A Progressive on the Prairie » Frank Zappa

Midweek Music Moment: Waka/Jawaka, Frank Zappa

Tim — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 13:03:27 +0000

With the Fourth of July upon us, it seems an appropriate time to celebrate a unique American music: jazz. So, you wonder, why is this post about Frank Zappa? The vast majority of the uninitiated think Zappa was just a weird rock musician. In point of fact, he was a too often unheralded explorer of the jazz fusion idiom. In fact, he might even be considered one of its pioneers.

Zappa first really explored jazz-rock with his 1969 solo album, Hot Rats. That record came just a few months after Miles Davis released In a Silent Way, which represented his immersion into fusion. On July 5, 1972, Zappa confirmed his interest in the genre with the release of Waka/Jawaka.

Some refer to Waka/Jawaka as “Hot Rats II,” not only because of the music but the faucets on the water taps on the cover read “Hot” and “Rats.” This album, though, came at a rougher time in Zappa’s life. In December 1971, Zappa was pushed from a stage in London, resulting in a month in the hospital and a year in a cast or wheelchair. Because of his physical limitations, he spent quite a bit of time in the studio and the results indicated he’d certainly been listening to Miles, who had added the best-selling Bitches Brew and A Tribute to Jack Johnson to his fusion catalog.

The influence is seen in the opening cut of Waka/Jawaka, recorded in large part with studio musicians. “Big Swifty,” which took up the entire first side of the original LP, echoes what Davis was doing. Part of the resemblance is undoubtedly due to trumpeter Sal Marquez, who’d previously played with both Buddy Rich and Woody Herman. Still, the instrumental piece left little doubt Zappa still had the jazz-rock bug and was very adept at it. If anything, he’d taken it a step further and gave it more of a big band feel with his studio soundboard skills. That did, however, impact the tune a bit. Although technically excellent, the tune is slightly lacking in improvisational energy.

For whatever reason, side two opens with what I consider a couple throw away tunes. “Your Mouth” is a blues-based tune that is closer to more standard Mothers fare. “It Just Might Be A One-Shot Deal” is similar, but also imported not only jazz but both rock and country feel thanks to a pedal steel performance from “Sneaky Pete” Kleinow from The Flying Burrito Brothers. The two songs feature vocals but, combined, are less than half the length of “Big Swity” and nearly five minutes shorter than the title cut, which closes the album.

The instrumental title cut demonstrated Zappa was not influenced by Davis alone. It has a more big band feel and echoes the rock end of the jazz-rock movement, be it early Chicago, some BS&T or even The Flock. Here, Zappa includes not just Marquez on trumpet but two trombone/baritone players, as well sax, piccolo and flute. At the same time, the tune remains more Zappaesque than “Big Swifty,” although the latter would tend to be performed on subsequent tours.

Significantly, Waka/Jawaka was not Zappa’s last foray into fusion. Just four months later he would release The Grand Wazoo, which further explored the idiom with an even bigger ensemble. In fact, the title cut used 11 woodwind and brass players. Thus, in the space of three years, three solo Zappa albums explored jazz through the concept of rock. Zappa’s estate has done an excellent job monitoring his music and releasing various recordings. Hopefully, some day it will provide us with a Zappa jazz collection.

Jazz: The Music of Unemployment.

Subheading in Frank Zappa, The Real Frank Zappa Book

Midweek Music Moment: Frank Zappa and “Smoke on the Water”

Tim — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 13:48:42 +0000

Despite his extraordinary talent and lengthy career, Frank Zappa doesn’t have a song on Rolling Stone‘s list of the 500 greatest songs of all time. He does, however, deserve some credit, so to speak, for the song that came in at No. 426, “Smoke on the Water” by Deep Purple.

Propelled by a rudimentary guitar riff, the song recounts events members of Deep Purple observed on Dec. 4, 1971, the night before they were going to start a new recording with a Rolling Stones mobile studio in Switzerland. Here’s the story as told by the song’s lyrics.

We all came out to Montreux
On the Lake Geneva shoreline
To make records with a mobile
We didn’t have much time
Frank Zappa and the Mothers
Were at the best place around
When some stupid with a flare gun
Burned the place to the ground
Smoke on the water
A fire in the sky

As the song indicates, Zappa and the Mothers of Invention were performing at the Casino de Montreux on the shore of Lake Geneva that night. Here’s part of Zappa’s recounting of the story in his quasi-autobiography, The Real Frank Zappa Book:

In the middle of Don Preston’s synthesizer solo on “King Kong,” the place suddenly caught fire. Somebody in the audience had a bottle rocket or Roman candle and fired it into the ceiling, at which point the rattan covering started to burn…. There were between twenty-five hundred and three thousand kids packed into the room — well over capacity.
Since more kids were outside, trying to get in, the organization had cleverly chained the exit doors shut.

