Form and the concept album - plain text

[Little Buddy Ray]

Form and the concept album: aspects of modernism in Frank Zappa's
early releases.
Author: Borders, James. Source: Perspectives of New Music v. 39 no1
(Winter 2001) p. 118-60 ISSN: 0031-6016 Number: BHUM02005403
Copyright: The magazine publisher is the copyright holder of this
article and it is reproduced with permission. Further reproduction of
this article in violation of the copyright is prohibited.

Record industry executives need to find out what it is they're selling
because, see, they don't know how important pop music is today. All
they know is that that's what's making money this month. They really
don't know what a revolution it is in terms of music history because
there are a lot of people working in pop music today who are doing
things that are artistic, and actually mean 'em that way! ... I think
it's living serious music!
--Frank Zappa, The Frank Zappa Companion: Four Decades of Commentary.
THE IMMEDIATE AIM of this essay is to analyze the content and form of
three early albums by Frank Zappa and The Mothers of Invention--Lumpy
Gravy, Uncle Meat, and Burnt Weeny Sandwich--and demonstrate their
affinity with certain works by Igor Stravinsky. It also seeks to
advance a critical approach that views rock as a recorded art, and
rock recordings as aural artifacts. Such analysis, according to a
leading proponent, Paul Clarke, is based "on the complex of created
relationships between sounds as they act on us through time."(FN1) The
unusually wide range of musical sources and techniques Zappa
incorporated into his recordings at this stage of his career raises a
prior question: how did these albums figure into the cultural dialogue
between rock and the changing experience of modernity in America in
the 1960s? Let us address this question before turning to the analysis
to place it into proper historical context.
The short answer is that by juxtaposing different musical genres,
Zappa, who considered himself a composer foremost, was attacking the
entrenched critical and academic establishments whose members
distinguished categorically between art and popular music,
particularly as regards structural and tonal complexity.(FN2) To
paraphrase Carl Dahlhaus, Zappa's was a music directed against the
esoteric quality of art.(FN3) Popular music intended not for
thoughtless consumption but careful listening also strained against
the repetitiveness and standardization of Theodor Adorno's "consumer
music."(FN4) By contrasting broadly different approaches to
composition, moreover, Zappa was implicitly rejecting the kind of
hairsplitting that set the "modernist" music of composers like
Karlheinz Stockhausen and Pierre Boulez apart from more accessible
"avant-garde" works by John Cage and other so-called
experimentalists.(FN5).
Zappa was not alone in striving for this kind of pluralistic
synthesis. Indeed a number of self-styled modernists were welcoming
the eclecticism of contemporary art in sixties popular media. Susan
Sontag, for example, waxed enthusiastic about the lowering of barriers
that had formerly separated high from low, past from present in an
essay first published in Mademoiselle.(FN6) Although Zappa probably
held a similar opinion, he could not help giving it a satirical twist,
drawing upon sources disparate and sometimes vulgar enough to exceed
the bounds of even the most broad-minded critic's good taste.
Unlike Sontag, Zappa's intent was hardly theoretical. Neither did he
seek to create a truly unpopular music with "no commercial potential,"
a label a Columbia Records executive once hung on his work to which he
often referred.(FN7) Rather, as he repeatedly stated, his albums were
market products designed to appeal to record buyers searching for the
newest sound, the latest protest music, the most outrageous novelty.
So he balanced his instrumental music with songs, the lyrics of which
mostly satirized the manufactured fads and fashions of contemporary
America. Never mind Zappa's serious and well-known involvement in all
phases of record production, marketing, and promotion, or professed
willingness to reap whatever profits came along--We're Only In It For
The Money is the title of one of Zappa's early albums. That was part
of the put-on. Zappa's early recordings were indeed "music about
music,"(FN8) but they were also parodic popular critiques of the mass
media, advertising, and the consumer culture that sustained them all,
designed to sell in volume.(FN9).
With respect to the place of Zappa's early recorded output in
theoretical discourse, it should be obvious that his musical
borrowings and uses of collage and quick-cut techniques were never
ambivalent--they always had a point. Thus since Zappa's early work in
no way anticipates the ahistoricity, ironic detachment, and playful
depthlessness characteristic of postmodernist quotation, it could be
classed as modernist.(FN10) There is more to support this label than
mere wordplay, as I shall argue below. Indeed, careful listening
reveals an attention to form--the organization of recorded sound in
time--that places the three albums discussed in this essay uneasily
(and perhaps consciously so) into the tradition of twentieth-century
musical modernism. Before examining this hypothesis, Zappa's early
work needs to be put into the larger context of sixties rock and its
connections with modernism.
Perhaps because genres closely associated with postmodern
intertextuality, like punk, rap, and new wave, had already emerged by
the time of their writing, some rock critics--most notably John
Rockwell(FN11)--have placed particular emphasis on the tendency of
late sixties rock to borrow melodies, harmonies, and instrumentation
from "classical" music. This is nowhere as prevalent as in discussions
of progressive rock, exemplified by British bands like Pink Floyd,
Yes, King Crimson, and Emerson, Lake & Palmer. Critical discussions
during and shortly after the peak of progressive rock's popularity,
however, focused not on any indebtedness to the classics per se, but
on its eclecticism.(FN12) The best uses of borrowed genres--jazz,
blues, folk, non-Western music, as well as the classics--were not then
viewed as reflections of artists' social or intellectual pretensions,
as Rockwell would have it. Rather they were part and parcel of the
modern condition that Sontag described: a shifting between traditions
and ideas that made listeners aware of the confined conceptual spaces
they occupied. "Art today is a new kind of instrument, an instrument
for modifying consciousness and organizing new modes of sensibility,"
she wrote.(FN13) With modernist notions like this spilling off the
pages of Mademoiselle, it is easy to understand how the quest for an
expanded consciousness could be transformed into a consumer item, like
a rock album.
Complexity was another trait of rock that listeners identified at the
time. This was not so much the complexity of contemporary art
music--indeed many quoted works are "chestnuts"(FN14)--or the extended
chords and forms of jazz, or the almost competitive virtuosity of the
performers. Rather, I would argue, it had primarily to do with
recording techniques. The aesthetic of modernism, with its promise of
art-science synthesis, thus reached into the very mode of the music's
production.
The roots of this aesthetic reach back at least as far as producer
Phil Spector's "Wall of Sound" recordings of the early 1960s.(FN15) In
these one readily detects the expertly crafted, multi-layered, though
hardly classical-sounding arrangements that would have been impossible
to recreate outside a recording studio. Spector's hit singles also
involved what were, by the then-prevailing standards of rock'n'roll,
exotic orchestral instruments like the timpani and castanets, along
with more familiar-sounding strings, woodwinds, and brass. With these
he sought to create what he called "little symphonies for the
kids,"(FN16) though he seldom scored them in a "classical" manner.
String ensembles, for example, were typically heard in short bursts
within multi-textured accompaniments. Tracing the classical
orientation of progressive rock to the recording industry and Spector,
rather than to qualities inherent in the classics themselves, makes
sense given the esteem in which later producers and rock musicians
held his work.(FN17) Thus qualities of eclecticism, complexity, and
technical sophistication figured prominently in rock from the early
sixties on.
Yet rock of the mid-sixties through early seventies differs from
earlier work in that it sometimes drew heavily upon the experimental
orientation of the European avant-garde. The list of groups and
artists whose recordings are noteworthy for introducing electronic
sounds and tape techniques to a broad audience is short, but includes
some important names. The Beatles and their producer George Martin
incorporated reverse or accelerated playback, multi-tracking, and
musique concrète into albums released between 1965 and 1968.(FN18)
Jimi Hendrix was experimenting with feedback effects around the same
time.(FN19) The Velvet Underground incorporated electronic noise into
its stage performances and recordings, due in part to Andy Warhol's
influence.(FN20) Brian Wilson, leader of the Beach Boys, used tape
manipulation on "She's Goin' Bald" (1967) released on Smiley Smile,
part of a more ambitious though abortive experimental album set,
Smile;(FN21) before that he had added the Theremin to the
instrumentation for "I Just Wasn't Made for these Times" (May 1966)
and "Good Vibrations" (October 1966).(FN22) Keith Emerson brought
sophisticated music synthesis to a rock audience.
Topping the list of artists inspired by experimental trends in the
European avant-garde is Frank Zappa, who led the founding members of
The Mothers of Invention from 1964 through 1969.(FN23) The group's
appearances at the Whiskey A Go-Go and The Trip in West Hollywood and
at the Garrick Theatre in New York anticipated performance art by
decades.(FN24) Their first record, the double LP Freak Out! (July
1966),(FN25) includes the large group improvisation "Help, I'm a
Rock," which was conceived live at an L.A. nightclub called The
Trip.(FN26) Other nods in the direction of experimentalism include
"Who Are the Brain Police?" which involves extensive tape
manipulation, and "The Return of the Son of Monster Magnet," a
twelve-minute, free-form electronic and voice piece. "It Can't Happen
Here" alternates between Sprechstimme, instrumental chamber music,
contemporary jazz, and tape effects.
Freak Out! was not only an avant-rock album but a satire on the
relatively new concept of "life-style"--"straight" and "hip" alike. In
delivering their message of the injustice, chaos, and stupidity of
contemporary American society, The Mothers were not beyond ridiculing
their listeners in feigned Mexican- or African-American accents. But
the satirical weapon of choice was music. The forms, chord changes,
vocal harmonies, and timbres of doo-wop and R & B ballads were
lampooned ("I Ain't Got No Heart," "Go Cry on Somebody Else's
Shoulder," "How Could I Be Such a Fool," "You Didn't Try to Call Me,"
and "I'm Not Satisfied"), as were some of rock's newer clichés. The
riff underlying "Hungry Freaks, Daddy" originates in the Rolling
Stones' 1965 smash hit, "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction." The sound of
"Motherly Love" mimics that of the proto-Bubblegum band, Paul Revere
and the Raiders, who regularly headlined Dick Clark's afternoon
television show "Where the Action Is," aimed at a newly identified
demographic: teeny-boppers.(FN27) "Who Are the Brain Police?" with its
aural effects and paranoid lyrics, reflects the dark side of
psychedelia.
In addition to the unpredictable shifts among musical styles and text
meaning, Freak Out! sends other conflicting signals. The cutting-edge
psychedelic cover art evokes West Coast Flower Power at its zenith,
yet the liner notes remark condescendingly on listeners' emotional and
intellectual limitations. Concerning "Any Way the Wind Blows," for
example, we read that:.
This is a song I wrote about three years ago when I was considering
divorce. If I had never gotten divorced, this piece of trivial
nonsense would never have been recorded. It is included in this
collection because, in a nutshell, kids, it is ... how shall I say it?
