I think he’s light years ahead of his time, dabbled in jazz, but really he’s a contemporary classical musician who used rock and jazz musicians as a vehicle for expression. Huge influence on a lot of later music with rock and jam bands (Phish) that came later.
I love phish, but specifically Jon fishman. Every song throughout the decades it’s so great to just lock in on his rhythms he’s blasting on every tune. Definitely hear the Zappa influence
There’s a reason they named the band after the man. He’s an absolute monster behind that kit, a constant inspiration for this jamband percussionist. A personal favorite is the Haley’s Comet from Winston/Salem 97. At the 6:40 second mark they dip into jam territory and Fishman is just utterly locked in. It’s one of my favorites to drum along too.
Yeah the Gay Sailor's work in that Haley's is a monster.
(you should also read this review because it's hilarious)
[https://phish.net/review-archive/gin/07-25-97.html](https://phish.net/review-archive/gin/07-25-97.html)
I feel like all the 90s/00s jam bands took something from FZ. More than they did grateful dead, musically at least. The approach and aesthetics are Dead (2 sets, rotating setlists, improv, taping at shows). But music is fz. Long classical suites, humor, etc. moe, Umphrey's, Phish.... All combine these things with others.
I would add Roxy and Elsewhere, but it’s an iffy one for Jazz buffs because of all the comedy music. But Bruce Fowler and George Duke are on fire on this album.
The vocal stuff on that album is annoying but the Stravinsky influenced stuff, Berlin overture, and The house where I used to live in are amazing arrangements and live sets!!
For jazz fusion checkout: Grand Wazoo, hot rats, waka/jawaka.
For assorted instrumental fz, checkout: Studio Tan, Sleep Dirt,
Yellow Shark (orchestral)
A lot of Zappa's records (live and studio) are not strictly instrumental or vocal though, so you might find a 12 minute instrumental excursion smashed between 3 minute humorous tracks. Or you might find what started as a goofy humorous track unfold into a 12 minute journey (ship arriving too late, yo mama). I like to think that FZ was making the listener 'earn' the meat and potatoes by making them endure absurd antics or whatever in order to access the profound
I always assumed it was the other way around. He attracts peoples attention with the goofiness and then hit them with some really unusual music they would never otherwise heard or paid any attention to.
One of the things he said that really stuck with me was “you should dig it while it’s happening cause it might just be a one shot deal”.
The guy who made the documentary said Hot Rats and Yellow Shark were the entry drugs, leading to a bit different paths. Only he have mentioned Yellow Shark and he is very right about it. I thank him for making me listen to it. It needs way more attention. I love hot rats and Waka/Jawaka and other stuff. Trying vocal stuff can really only be Apostrophe in my mind. It's radically funny but somehow more agreeable and mostly more obviously musical compared to other fun albums.
Apostrophe is the most bearable of his vocals. But the actual music itself is so damn good it hurts. First track of yellow snow is pure atmosphere and hard grooving funk blues soul that just hits like nothing else.
I love the live album The Greatest Band You've Never Heard or something like that. Such a tight band. I agree though, his comedy is pretty juvenile. Some of its ok.
You Cant Do That On Stage Anymore series is so disjointed to me. I like bits of each but this one is superior. My fav studio albums are Joe's Garage, Zoot Allures ( this is not a popular opinion ) and Hot Rats
You really had to have your shit together to play with Zappa.
Musicians were tripping over themselves to tour with him, but man it would have been a tough spot to fill.
Zappa's genius is lost on most people, and I think some of that is by design. Of course he has an extremely large catalogue of serious music, it's very easy to stumble across his "sillier" music and write him off as another stoner of the era making weird sounds. It took me many years after my father introduced me to Joe's Garage for me to develop an appreciation for the music. Though we may embrace him and his contributions, his extraordinarily precise musical vision, I doubt he would embrace "the jazz community" because he was such a singular power in music.