Fortunately, the crowd began filing out through the front door and a roadie smashed a plate glass window off to the side of the stage for people to escape. According to Zappa, the building’s heating system exploded a few minutes later and the entire building burned to the ground. Luckily, there were only minor injuries but the band, in the midst of a sold-out tour, lost all its equipment.

There’s no doubt the episode was history making for Deep Purple. “Smoke on the Water” appeared on the band’s 1972 album, Machine Head. Not only would that be their bestselling album, the song became the band’s immediately recognizable signature piece. How popular did the song become? There are reports that a London guitar store posted a sign saying, “Absolutely, under no circumstances at all are customers allowed to play Stairway to Heaven, Sweet Child of Mine or Smoke on the Water while trying out guitars.”

Zappa makes no mention of Deep Purple or “Smoke on the Water” in his book. But then, things didn’t really go much better for him when the Mothers tour resumed. While playing the encore for the first of two London shows on December 10, a fan ran on stage and knocked Zappa into the orchestra pit. Zappa fell 15 feet and suffered cuts to his chin and head, damaged his larynx, broke a rib and a leg and had a paralyzed arm. “The band thought I was dead,” wrote Zappa, who spent a month in the hospital and a year in a cast or wheelchair.

No wonder when Zappa’s manager later reported to a newspaper that Zappa was fully conscious, he also said Zappa was “really pissed off.” But Zappa’s ’71 tour certainly paid dividends for Deep Purple.

You’d be surprised how well people who speak only French can understand you when it’s a matter of life and death.

Frank Zappa, The Real Frank Zappa Book

A Zappa interlude and homage

Tim — Sat, 20 Jan 2007 19:05:38 +0000

I’ve never been much of a YouTube user. I’ve found some interesting, usually humorous, stuff there but there’s just so much I find it hard to locate very intriguing material.

That said, a HUGE hat tip to the Godoggone blog for the Frank Zappa post that led me to video of a 1973 performance by Zappa and the Mothers in Sweden. It not only has a variation of one of my favorite iterations of the Mothers (the Fowler Brothers, George Duke, Ruth Underwood), Jean-Luc Ponty is also part of the band. The video in Godoggo’s post (some day I need to learn how to put YouTube video on the blog) is of a two-part video of a 15-minute rendition of the “Be-Bop Tango.” The second of the two vinyl discs in the 1974 double LP on which the tune appears, Roxy & Elsewhere, is amongst my favorite Zappa recordings. (It is a semi-permanent album on my MP3 player.) The “Be-Bop Tango” performance on the Roxy LP is also the source of my favor Zappa quote: “Jazz is not dead, it just smells funny.”

Whether on the LP or the video, “Be-Bop Tango” will sound a bit off the wall to the unsuspecting listener. The title is highly accurate. It takes a tango structure, adds bebop permutations and creates what Zappa calls “a tango event.” It is so replete with quick little notes (one of my technical music terms) it must be amazingly difficult to perform. In fact, Zappa notes on Roxy & Elsewhere, “This is a hard one to play.” Given the complexity of so much of Zappa’s music, him saying that confirms its level of difficulty for the musicians. Thus, to actually see it performed is wonderful. It also increases my regret in passing on the Zappa tickets I was offered for a 1976 Minneapolis appearance.

I’m going to spend more time with the Sweden clips because one of the few downsides to “Be-Bop Tango” is it doesn’t really feature Zappa’s guitar work. While you get a taste of it in the video, the man never received the popular recognition he deserved for his guitar skills. He would probably be included in my list of the top 25 rock guitarists of all time, if not perhaps even in the top 10. In fact, since watching the clips and starting to write this post, Shut Up ‘N Play Yer Guitar, a collection of nothing but Zappa guitar solos, has ended up in the CD player in my vehicle.

So, this is ultimately a long post just to acknowledge a post on another blog. Actually, that’s not accurate. It’s also a way of recognizing Zappa’s contributions, whether as a composer or a guitar player, and perhaps encouraging others to set aside any preconceptions they may have and listen to a musician who, sadly, did not necessarily receive the deserved public recognition for his musical talents.

WARNING! This album contains material which a truly free society would neither fear nor suppress. The language and concepts contained herein are guaranteed not to cause eternal torment in the place where the guy with the horns and pointed stick conducts his business.

Zappa-written disclaimer on some of his LPs issued
after efforts by the Parents Music Resource Council
to have warning labels placed on albums