... it is intellectually and emotionally ACCESSIBLE for you. Hah!
Maybe it is even right down your alley.
False acknowledgments of pop icons who "contributed materially" to the
album--Elvis Presley, Bob Dylan, and Brian Epstein, among
others--appear alongside names of twentieth-century composers whom
Zappa considered truly important influences: Stravinsky, Anton Webern,
Arnold Schoenberg, and Karlheinz Stockhausen. The jackets of this and
later Mothers albums echo a sentiment first expressed by a defiant
Edgard Varèse, idol of Zappa's youth: "The present-day composer
refuses to die!"(FN28).
Any concern that The Mothers would be considered just another novelty
act may have troubled Zappa, but probably only as he imagined himself
on his way to the bank. Before founding the group, in fact, he had
recognized the possibility of making a living by combining avant-garde
music and humor. Billing himself as a contemporary composer, for
instance, he had appeared playing an upturned bicycle on a 1963
broadcast of "The Steve Allen Show," a late-night television celebrity
interview/comedy program.(FN29) Whereas most academic composers of the
day would likely have shunned such publicity, Zappa relished it.
According to a friend at the time, Paul Buff, the appearance "in part
... convinced him of the viability of producing the kind of music he
ended up producing."(FN30) Zappa even tried to cash in on his
connection with the Allen show, incorporating the comedian's shtick
into an early single. He dubbed a pre-Mothers group "Baby Ray & The
Ferns" and entitled the A-side of their only single "How's Your
Bird?"(FN31) (Allen often dropped the words "bird" and "fern" into
conversations with his guests as potentially embarrassing, if
humorous, hip double entendre for male and female genitalia
respectively. "How's your bird?"--a frequently asked question on the
show--seems innocent compared with the sexual allusions on Zappa's
recordings of the seventies and eighties.).
Freak Out! was followed in May 1967 by Absolutely Free, an album which
like its predecessor connects rock, avant-garde music, and satirical
social commentary. Its targets are the southern California life-style
and American consumer culture--note the double-edged irony of the
album's title, a pleonasm commonly used in sixties advertising that
could just as easily have originated in the counterculture. Featured
is "Brown Shoes Don't Make It," a seven-and-a-half-minute assault on
twisted middle-class aspirations that shifts musical ensembles and
styles from atonality and Sprechstimme to blues-based rock in almost
stream of consciousness fashion. Eclecticism is the norm for the album
and quick cuts are ubiquitous. A short, mostly instrumental number,
"Amnesia Vivace," for example, shifts from Stravinsky's Le Sacre du
printemps and L'Oiseau de feu to Gene Chandler's "Duke of Earl"
(1962).(FN31) Other "classical" sources include Stravinsky's Histoire
du soldat and Gustav Holst's "Jupiter" from the Planets suite.(FN33).
A look into the background of a song on the album, "Status Back Baby,"
suggests how fervently Zappa sought to introduce listeners not just to
his brand of satire, but to twentieth-century concert music.(FN34)
Besides borrowing from the first tableau of Stravinsky's
Petrushka(FN35) (compare rehearsal numbers 2 through 5 with "Status
Back Baby," 1:27-2:07), it features a paraphrase of the opening
measures of Claude Debussy's "La fille au cheveux de lin" (Préludes,
book 1) in the triplet countermelody played on the soprano saxophone
(albeit transposed from G(flat sign) to G Major).(FN36) Meanwhile the
lead singer laments his loss of popularity at the high school.
Comparing "Status Back Baby" with a bootleg release of an earlier
version(FN37)--a song from a rock musical Zappa and Don Van Vliet
(Captain Beefheart) conceived, entitled I Was a Teenage Maltshop--it
becomes clear that the "classical" material was incorporated
relatively late in the evolution of the piece. As shown in Example 1
the original accompaniment was a rock'n'roll commonplace lacking in
"Status Back Baby." This and other comparisons of preliminary and
released versions of songs suggest how much Zappa was learning about
twentieth-century music during the mid-to-late sixties.(FN38).
In January 1968 Verve Records released the third Mothers' record,
We're Only In It For The Money, a send-up of Sgt. Pepper. The satire
begins with the album's visual presentation: instead of the garishly
attired Victorian-era brass band, artist Cal Shenkel's cover design
features the group in drag with "MOTHERS" spelled out in vegetables
and bits of watermelon in the foreground, and a collage of famous and
infamous people in the back. The gatefold picture on a bright yellow
background and the printed lyric sheet on red complete the visual
parody.(FN39) The lyrics and arrangements of some songs were similarly
intended to puncture what Zappa evidently saw as the Beatles' glib
psychedelia.(FN40) Compare, for example, "Lucy in the Sky with
Diamonds" with "Absolutely Free" on We're Only In It For The Money.
Zappa skewered John Lennon's hallucinatory lyrics, using nonsense
rhymes and quoting the names of Santa's reindeer from "'Twas the Night
Before Christmas." He also used a harpsichord accompaniment where
George Martin had created an ersatz effect with the harpsichord stop
on a Lowrey electronic organ. The authentic thus replaces the phony.
"Bow Tie Daddy," "Lonely Little Girl," and "Mom And Dad" contrast with
Paul McCartney's more conventional view of the alienation middle-class
youth in "She's Leaving Home."(FN41) Yet despite its many visual,
timbral, stylistic, and textual allusions to Sgt. Pepper, Money is
still an extension of Absolutely Free in its free-wheeling combination
of satire--the main target this time is the hippie life-style--and
musical experimentation, particularly atonality ("The Chrome Plated
Megaphone of Destiny") and electronic composition in the style of
Stockhausen's Kontakte ("Nasal Retentive Calliope Music," "The Idiot
Bastard Son").
Zappa's quotation of twentieth-century art music and incorporation of
electronic and tape sounds are two indices of his early efforts to
fuse rock and contemporary art music, but by the late sixties these
were becoming rock commonplaces as experimentation spread throughout
the recording industry. Meanwhile, the sequence of related songs that
became known as the "concept album" had revealed itself a literary
rather than a musical form.(FN42) Considered in these terms, Freak
Out! could be considered a song cycle with a unifying sociological
theme: the Los Angeles scene of the mid-sixties, with its freak
counterculture and racial tensions. Similar statements could be made
about Absolutely Free, We're Only In It For The Money, and most other
concept albums for that matter.(FN43) The musical traits that
distinguished The Mothers' extended live performances--asymmetrical
rhythms and unpredictable shifts from one sound, style, or song
excerpt to another--had been difficult to bring across on record,
hence the reliance upon songs with satirical lyrics. But how many more
send-ups of hippies and the middle class could the group get away with
before committing commercial suicide by so obviously repeating
themselves? Besides, Zappa's contempt for lyrics was by then becoming
well known.
The Mothers did subsequently release an album of doo-wop songs along
the lines explored on their previous records--Cruising With Ruben And
The Jets (November 1968)--but Zappa thought even of this project in
modernist terms:.
I conceived that album along the same lines as the compositions in
Stravinsky's neoclassical period. If he could take the forms and
clichés of the classical era and pervert them, why not do the same for
the rules and regulations that applied to doo-wop in the
fifties?(FN44).
Before Cruising, it turns out that Zappa had struck even further down
the path of musical modernism. In contrast with the extended forms of
emerging progressive rock, which had been inspired by and in turn
inspired drug use that he had publicly rejected,(FN45) Zappa opted for
tightly organized musical structures that would reveal themselves only
through careful, presumably unimpaired listening.(FN46).
Beginning with Lumpy Gravy (May 1968), the first album-length record
he produced on his own, Zappa took the concept album to the next stage
in its modernist development--a stage that reflected his growing
familiarity with musical models outside rock. Side one ("Lumpy Gravy
Part One") is organized according to principles of repetition and
variation borrowed from Stravinsky's works;(FN47) also noteworthy is
the progress from quotation to paraphrase of contemporary styles.
Following Lumpy Gravy, as we shall see, Zappa employed the
variation-rondo idea to organize music for two more albums: Uncle Meat
(April 1969) and Burnt Weeny Sandwich (February 1970). Although he
abandoned this approach to form after these releases, and for a time
shelved his dream of fusing rock and contemporary art music, he
nonetheless retained a transformational approach to repetition
throughout his career as a key aspect of what he called "Conceptual
Continuity.".
Early in 1967 Zappa pitched a "solo" album to Capitol Records--earlier
Mothers albums for Verve were produced by Tom Wilson, MGM/Verve's
young East Coast Director of Arrangement and Repertoire whose credits
included Bob Dylan's first "electric" albums.(FN48) What Zappa
apparently sought at this stage was artistic control over what he
later called his "serious music," a term he used, ironically at times,
to describe chamber and orchestral works in which contrasting and/or
simultaneous layers of atonal and tonal music vie for attention with
humorous titles, programs, or ballet scenarios.(FN49) Lumpy Gravy,
recorded over an eleven-day stretch at New York's Apostolic Studios in
February 1967, involved a pick-up ensemble of fifty-one musicians
including one of The Mothers (saxophonist Bunk Gardner); added later
were other members of the group plus assorted hangers-on who held
disjointed conversations on topics Zappa suggested as they sat under a
heavily draped grand piano with the sostenuto pedal depressed.(FN50)
In their final edited form these seem to have been aimed satirically
at hippies.(FN51).
Besides the contractual disputes that plagued the project--MGM/Verve
quashed the deal with Capitol and released Lumpy Gravy in May
1968(FN52)--the condition of the session tapes delivered to Zappa
caused considerable delay. Individual tracks, recorded on separate
lengths of audio tape, were spliced unpredictably one after another;
some tape was reportedly unusable.(FN53) All these materials had to be
evaluated, sorted, catalogued, edited, and mixed, a laborious process
that Zappa and engineer Gary Kellgren completed at a different
studio.(FN54) The fact that this took six months reflects not just the
poor state of the tapes, but also Zappa's meticulous attention to
organizing the instrumental and spoken sections into a coherent,
album-length form. His reputation for musical perfectionism thus goes
back to his first large-scale production work and an unfortunate
necessity--that of cleaning up a mess. The experience nonetheless
suggested to Zappa a new avenue of invention: the studio editing
process as the crucial stage of composition. Source recordings might
be hastily done or even captured live; what mattered most was
post-recording production and, ultimately, the organization of
sound.(FN55).
