thing you have to do if you want to raise nice kids, is you have to talk to them like they are people instead of talking to them like they're property."

As to the virtuosity demanded of some of his 'serious' works, the Ensemble intercontemporain and Boulez were not up to it, so much of the 'Boulez' album had to be done on the Synclavier. Only later did the Ensemble Modern reach the standards required. After they got the notes right, and in the right order, it still was not there. "Now shape it" was his cry, and they did, to great effect.

[Ian Thumwood]

Jazzrook

Have you seen this article?

http://www.allaboutjazz.com/ed-palermo-big-band-at-the-iridium-ed-palermo-by-bob-kenselaar.php

[Jazzrook]

Jazzrook

Have you seen this article?

http://www.allaboutjazz.com/ed-paler...-kenselaar.php

Thanks for that, Ian.
Here's a fascinating FZ documentary shown on BBC2 in the early 1990s:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuhoavP4k4c

I can highly recommend the DVD of Zappa's legendary 1993 concerts 'Roxy The Movie' which has taken over 40 years to surface.

From the CD 'Roxy & Elsewhere': www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEZwa1Funh0

[Bryn]

Thanks for that, Ian.
Here's a fascinating FZ documentary shown on BBC2 in the early 1990s:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuhoavP4k4c

I can highly recommend the DVD of Zappa's legendary 1993 concerts 'Roxy The Movie' which has taken over 40 years to surface.

Thanks for that. A wonderful piece of nostalgia. Must dig out my VHS tape of those broadcasts and transfer them to DVD.

[Ian Thumwood]

I don't know much about Zappa's music although he is someone who was clearly extremely talented and maybe the most technically accomplished artist Rock has ever produced. I can see the negative side with the lyrics often being a bit puerile yet his music seems to have a closer relationship with jazz with the passage of time. Oddly, hearing Princes' "Sign of the times" last week, the same impression struck me and it felt that if he had released this material in 2016 he would have probably have been featured on Jazz on 3 ! I was surprised at just how savvy he was back then in his relationship with jazz.

[Bryn]

Searching via Google for "zappa uniform youtube" I could not find the item I was looking for (re. all his audience members wearing uniform of one sort or another) but I did alight upon a hour's session with Michael Hubert Kenyon:

Nice bit of xenochrony.

[Jazzrook]

Geoff Wills in his book 'Zappa and Jazz' speculates that Dick Twardzik's extraordinary composition 'The Fable of Mabel' influenced FZ.
He admits that the connections are tenuous but invites readers to listen and judge for themselves.
Here's the version from Serge Chaloff's 1954 album of the same name:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4DrlEqX7RM

[Richard Barrett]

Zappa often trumpeted his 'misanthropy' loudly. However, such proclamations should not be taken at face value. He agreed with Einstein regarding the preponderance of stupidity in the universe. A better idea of where he was coming from might be grasped from such quotes as "The first thing you have to do if you want to raise nice kids, is you have to talk to them like they are people instead of talking to them like they're property."

Whatever Einstein did or didn't say off the cuff about human stupidity (there are no corroborated sources as far as I know), Einstein was a political progressive (from a 1949 article: "I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by an educational system which would be oriented toward social goals. In such an economy, the means of production are owned by society itself and are utilized in a planned fashion. A planned economy, which adjusts production to the needs of the community, would distribute the work to be done among all those able to work and would guarantee a livelihood to every man, woman, and child. The education of the individual, in addition to promoting his own innate abilities, would attempt to develop in him a sense of responsibility for his fellow-men in place of the glorification of power and success in our present society") while Zappa unfortunately was certainly not. As for raising nice children, (some of) Zappa's own children seem presently to be squabbling publicly over his legacy, which is not nice at all.

Of course Zappa's music has many points of contact with jazz, and for me these are often his most interesting moments, also his guitar improvisations which are often much more harmonically and rhythmically adventurous than the songs that frame them. But I find it rather disappointing that after the mid-70s or so he abandoned what was one of the most radical aspects of his music, the constant intermixing and confusion of styles into something quite unique, in favour of separating them all out - albums of guitar solos, albums of notated ensemble compositions, albums of more or less misanthropic songs, and so forth, whereas on something like One Size Fits All all of these are constantly interwoven. For once I find myself in agreement with Ian: extremely talented and technically accomplished - but somehow with an enormous chip on his shoulder about "serious" music and its relation to popular culture, which spoils a lot of his work for me. (Although maybe I should add that for certain critics with a similar chip, this is a plus point...)

[Nick Armstrong]

Of tangential interest perhaps: http://www.latimes.com/business/real...nap-story.html

[Richard Barrett]

Of tangential interest perhaps: http://www.latimes.com/business/real...nap-story.html

Indeed, Caliban. I'm looking forward to moving in as soon as these tiresome chain problems are sorted out.