Consistently controversial… jazz pioneer… outspoken satirist… virtuoso guitarist… smutty exhibitionist… serious modern composer…
Frank Zappa, Mother Superior and Alchemist of the Bizarre, has been called all of these and more. Dominique Chevalier, French Zappa fan and writer, takes his readers on
a journey through Zappas production. Viva Zappa! is an enlightening tour through Zappa’s career and work, an indispensable guide to his records and a fine portrait of one of rock’s most uncompromising figures.
Zappa is remarkable for his tireless drive to experiment and has used numerous bands and orchestras to provide a distinctive richness and complexity of instrumentation that runs through his original adaptations of different styles. His arrangements are very realistic and often shaped diverse, even conflicting elements into an intense musical relationship, but the abundant imagination is strictly calculated and worked out in incredibly minute detail. “What I’m trying to describe is the type of
attention given to each lyric, melody, arrangement, improvisation, the sequence of these elements in an album, the cover art which is an extension of the musical material, the choice of what is recorded, released and/or performed during a concert, the continuity or contrast from album to album, etc…
All these detail aspects are part of the Big Structure or The Main Body Of Work. The smaller details comprise not only the contents of The Main Body Of Work, but, because of the chronology of execution, give it a ‘shape’ in an abstract sense” (From ‘200Motels’ booklet).
In his music
everything is intentional. When looking back over his musical output, it becomes clear that the entire musical history of the second part of the twentieth century is passing before our eyes: greedy and sinister governments, victims of dangerous obsessions (like the incestuous father in ‘Magdalena’), the leather brigade (‘Crew Slut’), pseudo oriental cosmic debris (Apostrophe’), religious sects run by criminals (‘Joe’s Garage, ‘Thingfish’), naivete of adolescents manipulated by cynical fashion business (‘Flower Punk’ from ‘We’re Only In It…’ or ‘I’m so cute’ from ‘Sheik Yerbouti’). Groupies, touring, disco and much, much more all go to make Zappa’s
human comedy of the modern world;
this is the saga of Zappa.
He is both a musician and social critic, and not primarily a satirist as some have claimed. The reason he composes is for music, his music. “Music is the best”. He writes: “You know, I don’t just go to work and say, ‘I’ll now make a
satire of this’. I start writing and that’s what comes out. I’m not specifically a satire person. I’m a composer with a sense of
humour.”
An overall plan gradually emerges from this network of lyrics, solos, and cross references as
many enigmas are resolved in the alchemy of word and sound.
This strange
puzzle, destined to remain obscure for those who listen with only half an ear,
is renewed as albums follow album. It both
generates the ‘conceptual continuity’, and has attracted a large number of listeners, a collection of people as large, unconditional and varied as Zappa’s music.