Despite its serious intent, Lumpy Gravy was, like earlier Mothers'
releases, parodic. The target of the packaging, for instance, was the
marketing of classical music. Before removing the jacket's protective
cellophane the buyer confronted Zappa's two personae, each
representing a different side of his professional aspirations.(FN56)
The front cover features a serious-looking Zappa wearing a two-tone,
short-sleeve T-shirt of the type then worn by amateur softball
players, emblazoned with the corporate-sounding word, "PIPCO." He
wears dark pants and suspenders with sprigs of red flowers and a red
button. Accompanying his trademark mustache and long straggly black
hair is a day's growth of beard. Unexpectedly, though, he stands on a
conductor's podium, albeit in tennis shoes without socks. On the back
cover leered Zappa's alter ego: the composer and conductor, dressed in
top hat, white tie and tails, holding white kid gloves. His face is
still stubbled, but now he is smiling broadly, if a bit menacingly.
The album cover sends other mixed marketing signals. The performing
ensemble is identified as ABNUCEALS EMUUKHA electric SYMPHONY
orchestra & CHORUS, with "& CHORUS" scrawled at an angle below the
neatly printed name.(FN57) Moreover, as with many classical music
albums, the conductor is billed before the project: "FRANCIS VINCENT
ZAPPA CONDUCTS LUMPY GRAVY a curiously inconsistent piece which
started out as a BALLET but probably didn't make it." Buyers must have
wondered what kind of record this was, describing a failed project
that had yet to reach fruition. Let us, though, explore another
intentional miscue: Zappa's throwing them off track by characterizing
the work as "inconsistent.".
Removing the vinyl from the record jacket created the next confusion
of identities: unlike earlier rock LPs except We're Only In It For The
Money, Lumpy Gravy has continuous sides--there are no rills to
separate individual bands. The impact of this novelty, considered in
light of owners' repeated physical involvement with their albums at
approximately twenty-minute intervals as they played them, cannot be
stressed enough in this era of compact discs and programmable players,
capable of storing and playing hundreds of recordings for many hours,
completely unseen and untouched. The inspiration for the material form
of the record's sides may have been Zappa's albums of Stravinsky,
Varèse, or other classical music. It is certain, however, that as a
composer of recorded music Zappa intended the sides of Lumpy Gravy to
be heard as one would a concert, that is, without interruption or
excerpt and in order. This is clearly indicated in the gatefold:
"NOTE: listen to side one first"; underneath is scrawled "AND TURN IT
ALL THE WAY UP!!" The discipline of the classical concert hall was
demanded, if simultaneously lampooned.
Critical reaction to Lumpy Gravy has been mixed at best. Zappa devotee
Ben Watson, for instance, called it "a provocative and puzzling record
that ... refuses to 'add up ."(FN58) Except perhaps for a brief,
esoteric dig at the New York arts scene--the monotonous voice in the
dialogue about darkness, paranoia, and Kansas is a cross between Andy
Warhol's and John Cage's(FN59)--the album wasn't even funny. Nor did
it enjoy commercial success; it peaked at number 159 in the U.S.
charts for one week.(FN60) Yet, as has also been noted elsewhere,
Lumpy Gravy was a mine for songs Zappa would rework for later release,
as well as a tribute to the European musical avant-garde.(FN61) So
far, however, neither the form and its origins in contemporary art
music, nor the consequences for his later releases have been
recognized.
The original vinyl sides give the first clue to the large-scale form
of the work, dividing Lumpy Gravy into "Part One" and "Part Two."
"Part One" in particular bears witness to a structural sense that
synthesizes contemporary music and rock. It may be described as a
rondo, but one whose refrain is the second, rather than the first
element: A B1 C B2 D B3 + coda. Here the traditional rondo pattern is,
so to speak, turned inside-out, perhaps as a nod in the direction of
commercial viability given the resemblance between this structure and
the verse-chorus pattern of the pop song. The repetition is only
apparent, however, because the refrain is varied with each recurrence
so that one may speak of a variation-rondo form. Rather than
attempting to reconstruct further a musical score that never
completely existed given the nature of the medium, I have set out a
time-line description of the recording in Example 3.(FN62) (Timings of
subdivided sections of music are given in parentheses.).
The first statement of the refrain, B1 (the melody of which is
transcribed in Example 2), reveals an affinity to pop and light jazz
numbers Zappa recorded before forming the Mothers.(FN63) The ensemble
includes instruments typically heard on late fifties and early sixties
instrumentals: vibraphone, piano, electric guitar, Fender bass, and
drum kit. The emphasis is on the melody, which is accompanied by
closely-spaced block chords played in relatively slow harmonic rhythm.
But things soon veer out of control. Unexpectedly a trumpet and
trombone blare out the verse the third time it is heard (measures
16-19), after which the ensemble instruments are accelerated through
tape manipulation. The form, which at first seemed to conform to the
standard pop template of two verses plus chorus plus verse (AABA),
truncates the return of the A section (in measures 17-19) and closes
with a four-measure section (measures 20-23) that leads nowhere. Yet
by far the most incongruous features of the refrain melody, later
furnished with lyrics and entitled "Oh No" (Weasels Ripped My Flesh,
August 1970), are its asymmetrical meter and the polyrhythms produced
by the quarter-note triplets played against a steady rock beat. These
confirm one's impression that this is a pop tune by way of Petrushka's
Shrovetide Fair.
The second statement of the refrain (B2 at 7:11) involves changes in
instrumentation, arrangement, harmonization, and form. Strings,
woodwinds, marimba, and snare drum are added to the light jazz combo;
the extra instruments are multi-tracked and, at times, accelerated
electronically. Sometimes the string accompaniment seems oddly out of
sync. Careful listening reveals that the articulation is reversed in
places, though the correct melody and accompanimentare heard (at
7:48-7:56, 8:00-8:03, and 8:13-8:22). Zappa presumably asked the
session musicians to play these passages backward, having in mind the
aural effect of reverse playback. Beyond these changes, the melody of
B2 is accompanied by parallel triads, a harmonic strategy that Zappa
probably borrowed from doo-wop.(FN64) A new extension combines the
closing, and now repeated, four-bar phrase (see Example 2, measures
20-23) with an accompaniment paraphrasing the First Tableau of
Petrushka (compare rehearsal numbers 26 to 29 to "Part One,"
8:23-9:16).(FN65) The final statement of the refrain (B3 at 13:46)
involves not so much conventional variation procedures as editing and
manipulation of the tape recording of B2. The refrain is dissected and
the resulting fragments sped up and played backwards. Avant-garde and
rock techniques thus intersect once again with modernist eclecticism.
The different "episodes" (A, C, D, and the coda, E) are pastiches of
spoken text, tape collages, and allusions to contemporary concert
music (underlined in Example 3). The musical allusions, to say the
least, reflect Zappa's sense of humor as well as his experience as a
musician, record producer, and listener. Half relate to various styles
of pop music, from hot jazz to surf music. Indeed two surf snippets
are so West Coast as to be Far East, hence the tongue-in-cheek comment
"Almost Chinese, huh?" (6:17-6:18 and 6:27-6:35). The remaining
allusions are to the styles of three composers whom Zappa identified
(in the liner notes to Freak Out! and elsewhere)(FN66) as personal
favorites: Stravinsky, Varèse, and Webern (hence the designations
Stravinskiana, Varèsiana, and Weberniana in the table; I have not
indicated the indebtedness of the electronic music sections to
Stockhausen's Kontakte, though this is probable). Among the styles
referenced are those of Petrushka, Varèse's Déserts and Hyperprism,
and Webern's Variationen, op. 30. In a figurative sense, these admired
styles and composers have the last word, for "Part One" is brought to
a semblance of closure by a longish coda (14:19-15:51) in which
stylistic references to all three succeed each other without any
intervening spoken or electronic material.(FN68).
Thinking about the organization of the concept album led Zappa to
explore different ways of connecting the musical and narrative
threads. Working with visual media, particularly collage and film,
clearly influenced his approach and reliance on editorial creativity,
as if he were borrowing a page from Soviet director V. I. Pudovkin's
book: "The foundation of film art is editing."(FN69) Yet Zappa's
experience and professed enthusiasm for the movies and avant-garde art
should not keep us from looking for primary inspiration in
twentieth-century music. That he was conscious of the abstract musical
form of "Lumpy Gravy Part One," and kept it in mind some decades after
the album's release, is confirmed by the titles of indexes for a
compact disc re-issue (Rykodisc RCD 10504), which Zappa wrote himself.
(These are given in square brackets in Example 3.) The first two
presentations of the refrain (B1, B2) are identified as "Oh No"; the
third (B3) is called "I Don't Know if I Can Go through This Again,"
referring to a remark that a session musician mumbled, apparently
immediately before playing the third statement.
If the above analysis of "Part One" be granted, one might be forgiven
for speculating about a model. Zappa doubtless recognized the
alternation of instrumental and electronic sounds that forms the basic
outline of Varèse's Déserts. Webern's Variationen would also seem a
possible inspiration.(FN70) Yet given the clearly recognizable
relationship among statements of the "Oh No" refrain a more likely
point of departure is Stravinsky's music. The second movement of the
Octet or Symphonies of Wind Instruments, either of which could be
construed as a variationrondo, are possibilities.(FN71) Yet it would
be uncharacteristic of Zappa never to have mentioned or quoted an
admired work--to my knowledge there are no musical references to
either piece in all his recorded output. Considering this evidence, a
more likely source is the Suite from Histoire du soldat, with its
recurring "Soldier's March." Not only did The Mothers and their
successors perform excerpts from this work,(FN72) but Zappa used a
similar instrumentation for "Igor's Boogie" on Burnt Weeny Sandwich,
discussed below.
Admonitions that rock should not be analyzed with the tools created
for concert music, let alone with an ear to references that would lead
away from its "authentic" roots,(FN73) might lead us to question this
search for "classical" inspiration were it not for Zappa himself
pointing us in that direction. Indeed he invited analysis of his
recordings and was genuinely disappointed at his fans' lack of
perception. A widely used music-appreciation textbook quotes Zappa on
his frustrations at the time: "These things are so carefully
constructed that it breaks my heart when people don't dig into them
and see all the levels that I put into them."(FN74) For all his
palpable affection for doo-wop and rhythm and blues, which he admired
as much for the music as their humor, twentieth-century compositions
are credited for their intellectual sophistication. Listening to them
was, in Zappa's apparent paraphrase of Charles Ives, "the ultimate
test of ... intelligence."(FN75).
The visual, musical, and textual connections that link early Mothers'
albums likewise invite analysis along lines of recurrence and
variation.(FN76) Accompanying Zappa's photos on Lumpy Gravy and We're
Only In It For The Money are cartoon balloons reading, respectively,
"IS THIS PHASE 2 OF: WE'RE ONLY IN IT FOR THE MONEY?" and "IS THIS
PHASE ONE OF LUMPY GRAVY?" Cal Shenkel's collages of found objects
also put a common visual stamp on the album art, particularly Uncle
Meat and Burnt Weeny Sandwich.(FN77) The Mothers' fictional groupie,
Suzy Creamcheese, is mentioned on Freak Out!, Absolutely Free, and
Uncle Meat. The character Uncle Meat plays a role in Cruising With
Ruben And The Jets, Uncle Meat, and The Grand Wazoo. With regard to
rock parody, "Lumpy Gravy Part One" and Uncle Meat both use the
archetypal garage-band song "Louie, Louie" as a point of reference
(Uncle Meat, side I, cut 7; see below, Example 4), as do the
paraphrases "Plastic People" (Absolutely Free) and "Ruthie-Ruthie"
(commercially released for the first time on You Can't Do That On
Stage Anymore Vol. 1). Zappa also used lyrics to connect his projects.
The invocation "Hear my Plea," for example, may be heard on Cruising
With Ruben And The Jets and Uncle Meat ("Dog Breath, In the Year of
the Plague"). The song "Absolutely Free," which is the title of The
Mothers' second album, is found on its third release, We're Only In It
For The Money.
Along the same lines, "Lumpy Gravy Part One" was the point of musical
departure for two subsequent albums. In the double LP Uncle Meat, the
vinyl format again influenced listeners' perception of structure:
there are no rills. Like Lumpy Gravy, the continuous sides were
intended as totalities to be heard from start to finish, forcing the
record buyer to do the work of structural listening. Besides this,
there is an obvious musical connection: "King Kong" on Uncle Meat
originated in "Lumpy Gravy Part Two." For our purposes however the
most interesting link is a formal one.
The variation-rondo of Uncle Meat, though similar to "Lumpy Gravy Part
One," is more complex, in part because it involves three of the four
original vinyl sides (one, two, and four; note below the use of Roman
numerals for record side, Arabic for cut); side three alternates
between vocal and instrumental songs in the manner of We're Only In It
For The Money. As shown in Example 4, the themes (labeled A, B, and C)
are interwoven throughout and generally identified respectively as
"Uncle Meat," "Dog Breath," and "King Kong." There is another
important development in Uncle Meat: despite the importance of spoken
and electronically manipulated material and purely instrumental
music--the liner notes state, "Basically this is an instrumental
album"--songs with lyrics figure into the variation-rondo form:.
(TABLE) A1 V A2 B1 A3 W B2 X A4 Y C1 Z B3 C2 ... C3-8.
Despite the freedom with which Zappa interwove the themes and their
respective variations into the complex fabric of Uncle Meat, he
employed various devices both to connect related material and to
differentiate it from other music. Mallet percussion, harpsichord, and
woodwinds figure prominently in all four realizations of "Uncle Meat"
(I.1, 4, 6, 11); in close proximity to all but the first variation
(namely A2, in which the music of A1 is dissected, accelerated, and
played backward) are Suzy Creamcheese's deadpan monologues (labeled
"sc" in the example). "Dog Breath, In the Year of the Plague" (B1)
concludes with a quartal ostinato in 7 4 time (probably inspired by
Holst, "Jupiter," Planets suite), which in turn resembles that
undergirding "A Pound for a Brown" (B3).(FN78) Ian Underwood's
saxophone solo (C2, II.8) is performed over the same Eb modal
accompaniment as "King Kong Itself" (C3, IV.1). Zappa also used brief
electronic or other taped sounds to distinguish one piece from another
on sides one and two. While searching for musical clues to the album's
organization, we should not overlook the obvious references to
variation and multi-movement form in the titles: "The Dog Breath
Variations" (I.8); "The Uncle Meat Variations" (II.3); and "Prelude to
King Kong" (II.5). It is also clear from the titles that the fourth
side involves jazz-style improvisations on the "King Kong" theme as
performed by featured members of the group.(FN79).
Uncle Meat, arguably the avant-rock triumph of Zappa's early career,
broke fresh ground not just by moving away from Flower Power
psychedelia with which The Mothers had been associated, but also from
their brand of guerrilla theater and toward what Dominique Chevalier
calls electric chamber music.(FN80) Yet the financial downside of
sustaining a nine-member band signaled trouble ahead. Indeed, this is
the subject of a spoken interlude on Uncle Meat, "If We'd All Been
Living in California...." Making matters worse, MGM delayed paying the
group its royalties on the first four albums and censored lyrics on
later pressings, which led Zappa to file suit and form his own
production and record companies. Creating tensions of a different kind
were the increasing technical demands of Zappa's new music, which
required lengthy rehearsals and reportedly exceeded the abilities of
some original Mothers.(FN81) These and other factors led Zappa to
disband the group in October 1969. In a press release announcing the
break-up he wrote: "It is possible that, at a later date, when
audiences have properly assimilated the recorded work of the group, a
reformation might take place."(FN82).
Zappa seems never to have been without recorded material, however, and
was soon planning to issue a ten- or twelve-record set by the
disbanded group, but negotiations with a record company fell
through.(FN83) Adjusting his aims to prevailing commercial realities,
he released some of this material in February 1970 as a single LP,
Burnt Weeny Sandwich. If his press statement about the break-up were
not enough, the structure of this album--based once again on the
variation principle (see Example 5)--proves that Zappa had not yet
exhausted his attempts to cross-pollinate rock and contemporary art
music. Burnt Weeny Sandwich has been described as "complex
instrumental music sandwiched between two chirpy pop songs" and an
attempt to introduce the public to music more like Stravinsky than The
Doors.(FN84) In fact, like his two previous releases it has a tightly
organized structure involving six cuts on a rilled side one as well as
connections between side one and an extended piece on side two.
Perhaps it was nostalgia for happier times--namely those of Freak Out!
and Cruising With Ruben And The Jets--that led Zappa to frame his
album with two rhythm and blues covers, "WPLJ" and "Valarie," songs
that stand apart from the others and relate to them formally only in
so far as they loosely connect the beginning and end of the
album.(FN85) (Given the similarity of style, though not theme or
harmonic structure, they are labeled X and Y in Example 5.) The
relationship between the album's sides truly manifests itself in
musical connections of a type we have encountered before: a
tape-accelerated reprise of "Aybe Sea" (I.D1) brings the music for
"Little House I Used to Live In" to a close (II.D2). This nearly
nineteen-minute uninterrupted counterpoise to side one involves five
sections of instrumental music, including two (F1 and F2) that were
reversed and grafted together in subsequent live performances, such as
that heard on Fillmore East--June 1971. The pastiche-like character of
this cut is confirmed by the inclusion of a violin solo by Sugar Cane
Harris (G), who performed with Zappa after The Mothers' break-up but
was not with the group that recorded the "Little House" themes. (The
album's liner notes fail to identify all the musicians who performed,
though some are pictured. Mothers fans would have known that the
original group did not include a violinist.).
Following "WPLJ," side one is organized into the pattern A1 B1 C1 A2
B2 C2. As on Uncle Meat, related material is connected in various
ways. Besides sharing the same Stravinskian harmonic language, the
instrumentation of "Igor's Boogie, Phase One" (A1)--clarinet, cornet,
drum set--is the same as "Igor's Boogie, Phase Two" (A2). Both
obviously derive from Historie du soldat, as mentioned above. Cuts
three and six, "Overture to a Holiday in Berlin" (B1) and "Holiday in
Berlin, Full-Blown" (B2) are self-parodies of a 3 4 melody that Zappa
had composed in 1961 as part of a score for a film called The World's
Greatest Sinner.(FN86) The off-key treatment of both cuts, complete
with boozy saxophone solos, evokes Kurt Weill's Aufstieg und Fall der
Stadt Mahagonny. Since by his own admission Zappa was not a fan of
Weill's music,(FN87) his choice of a cabaret style associated with the
Weimar Republic may reflect unpleasant memories of his encounters with
radical German youths in 1968. Of a particular incident on this tour
Michael Gray has written:.
The audience at Zappa's Berlin concert demanded that he make some
public declaration of intention to bring down capitalism. Zappa
refused. The audience screamed "Fascist!" at him and chanted "Mothers
of Reaction! Mothers of Reaction!"(FN88).
Zappa once again used music to lampoon what he saw as the conformity
underlying the European youth revolt.(FN89) He might also have been
seeking to hitch his record to the surprising commercial star of
Weill's Weimar-era pieces. The Doors had recorded the "Alabama Song"
from Mahagonny on their debut album (1967) and Zappa's first record
company, MGM, had released a Broadway cast recording of The Threepenny
Opera.(FN90) In a related development, Joe Masteroff's musical,
Cabaret (music by Jon Kander, lyrics by Fred Ebb), which is set during
the same era, had opened at New York's Broadhurst Theatre in November
1966, though it had yet to be adapted to film (1972).
The third varied component of Burnt Weeny Sandwich, side one, involves
Zappa's blues-oriented guitar solos over two-chord ostinatos, both
evidently recorded live. The second of these, which is not given a
separate title or cut on the LP, overlaps the closing three-and-a-half
minutes of "Holiday in Berlin, Full-Blown" without rill. Finally, the
enigmatic title of the closing number on side one, "Aybe Sea,"
provides a tantalizing clue that may tip Zappa's structural hand: it
concisely summarizes the form of the preceding six numbers, that is,
A-B-C.
After releasing Burnt Weeny Sandwich, Zappa abandoned the idea of
organizing his albums along abstract formal lines, and with it his
ideal of fusing modern music with rock. He opted instead for a more
commercially viable combination of virtuoso jazz-rock instrumentals
and humorous stage antics provided by frontmen/singers Mark Volman and
Howard Kaylan, both late of the Turtles.(FN91) Nonetheless the
principle of varied repetition left a considerable imprint on Zappa's
later recordings. A glance at his song list(FN92) reveals that quite a
number of songs, especially instrumentals, were released several times
and with significant changes. These typically involve the variation
techniques described above, though their place is in a form that spans
a far longer timeframe than a single release.
Let me suggest that this tendency toward repetition and variation is
the musical embodiment of what Zappa called "Conceptual Continuity."
Zappa himself once remarked that all the recordings he made over his
career were interconnected like the bands of an enormous LP.(FN93)
Indeed this idea emerged around the time that Lumpy Gravy was
released. Many Zappa fans, however, concentrating on visual and
textual clues, have missed these musical relationships, just as they
overlooked the variation forms of his early albums. Ben Watson, for
instance, strains credibility in drawing a connection to modernist
literature.
"Conceptual continuity" may well serve as a term for an underlying
substratum of associations that anyone uses over the years in order to
express themselves--the network of meaning revealed, say, in Samuel
Taylor Coleridge's notebooks, which show irrational attachment to
words that appear at key points in his poems--but what makes Zappa's
use of it modernist is that he brings this substratum to
consciousness. You cannot approach Zappa as you would André Gide or
Sting, absorbing their art and imagining some rounded human
personality. You must deal with it as you would Finnegans Wake,
actively tracing images and connections as they emerge on the material
surface. This is modern art you cannot approach the old way.(FN94).
Contrary to Watson's view, Zappa's is a modern art that most certainly
can be approached "the old way," that is, in terms of musical form and
process.
"The Black Page" is an interesting case to examine in this regard
since it was especially susceptible to change. Zappa commercially
released nine versions of this instrumental on six albums, indicating
the ongoing transformation in the titles. I have written about its
different realizations elsewhere,(FN95) but to summarize, close
attention should be paid to differences in tempo, meter, and the bass
line. Listeners can easily tell that "The Black Page #2" on Baby
Snakes is unlike the slower, jazz-inflected "The Black Page (New Age
Version)" on Make A Jazz Noise Here. Both differ from the up-tempo
"The Black Page (1984)" on You Can't Do That On Stage Anymore Vol. 4,
which more closely approximates a bizarre reggae polka with its
off-beat treble rhythm guitar and roots-and-fifths bass line.(FN96)
The origins of the piece utlimately stem from a drum solo, performed
by Terry Bozzio on Zappa In New York. The variational implications of
such connections and transformations are obvious.
It is, I believe, significant that one key to assessing Zappa's place
as an American composer and record producer, as well as discovering
his approach to linking rock and twentieth-century art music, may be
found embedded deep within an early attempt at fusion that flopped.
Lumpy Gravy, considered alongisde two related recordings, Uncle Meat
and Burnt Weeny Sandwich, represent Zappa's highest modernist
aspirations: to expand listeners' consciousness beyond a limited
appreciation of eclecticism's possibilities, and to present a far
broader range of music to rock audiences than otherwise offered. If
his efforts to cross the boundaries separating musical traditions fell
short of commercial expectations and ultimately failed, not unlike
those of another forward-looking American musician, Duke Ellington, at
least we still have the recordings. With these, today's listeners can
judge for themselves the value of his early work and confront
criticism that threatens to relegate it, along with other "art" rock,
to the trash heap of postmodern music history.
Added material.
I Wish to express my thanks to Sean Westergaard, Steve Whiting, and
Walt Everett, who read this essay at different stages and made useful
suggestions.
EXAMPLE 3: VARIATION-RONDO FORM OF "LUMPY GRAVY PART ONE" (RYKODISC
RCD 10504).
(TABLE)Form Timing Index Title or Description Prominent Instruments;
CommentsA 0:00-2:07 (0:00-0:04) 1. "The Way I See It, Barry" Spoken
(0:05-1:37) 2. "Duodenum" Instrumental theme Lead and rhythm guitars,
saxophone, trumpet, trombone, bass, and drum kit (1:37-1:46)
Stravinskiana (cf. Le Sacre du printemps, Winds, vibraphone, electric
bass "Rondes Printanieres") (1:47-2:07) 4 4 swing vamp Piano,
vibraphone, bass, drum kit67B1 2:07-3:41 3. "Oh No" Rondo theme Piano,
vibraphone, guitar, bass, drum kit, and added brassC 3:41-7:11
(3:41-3:44) 4. "Bit of Nostalgia" Raspberry, then spoken material
(3:45-3:47) Surf music Guitar (3:47-3:58) Collage Manipulated voices,
flute, bass clarinet, and piano (3:58-4:46) Women's conversation
Spoken (4:47-5:17) Men's conversation Spoken (5:18-5:44) Traditional
jazz parody Accelerated, with scratch and skipping effects of a 78
r.p.m. recording (5:45-6:17) 6. "Bored Out 90 Over" Jim (Motorhead)
Sherwood's voice, percussion ensemble, Collage manipulated (6:17-6:18)
Short pentatonic melody Guitar, bass, drum kit with surf beat
(6:19-6:20) 7. "Almost Chinese" Conversation Spoken about the
preceding snippet of music (6:20-6:27) Collage Motorhead's manipulated
voice plus other taped and percussion sounds (6:27-6:35) Reprise of
pentatonic melody Guitar, bass, drum kit (6:35-6:41) Collage
Percussion ensemble with celesta, plus manipulated sounds (6:42-6:52)
8. "Switching Girls" Spoken (6:53-6:56) Varèsiana Flute, piano,
percussion ensemble (6:56-7:11) Instrumental introduction to "Oh No"
Orchestral instruments with timbres manipulated; closes in 5 8 meterB2
7:11-9:16 9. "Oh No Again" with short Light jazz combo with strings,
woodwinds, marimba, transition and snare drum, with added orchestral
instruments 8:23-9:16 Stravinskiana (cf. Petrushka, First Tableau)
with the last four measures of the rondo theme plus extensionD
9:17-13:46 (9:17-11:04) Voice (Motorhead), interrupted briefly Spoken;
reverberation effects by "Louie Louie" (9:24-9:25); added percussion
in different meters (11:05-11:27) 11. "Another Pickup" Blues rock
parody Harmonica and guitar (11:27-11:39) Collage Percussion ensemble
plus celesta with manipulated sounds (11:40-11:57) Tape effect with
piano sounds Accelerated percussion ensemble, with added manipulated
piano and human sounds (11:58-13:04) Varèsiana Winds, brass, and
percussion (13:05-13:07) Conversations among studio musicians, ends
with 12. "I Don't Know if I Can Go through This Again" (13:08-13:46)
Orchestral excerpt From We're Only In It For The Money, "Mother
People" (1:45- 2:24)B3 13:46-14:06 "Oh No" / Rondo refrain
Accelerated, backward, and dissectedE 14:06-15:51 (14:06-14:18) Tape
effects Percussion ensemble (14:19-14:45) Varèsiana Percussion
ensemble (14:46-14-48) Stravinskiana Woodwinds (14:48-15:51)
Weberniana Piano, strings, woodwinds, solo horn.
EXAMPLE 4: VARIATION-RONDO FORM OF UNCLE MEAT (BIZARRE/REPRISE
2MS2024).
(TABLE)Form CD LP Title Timing Prominent Instruments; Comments
Side:CutA1 1 I.1 "Uncle Meat: Main Title Theme" 1:54 Vibraphone,
harpsichord, celesta, woodwinds, snare drum and percussion/woodwinds
accelerated/tape soundssc 2 I.2 "The Voice of Cheese" 0:27 Spoken by
Suzy CreamcheeseV 3 I.3 "Nine Types of Industrial Pollution" 5:56
Guitars, electric piano, bass, and drums with overdubbed percussion in
different metersA2 4 I.4 "Zolar Czakl" 0:57 Material from "Main Theme"
(I.1) reversed, accelerated, dissected/electronic soundsB1 5 I.5 "Dog
Breath, In the Year of the Plague" 5:51 (0:00-3:00) Vocal Voice tracks
accelerated with added opera soprano voice track (3:00-4:00)
Manipulated and accelerated piano, organ, woodwinds, and percussion
with numerous overdubs (4:00-5:48) Celesta, harpsichord, woodwinds,
bass, drum kit; 7 4 ostinato (5:48-5:51) Vocal sounds (laugh and
yawn)A3 6 I.6 "The Legend of the Golden Arches" 1:24 (0:00-1:20)
Celesta, harpsichord, electric piano, woodwinds Side:CutZ 14 II.6 "God
Bless America (Live at the Whisky 1:22 Vocal a Go Go)"B3 15 II.7 "A
Pound for a Brown on the Bus" 1:29 Organ, woodwinds, bass, drum kit; 7
4 ostinatoC2 16 II.8 "Ian Underwood Whips It Out (Live on 5:08 Remarks
by a band member precede saxophone Stage in Copenhagen)" solo with
rock ensemble; same E(flat sign) modal accompaniment as "King Kong" 17
III.1 "Mr. Green Genes" 3:10 Vocal R & B parody 18 III.2 "We Can Shoot
You" 1:48 Percussion ensemble/electronic sounds and woodwind ensemble
(accelerated) 19 III.3 "If We'd All Been Living in California ..."
1:29 Spoken 20 III.4 "The Air" 2:57 Vocal Doo-wop parody 21 III.5
"Project X" 4:47 Organ, piano, mallet percussion,.
(TABLE) acoustic guitar, woodwinds, drum kit 22 III.6 "Cruising for
Burgers" 2:19 Vocal 23 (CD only) "Uncle Meat Film Excerpt, Part 1"
37:34 24 (CD only) "Tengo Na Minchia Tanta" 3:46 25 (CD only) "Uncle
Meat Film Excerpt, Part 2" 3:50sc !no title (1:20-1:33) Spoken by Suzy
CreamcheeseW 7 I.7 "Louie Louie (At the Royal Albert Hall 2:28 Parody
of the song's accompaniment played on in London)" a pipe
organ/saxophone soloB2 8 I.8 "The Dog Breath Variations" 1:36 Organ
(accelerated), piano, vibraphone, marimba, woodwinds, guitars, bass,
drum kit, timpani, and percussionX 9 II.1 "Sleeping in a Jar" 0:49
Vocalsc 10 II.2 "Our Bizarre Relationship" 1:05 Spoken by Suzy
CreamcheeseA4 11 II.3 "The Uncle Meat Variations" 4:40 Harpsichord,
organ, woodwinds (accelerated), drum kit, tambourine, plus marimba,
and tuned gongs/ vocalise (accelerated); parallel triadic
accompaniment (woodwinds, 2:09-2:19)Y 12 II.4 "Electric Aunt Jemima"
1:53 Vocal Voice tracks acceleratedC1 13 II.5 "Prelude to King Kong"
3:24 Saxophones (overdubbed), bass, drum kit; 5 4 meter/ tape sounds
and spoken materialC3 26 IV.1 "King Kong Itself (as Played by the 0:53
Rock group; head motive Mothers in a Studio)"C4 27 IV.2 "King Kong
(it's sic Magnificence as 1:15 Electric piano solo with rock group
Interpreted by Dom De Wild)"C5 28 IV.3 "King Kong (as Motorhead 1:44
Tenor saxophone solo with rock group Explains It)"C6 29 IV.4 "King
Kong (the Gardner Varieties)" 6:17 Modified woodwinds and pianoC7 30
IV.5 "King Kong (as Played by 3 Deranged 0:29 Overdubbed modified
woodwinds and Good Humor Trucks)" keyboardsC8 31 IV.6 "King Kong (Live
on a Flatbed Diesel in the 7:22 Middle of a Racetrack at a Miami Pop
Festival ... the Underwood Ramifications)" (0:00-6:19) Saxophone,
electric guitar, and drum solos with rock group; (re)statement of head
(6:19-7:22) Final statement of head motive played by two saxophonists
on their EXAMPLE 5: VARIATION RONDO FORM OF BURNT WEENY SANDWICH
(RYKODISC RCD 10509).
(TABLE)Form CD LP Title Timing Prominent Instruments; Comments
Side:CutX 1 I.1 "WPLJ" 2:52 R & B coverA1 2 I.2 "Igor's Boogie, Phase
One" 0:37 Clarinets, cornet, drum kit; cf. Stravinsky, His- toireB1 3
I.3 "Overture to a Holiday in Berlin" 1:27 Harpsichord, flute,
clarinet, saxophones (over- dubbed), cello, electric bass, drum,
marimba, and drums; waltz, Weill influenceC1 4 I.4 "Theme from Burnt
Weeny Sandwich" 4:32 Two-chord ostinatoA2 5 I.5 "Igor's Boogie, Phase
Two" 0:37 Clarinets, cornet, bulb hornsB2 6 I.6 "Holiday in Berlin,
Full-Blown" 6:23 Organ, piano, harpsichord, flute, electric guitar,
bass, clarinet, and saxophones (manipulated)/ marimba, drums, and
percussion "Holiday in Berlin, Full-Blown" (0:00-2:56)C2 no title
(2:57-6:23) Two-chord ostinatoD1 7 I.7 "Aybe Sea" 2:46 Piano,
harpsichord, electric and acoustic guitar (overdubbed) 8 II.1 "Little
House I Used to Live In" 18:42E (0:00-1:42) Piano soloF1 (1:43-4:17)
The original MothersG (4:18-13:34) Guitar, violin, and piano solosF2
(13:34-14:53) Chamber ensembleD2 (14:54-17:12) D1 accelerated (tape
manipulation) overlaps organ solo (17:12-18:41) Applause and spoken
materialY 9 II.2 "Valarie" 3:14 R & B cover.
EXAMPLE 1: FRANK ZAPPA, "I WAS A TEENAGE MALTSHOP" (APOCRYPHA, GREAT
DANE RECORDS, GDR 9405 A), PIANO ACCOMPANIMENT, TRANSCRIPTION,
MEASURES 1-2.
EXAMPLE 2: FRANK ZAPPA, "LUMPY GRAVY PART ONE," RONDO THEME,
TRANSCRIPTION, MEASURES 1-23.
FOOTNOTES1. "A Magic Science: Rock Music as Recording Art," Popular
Music 3 (1983): 202. The score may serve as an acceptable tool of
analysis for the music of the Western art music tradition. "Songs made
in the studio, however, should be understood as considered aural
compositions in which sounds are performed, recorded, treated and
combined together often with no necessity for any kind of visual
mediation whatsoever" (202). See also John Mowitt, "The Sound of Music
in the Era of Its Electronic Reproducibility," in Music and Society:
The Politics of Composition, Performance and Reception, ed. Richard
Leppert and Susan McClary (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1987), 173-97.
2. Zappa's opinions on academic composition are plainly expressed in
an address he delivered at the 1984 convention of the American Society
of University Composers, excerpted in Frank Zappa and Peter
Occhiogrosso, The Real Frank Zappa Book (New York: Poseidon Press,
1989), 189-94.
3. Carl Dahlhaus, "On the Decline of the Work Concept," in Schoenberg
and the New Music, trans. Derrick Puffett and Alfred Clayton
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 229.
4. A central text is Theodor Adorno, "On Popular Music," Studies in
Philosophy and Social Sciences 9 (1941):17-48; reprinted in On Record:
Rock, Pop, and the Written Word, ed. Simon Frith and Andrew Goodwin
(New York: Pantheon Books, 1989), 301-14; and in Cultural Theory and
Popular Culture: A Reader, ed. John Storey (New York: Harvester
Wheatsheaf, 1994), 202-14. See also Dahlhaus, "On the Decline of the
Work Concept," 228-30; and idem, Prisms, 1st MIT Press ed. (Cambridge,
Mass.: MIT Press, 1981). The ambivalent position of Adorno's criticism
in the analysis of popular music is treated in Georgina Born, "Modern
Music Culture: On Shock, Pop and Synthesis," New Formations 2 (1987):
56-7; and Susan McClary and Robert Walser, "Start Making Sense!
Musicology Wrestles with Rock," in On Record, 284. See also Iain
Chambers, "Some Critical Tracks," Popular Music 2 (1982): 23-7; and
Max Paddison, "The Critique Criticized: Adorno and Popular Music,"
Popular Music 2 (1982): 201-18.
5. The rigid distinctions between musical categories in the 1960s are
discussed in Born, "Modern Music Culture," 53-4. See also Susan
McClary, "Terminal Prestige: The Case of Avant-Garde Music
Composition," Cultural Critique 12 (1989): 57-81.
6. Sontag's essay, "One Culture and the New Sensibility," appears in
expanded form in Against Interpretation and Other Essays (New York:
Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1966), 293-304. The relevant passage is found
on pages 296-7.
7. Neil Slaven, Zappa: Electric Don Quixote (London: Omnibus Press,
1996), 49. Clive Davis was the head of Columbia Records at the time.
8. Dahlhaus, "On the Decline of the Work Concept," 229.
9. Zappa's formative experience in marketing and advertising,
including graphic design, is discussed in Michael Gray, Mother! The
Frank Zappa Story, rev. ed. (London: Plexus, 1994), 37-8.
10. These traits are listed in Peter Manuel, "Music as Symbol, Music
as Simulacrum: Postmodern, Pre-modern and Modern Aesthetics in
Subcultural Popular Musics," Popular Music 14 (1995): 227. See also
Billy Bergman and Richard Horn, Recombinant Do Re Mi: Frontiers of the
Rock Era (New York: Quill, 1985), 99-112; Alexander Laski, "The
Politics of Dancing--Gay Disco Music and Postmodernism," in The Last
Post: Music After Modernism, ed. Simon Miller (Manchester, England:
Manchester University Press, 1993), 110-31, particularly 110-5; and
Andrew Goodwin, "Popular Music and Postmodern Theory," Cultural
Studies 5 (1991): 174-88; reprinted in Cultural Theory and Popular
Culture, 414-27.
11. See Rockwell, "The Emergence of Art Rock," in The Rolling Stone
Illustrated History of Rock and Roll, ed. Anthony DeCurtis et al., new
ed. (New York: Random House, 1992), 493-4.
12. The impressions of listeners at the time are treated extensively
in Paul E. Willis, Profane Culture (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul,
1978), 106-8, 154-69.
13. "One Culture and the New Sensibility," 296.
14. See Janell R. Duxbury, Rockin' the Classics and Classicizin' the
Rock: A Selectively Annotated Discography (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood
Press, 1985).
15. Spector's contributions to rock are surveyed in Nik Cohn, "Phil
Spector," in The Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock and Roll,
177-88; Back to Mono is an anthology of his recordings from this
period. Spector was, of course, developing the "sound on sound"
(overdubbing) recording technique that Les Paul and others had
pioneered in the 1950s. See Mary Alice Shaughnessy, Les Paul: An
American Original (New York: William Morrow and Co., 1993), 165,
180-2.
16. Quoted in Patricia Romanowski and Holly George-Warren, eds., The
New Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll, rev. ed. (New York:
Fireside/Rolling Stone Press, 1995), s.v. "Spector, Phil" (p. 933).
17. These include Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys, who imitated
Spector's recordings, career, and life-style; his admiration extended
to his hiring Spector's sidemen for Pet Sounds. See Timothy White, The
Nearest Faraway Place: Brian Wilson, the Beach Boys, and the Southern
California Experience (New York: Henry Holt and Co., 1994), 148, 166.
Wilson is quoted on the subject in David Leaf, The Beach Boys
(Philadelphia: Running Press, 1985), 113. See also Daniel Harrison,
"After Sundown: The Beach Boys' Experimental Music," in Understanding
Rock: Essays in Musical Analysis, ed. John Covach and Graeme M. Boone
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), 38 and 54, notes 6 and 11.
The Beatles likewise respected Spector's work. He produced their Let
It Be (1969) as well as solo albums by John Lennon and George
Harrison. Frank Zappa and Spector were casual acquaintances (see, for
example, Gray, Mother!, 56, 79-80). Given Zappa's professed passion
for early rock'n'roll, Spector's production work would have been hard
to miss. Moreover, among the New York studio musicians who recorded
Zappa's Lumpy Gravy was one of Spector's favorite session guitarists,
Tommy Tedesco.
18. Rubber Soul (1965), Revolver (1966), Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts
Club Band (1967), and The Beatles The White Album (1968). For
discussions of recording techniques used on these albums, see Mark
Lewisohn, The Beatles: Recording Sessions (New York: Harmony Books,
1988); George Martin, All You Need Is Ears (New York: St. Martin's
Press, 1979); and George Martin and William Pearson, Summer of Love:
The Making of Sgt. Pepper (London: Macmillan, 1994). See also Ian
MacDonald, Revolution in the Head: The Beatles' Records and the
Sixties (New York: Henry Holt and Co., 1994). Because Martin was an
experienced producer of comedy, he was doubtless familiar with
American novelty records. These often involved quick-cut techniques,
like those simulated in the forties by Spike Jones, as well as tape
manipulation. Napoleon XIV's (Jerry Samuel) "They're Coming to Take Me
Away, Ha-Haaa!," for example, which used tape acceleration and reverb
effects, was a top-ten hit in the summer of 1966. See The Guinness
Encyclopedia of Popular Music, ed. Colin Larkin, 6 vols., 2d ed.
(Enfield, Middlesex: Guinness Publishing Ltd., 1995), s.v. "Napoleon
XIV," (4: 2986). The B side of the original 45 r.p.m. single is the A
side backward; the reversal extended to the label, which was printed
backward.
19. "Third Stone from the Sun" (Are You Experienced, 1967) and "1983"
(Electric Ladyland, 1968), in particular.
20. Electronic sounds are prominent on their first two albums, Velvet
Underground and Nico (1967) and White Light, White Heat (1967). On
Warhol's involvement with the Velvet Underground, see Jeremy Reed,
Waiting for the Man (London: Picador/Macmillan, 1994), 31-4.
21. This project, which Wilson called "a teenage symphony to God," is
discussed in White, The Nearest Faraway Place, 271-5. Note Wilson's
not-so-veiled reference to Spector's description of his own work.
22. Brad Elliott, Surf's Up: The Beach Boys on Record 1961-1981 (Ann
Arbor: Popular Culture, Ink, 1991), 53, 57. According to White, The
Nearest Faraway Place, 264-5, Wilson self consciously intended the
complex arrangements and stereo overdubbing of "Good Vibrations" to
trump Spector's legendary "Wall of Sound" mono recordings.
23. The Mothers' line-up changed somewhat over the period under
consideration. See Gray, Mother!, 56-8, 82, 89. The core included
Zappa, Jimmy Carl Black, Roy Estrada, and Ray Collins.
24. The Garrick Theatre show, "Pigs and Repugnant/Absolutely Free," as
described in Zappa and Occhiogrosso, The Real Frank Zappa Book, 92-6.
"Prelude to the Afternoon of a Sexually Aroused Gas Mask" on Weasels
Ripped My Flesh (originally released in August 1970; compact disc
reissue, Rykodisc RCD 10163), recorded live at London's Festival Hall,
gives a vague impression of the group's improvisatory performing
style.
25. The source of this and other release dates (given in parentheses)
is Gray, Mother!, 241-8.
26. Charlesworth Chris Miles, Zappa: A Visual Documentary (London:
Omnibus Press, 1993), 21. Song and album titles are given as they
appear on the albums, that is, with every word capitalized.
27. Compare with "Steppin' Out" (1965), particularly the fade-out. The
Raiders, known for their energetic coordinated choreography and
powder-blue Revolutionary War-era outfits, were fronted by lead singer
and teen idol, Mark Lindsay. His closing rap and the group's trebly
electric guitar timbre are the chief targets of Zappa's derision. For
details of Dick Clark's broadcasting career, see The Guinness
Encyclopedia of Popular Music, s.v. "Clark, Dick" (1:826).
28. Zappa's brief article in Stereo Review (June 1971), "Edgard
Varèse, Idol of My Youth. A Reminiscence and Appreciation," is
reprinted in Dominique Chevalier, Viva! Zappa, trans. Matthew Screech
(New York: St. Martin's Press, 1986), 105-6. See also Gray, Mother!,
137. By his own account, the fourteen-year-old Zappa first learned
about Varèse in an article about record dealer Sam Goody in Life
magazine. He was intrigued by Goody's disparaging remarks about the
composer's music and searched local record stores for recordings. See
The Real Frank Zappa Book, 31; and Miles, Visual Documentary, 7.
29. For a photo of Zappa, Allen, and the bicycle, along with other
early publicity material, see Gray, Mother!, 160 h . Zappa had also
produced a few novelty 45s, along with surf music and R&B recordings.
30. See the booklet accompanying Frank Zappa, The Lost Episodes, 24
(Rykodisc RCD 40573).
31. Donna 1378, re-released on Rare Meat: Early Works Of Frank Zappa,
Del-Fi Records RNEP604; and Cucamonga, Del-Fi Records DFCD 71261. See
Miles, Visual Documentary, 13; and Gray, Mother!, 42. The snork sound
effect on "The Idiot Bastard Son," We're Only In It For The Money, is
first heard on "How's Your Bird?".
32. Words and music by Earl Edwards, Bernie Williams, and Eugene
Dixon.
33. "Soft-Sell Conclusion" (1:24-1:31) and "Invocation and Ritual
Dance of the Young Pumpkin" (0:08-0:25), respectively.
34. On Zappa's self-perception, see Gray, Mother!, 66. For lyrics to
these and other Zappa songs, as well as complete discographies,
songlists, and reproductions of cover art, consult "St. Alphonso's
Pancake Homepage" <http://www.fwi.uva.nl/heederik/zappa/>.
35. Igor Stravinsky, Petrushka, ed. Charles Hamm, A Norton Critical
Score (New York: W.W. Norton, 1967), 24-31.
36. A concert performance of an excerpt from Petrushka may be found on
'Tis The Season To Be Jelly: Live in Sweden 1967 (FOO-EE/ Rhino
Records RZ 70542).
37. Apocrypha (Great Dane Records GDR 9405/ABCD).
38. According to his widow, Gail Zappa, a considerable portion of the
young couple's income went to purchasing records during these years
(telephone conversation, 23 October 1995).
39. Due to concerns over copyright infringement, the gatefold of We're
Only In It For The Money was the reverse of Sgt. Pepper. For
reproductions of the album art, consult "St. Alphonso's Pancake
Homepage.".
40. Zappa may have been reacting to the group's emerging cynicism and
particularly that of John Lennon. Commenting on the Beatles' music not
long after the release of Sgt. Pepper, for example, Lennon remarked:
"People think the Beatles know what's going on. We don't. We're just
doing it.... On "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!" from Sgt. Pepper
I just shoved a lot of words together, then shoved some noise on. I
just did it. I didn't dig that song when I wrote it. I didn't believe
in it when I was doing it. But nobody will believe it. They don't want
to. They want it to be important." Quoted in Hunter Davies, The
Beatles (New York: McGraw Hill, 1968), 284.
41. The texts and musical settings of "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds"
and "She's Leaving Home" are discussed in Wilfred Mellers, The
Twilight of the Gods: The Music of the Beatles (New York: Viking
Press, 1974), 89-93.
42. The definition is Mellers's (ibid., 86-7). Zappa may have invented
the concept album. No less an authority than Paul McCartney
acknowledged Freak Out! as a key inspiration for the later, but far
more commercially successful Sgt. Pepper. See Rockwell, "The Emergence
of Art Rock," 496.
43. On this point, see Tom Manoff, Music: A Living Language (New York:
W.W. Norton, 1982), 292-3.
44. Zappa and Occhiogrosso, The Real Frank Zappa Book, 88.
45. Zappa's undisguised hostility to drugs is discussed in Ben Watson,
Frank Zappa: The Negative Dialectics of Poodle Play (New York: St.
Martin's Press, 1993), 73-4. Hippies' preference for the uninterrupted
flow of progressive rock music over conventional three-minute pop
songs is mentioned, among other places, in John Storey, Cultural
Studies and the Study of Popular Culture (Athens: University of
Georgia Press, 1996), 105.
46. The ultimate irony of Zappa's early albums may be that hippies
considered them the ne plus ultra of their musical experience. On the
recognition of Zappa's role in defining music in hippie subculture,
see Willis, Profane Culture, 107-8.
47. For a similar approach to the analysis of Stravinsky's music, see
Edward T. Cone, "Stravinsky: The Progress of Method," Perspectives of
New Music 1 (1962): 18-26. See also Jonathan D. Kramer, "Discontinuity
and Proportion in the Music of Stravinsky," in Confronting Stravinsky:
Man, Musician, and Modernist, ed. Jann Pasler (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1986), 174-94. The kind of proportional
relationships that Kramer finds in Stravinsky's music are not evident
in Zappa's, as Examples 3-5 demonstrate.
48. Gray, Mother!, 61-2. On Wilson's role in the early Mothers'
recordings, see William Ruhlman, "Frank Zappa: The Present Day
Composer," in The Frank Zappa Companion, 6-7; and Slaven, Zappa,
49-53.
49. The angular "Love Story" (Boulez Conducts Zappa, The Perfect
Stranger, August 1984), for example, "features an elderly Republican
couple attempting sex while break-dancing." The distinction between
Zappa's rock and serious music emerged between 1969 and 1971, around
the times of The Mothers' breakup, the first Los Angeles Philharmonic
performance in May 1970, and the release of Fillmore East and 200
Motels. Mass media critics recognized Zappa's earlier attempts to
combine rock with what they too called serious music. For example,
Robert Shelton, writing in the New York Times in December 1966,
described The Mothers as "the first pop group to successfully
amalgamate rock'n'roll with the serious music of Stravinsky and
others." Quoted in Gray, Mother!, 84.
50. Chevalier observes that the conversations were recorded after the
composition and recording of the instrumental sections. Viva! Zappa,
13. See also Slaven, Zappa, 76.
51. The importance of style over meaning in hippie conversation is
described in Willis, Profane Culture, 103-6. Like the ones simulated
on Lumpy Gravy, "Conversations would turn on sudden interruptions,
provocative statements, sudden denials, insolent questionings,
apparent paradoxes. It was the mark of the stranger or acolyte that he
would try to express something directly or naively.... It was greatly
appreciated when a non sequitur, or enigmatic statement stopped a
conversation, but in an appropriate way, or transformed what had been
said into something specially understood only by the head hippie "
(103).
52. For the details of this dispute, see Gray, Mother!, 90.
53. David Walley, No Commercial Potential (New York: Outerbridge and
Lazard, 1972), 86-8; Gray, Mother!, 90.
54. According to Walley (No Commercial Potential, 86), Zappa learned
to operate the sophisticated studio equipment quickly enough to create
tension with the more experienced technician, Kellgren. It is he who
threatens to erase Zappa's master tapes on We're Only In It For The
Money.
55. Concerning Uncle Meat, Chevalier (Viva! Zappa, 13) writes that
"while the group recorded one track Zappa sat in the sound engineer's
room composing music for the next one." Charles Keil characterizes
recording as a "classicizing" or perfecting act that divorces
performance from real-life expectations, as well as informal and
improvisational aspects. Valuable as this observation is, it should be
amended to take engineering and production into consideration. See
Charles Keil and Steven Feld, Music Grooves: Essays and Dialogues
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994), 157-9.
56. Remarks refer to the original U.S. vinyl issue, Verve V6-8741; the
artwork for the compact disc reissues is not the same. Zappa had
already changed his identity once: as Ruben Sano, leader of an
imaginary fifties R & B-pachuco group. Later Zappa had himself
depicted as the mad scientist, Uncle Meat, on the inner sleeve of The
Grand Wazoo (December 1972), an obvious pastiche of his and Varèse's
features: compare this with photos of Varèse later in life. Zappa
remarked that the composer looked like a "mad scientist" in The Real
Frank Zappa Book, 31.
57. The type fonts for both compact disc reissues differ from the
Verve LP release. Zappa later used the name ABNUCEALS EMUUKHA electric
SYMPHONY orchestra to identify an ensemble of thirty-seven musicians
who performed his compositions on 17 and 18 September 1975 at Royce
Hall, UCLA. Some arrangements performed during these concerts were
released in May 1979 as Orchestral Favorites. Gray, Mother!, 165, 176.
Ben Watson, usually dogged in his attempts to apply his brand of
hermeneutics to allusions in Zappa's lyrics, offers no hypothesis
about the hidden meaning of this ensemble's name. He does, however,
connect the title Lumpy Gravy with Zappa's remarks to the university
composers in 1984, in which Zappa admits that composers have to eat,
but "mostly what they cat is brown and lumpy." Negative Dialectics,
91.
58. Watson, Negative Dialectics, 90. Commenting further, he writes
that Lumpy Gravy has been "relegated to the category of 'harmless
indulgence ," perhaps because "the setting ... defies high-brow
analysis." Ibid., 104, 91.
59. Compare "Lumpy Gravy Part One" (4:47-5:17) to John Cage and David
Tudor, Indeterminacy: New Aspect of Form in Instrumental and
Electronic Music (Folkways FT 3704), released in 1959. The Mothers
had, of course, worked in New York and fashioned themselves as rivals
to the Velvet Underground, then under Warhol's tutelage. The dialogue
is transcribed in Watson, Negative Dialectics, 97-8.
60. Watson, Negative Dialectics, 104.
61. Reworked songs include "Chrome Plated Megaphone" (We're Only In It
For The Money), "King Kong" (Uncle Meat), "Oh No" (Weasels), and
"Redneck Eats" (200 Motels). See Chevalier, Viva! Zappa, 62.
62. Timings correspond to the 1986 CD reissue, Rykodisc RCD 40024.
63. Compare, for example, the 1961 recording, later entitled "Take
Your Clothes off When You Dance" (The Lost Episodes).
64. This approach to harmonization, a hallmark of Zappa's style, was
later employed in instrumentals like "Little House I Used to Live In,"
"Big Swifty," and "Echidna's Arf of You.".
65. See Hamm, ed., Norton Critical Score, 52-6. The closing section of
the refrain is repeated and used to introduce "The Orange County
Lumber Truck" on Weasels Ripped My Flesh. As early as 1969 (You Can't
Do That On Stage Anymore Vol. 1 and later, Make A Jazz Noise Here) the
repeated closing section of "Oh No" was transformed into a head motive
for a guitar solo; Zappa improvised over the two supporting chords
(i-iv).
66. See, for example, The Real Frank Zappa Book, 34. "I loved
Stravinsky almost as much as Varèse. The other composer who filled me
with awe--I couldn't believe that anybody could write music like
that--was Anton Webern.".
67. Originated as a cue for Zappa's 1963 film score for Run Home Slow,
available on the reissue The Lost Episodes, no. 11, "Run Home Cues,
#2.".
68. Chevalier suggests that Zappa's original conception did not
include spoken material. Viva! Zappa, 13.
69. Vsevolod Illarionovich Pudovkin, Film Technique and Film Acting,
trans. and ed. Ivor Montagu, memorial edition (New York: Grove Press,
1976), 23. Zappa was reportedly at work on a movie called Uncle Meat
in January 1968, that is, while recording and editing the album of the
same name. Chevalier, Viva! Zappa, 13. Barking Pumpkin/Honker Video
released the movie Uncle Meat in 1989.
70. In a 1972 radio interview with Martin Perlich, Zappa mentions
owning the 1957 Columbia recording, The Complete Music of Anton Webern
(K4L-232 / KL 5019-5022). The text of the interview, transcribed by
Georg Deppe, is available on the St. Alfonso's Pancake Homepage:.
<http://www.fwi.uva.nl/heederik/zappa/interviews/martin_perlich.ht
ml>.
Elsewhere he identified it as one of his favorite records. See
Chevalier, Viva! Zappa, 108.
71. For a brief analysis of the former work, see Eric Walter White,
Stravinsky: The Composer and His Works, 2d ed. (Berkeley: University
of California Press, 1979), 308-12. For analyses of Symphonies of Wind
Instruments, refer to note 47, above.
72. "Soft-Sell Conclusion," Absolutely Free; "Royal March from
'L'histoire du soldat ," Make a Jazz Noise Here (Barking Pumpkin
Records D2-74234 and Rykodisc 10557/58).
73. See Charles Hamm, Putting Popular Music in Its Place (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1995), 20-1; and Robert Walser, Running
with the Devil: Power, Gender, and Madness in Heavy Metal Music
(Hanover, N.H.: University Press of New England, 1993), 58-9. Watson,
Negative Dialectics, 129, extends the admonition to the analysis of
Zappa's music.
74. Joseph Machlis and Kristine Forney, The Enjoyment of Music, 7th
ed. (New York: Norton, 1995), 547.
75. The Real Frank Zappa Book, 33. Liner notes and interviews are full
of references to twentieth-century compositions, composers,
techniques, and studio paraphernalia. The gatefold of Uncle Meat, for
example, includes the following statement: "Things that sound like a
full orchestra were carefully assembled, track by track through a
procedure known as over-dubbing. The weird middle section of DOG
BREATH (after the line, 'Ready to attack ) has forty tracks built into
it. Things that sound like trumpets are actually clarinets played
through an electric device made by Maestro with a setting labeled Oboe
D'Amore and sped up a minor third with a V.S.O. (variable speed
oscillator). Other peculiar sounds were made on the Kalamazoo electric
organ.".
76. According to Walley, Zappa planned his early projects as
conceptual pairs. No Commercial Potential, 86.
77. On Shenkel's contribution, see Miles, "The Grand Wazoo," Mojo
(March 1974): 93-5. The artwork for these two albums is discussed in
Watson, Negative Dialectics, 135-6 and 168-9, respectively.
78. Zappa had previously borrowed from Holst on Absolutely Free (see
above). Ryko's compact disc re-issue (RCD 10506/07) connects the
ostinato-based passage with the track containing "The Legend of the
Golden Arches." The LP, of course, had no rills; the original timing
is as indicated in Example 4.
79. In a paper delivered at the Sixty-First Annual Meeting of the
American Musicological Society (1995), James Grier argued that "King
Kong" was progressively "reconstructed" from its manifestations on
side one ("The Mothers of Invention and Uncle Meat: Alienation,
Anachronism, and a Double Variation"). I would argue instead that C1
and C2 reference a theme (stated unambiguously in C8) that had been
introduced on "Lumpy Gravy Part Two." Side four of the original LP
could be analyzed in syncretic terms, that is, as a combination of
variation and the familiar jazz technique of stating the head motive
at the beginning (C3) and the end (C8). Grier moreover construed the
album's form as a double, rather than triple, variation. I would add
that the observations presented herein were developed independent from
my friend and colleague's research, of which I was unaware.
"King Kong," of course, refers to the giant gorilla from the movie of
the same name, which Zappa may have considered a metaphor for his
instinctive approach to music and his difficulties with the record
industry. He related the following to a Swedish concert audience in
1967: "The name of this song is 'King Kong. It's the story of a very
large gorilla who lived in the jungle. And he was doing okay until
some Americans came by and thought that they would take him home with
them. They took him to the United States and they made some money by
using the gorilla. Then they killed him." 'Tis The Season To Be Jelly:
Live in Sweden 1967 (FOO-EE/Rhino Records RZ 70542).
80. Viva! Zappa, 14. Zappa himself characterized the Grand Wazoo
ensemble, which replaced The Mothers in 1972, as "a new 20-piece
electric symphony orchestra." See Gray, Mother!, 150.
81. Chevalier, Viva! Zappa, 14. Group members were paid $250 a week
out of the leader's pocket, whether they rehearsed or not. For details
of the group's break-up, see Gray, Mother!, 117-9.
82. Gray, Mother!, 119.
83. Walley, No Commercial Potential, 127; see also Gray, Mother!,
117-8. On Zappa's penchant for holding recorded material in reserve,
see Gray, Mother!, 97. Uncle Meat and Weasels Ripped My Flesh were
also to have originally been part of a multi-record set.
84. Chevalier, Viva! Zappa, 14.
85. "WPLJ" was first released by the Four Deuces, "Valarie" by Jackie
and the Starlights. Slaven, Zappa, 128.
86. Portions of the score may be heard on Apocrypha, disc 4. The
connection is discussed in Gray, Mother!, 34.
87. Booklet accompanying The Yellow Shark, 8 (Barking Pumpkin Records
R2 7 1600/Rykodisc RCD/RAC 40560). A connection between Weill and
Zappa, though in a completely different context, is suggested in
Paddison, "The Critique Criticized," 217.
88. Mother!, 113. The Berlin incident was reported (in German) on the
back cover of the group's April 1969 anthology release, Mothermania
(Verve V65068).
89. He also used a brief bit of live tape. "Little House" concludes
with a sarcastic quip he made to an unruly London concert audience,
also in 1968: "You're all wearing uniforms and don't kid yourselves.".
90. MGM E/SE-3121; stereo re-recording, MGM SE-3121 OC.
91. Zappa's search for a successful money-making formula is discussed
in Watson, Negative Dialectics, 177-95. It is significant that some of
the first members added to the original Mothers, like Don Preston and
Bunk Gardner, were jazz players. See ibid., 75-8. Even after
disbanding the jazz-oriented Grand and Petite Wazoo groups of the
early seventies, Zappa's later bands included jazz musicians like
Jean-Luc Ponty and George Duke. Ibid., 163-6.
92. See "St. Alphonso's Pancake Homepage/Discography/Songlist
<html://www.fwi.uva.nl/heederik/zappa/albums/songlist/>.
93. Walley, No Commercial Potential, 88.
94. Negative Dialectics, 229.
95. James Borders, "Frank Zappa's 'The Black Page : A Case of Musical
'Conceptual Continuity ," in Expression in Pop-Rock Music: A
Collection of Critical and Analytic Essays, ed. Walter Everett (New
York: Garland Publishing, 2000), 137-56. In addition to commercial
releases, Zappa included a Synclavier version of "The Black Page #1"
in the February 1987 issue of Keyboard. There are also more than a
dozen known bootleg recordings.
96. Those who suspect Zappa incapable of such cross-breeding of
popular styles should listen to his reggae cover of the Johnny Cash
hit, "Ring of Fire" (The Best Band You Never Heard In Your Life).

[Lewis R. Saul]

>Money is still an extension of Absolutely Free in its free-wheeling
combination of satire--the main target this time is the hippie
life-style--and musical experimentation, particularly atonality ("The Chrome
Plated Megaphone of Destiny") and electronic composition in the style of
Stockhausen's Kontakte ("Nasal Retentive Calliope Music,"

Yeah, but did anyone other than myself catch the near direct quote of the
obscure "Stereo Electronic Music" of Bülent Arel?

nice scholarship...

[computeruser]

Lewis R. Saul <ls...@mindspring.com> wrote in message
news:a86q67$c9n$1...@slb1.atl.mindspring.net...

Yes, only because I obsessed over the Freak Out "don't hold it against them"
list and searched out Bülent Arel and checked it out a couple of times.
Well I noticed similarities not exactly the near direct quote.

computeruser