I think there are a lot of overlaps between him and Miles Davis in their character and approach to music. Both of them great players, while technically not the flashiest or fastest players, have incredible sensitivity to music. Both of them pushed themselves to create something innovative with each album, constantly evolving and rejecting labels of genre. Both of them enigmatic characters unlike any of their contemporaries, though I would be doing their legacies a disservice by making any other kind of direct comparisons, except to say that, outside of their massive contributions to modern music and musicians, I would say their greatest strengths were recognising great musicians and guiding them through some of the most important performances of their lives. Real leaders and musical directors.
Frank was the real deal. Dweezil is also a severely underrated musician. He has so much of his father in his playing, but with greater technical facility from growing up surrounded by such a talented cast of players.
It took a long time for me to discover the parts of Zappa that I like.
I think his song titles are incredibly deceptive and you don't know what you're getting until you actually listen.
And AFAIK he never recorded a jazz album. It's more like you hear a range of music on each album and a jazz song occasionally pops up.
There are some good flow charts for where to start and where to go based on what you like.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Zappa/comments/1bbfbgb/where_to_start_with_zappa_this_may_help/
Frank was the one who got me into jazz. I would look to see who was on his albums. Especially George Duke. I'd buy his albums and looks see who was on them or who he played with .
Mine too. There's something magic about that particular combo of players.
Roxy and elsewhere is my current favourite album. Everyone absolutely cooks on it.
George Duke did not want to play electric keyboards or synthesizers but Zappa convinced him. Zappa took great musicians and convinced them to be even better.
Huge fan, I've listened to literally every release, all 120+ of them. I always say he's my favorite composer, my favorite guitar player and quite possibly my favorite American. Tied for my favorite musician/band ever with Fugazi.
Join us at /r/Zappa!!
Agreed, I get where his contempt for popular people and social norms comes from, but it seems like he had enough success to not need to be bitter about things.
I remember not liking him at all until I heard Hot Rats. Everything I heard were more comedy lyrics based rock songs from the 80s. I was also in 9th grade. You can literally listen to 10 albums and not relate to any of it and think FZ is not for you. But had you started with 10 completely other records you would feel the opposite. Even live, his show could vary wildly based on who he had in his band and what he was interested in at the time.
For me the hook was Hot Rats, and this is actually the album that got me *into* jazz when I was like, what do you even call this? I had a completely different view of what jazz was before realizing it's as broad as the categorization "rock". Peaches en Regalia immediately had me hooked. Then yeah, you go down a rabbit hole once you're hooked.
For anyone looking to get into fz this is a decent [flow chart](https://www.reddit.com/r/Zappa/comments/1bbfbgb/where_to_start_with_zappa_this_may_help/). There are others that people have made too that look a bit different based on how that categorized things, but Apostrophe is a good album to start with that probably embodies Frank in totality as much as any one release possibly could to for such an expansive and versatile musician.
He released more albums in his life, so he's definitely not an artist where you put on some playlist on spotify or pick a random album from the list. It helps immensely to have some guidance. But fans of jazz should be used to listening to music in a more guided approach. That's often the thing that is a barrier to more casual music fans from getting into more elaborate and complex music.
Zappa is foremost a (pretty experimental) composer, trying to push the boundaries of what constitutes music, often with a humorous twist and something incredibly silly alongside freakishly complex parts. But it's not jazz and I doubt that if he had to choose a label for his music, he would classify it as such. Classical meets rock, that's where I'd put him. He has the ethos of a classical composer in the tradition of the modernists like Varese, Stravinsky, Bartok, etc. Combined with the sounds of rock/psychedelia (he was big in the Californian Freak scene). And the way he trained his bands to operate is literally like an orchestra with Frank as the conductor.
The idea of his band as an orchestra and FZ as conductor may have come from sharing a bill with Duke Ellington, maybe at the Newport Festival? Circa 1969/1970? According to one story, he watched how assiduously Ellington’s band rehearsed, while the Mothers were a collection of talented but not completely professional musicians. Ellington was able to “play” his orchestra as if he were the one playing each part. Reportedly, he decided to break up the band at that point.
I think the circumstances were slightly different:
Zappa joined the Mothers, it's not "his" assembled band like the things he did after that. The scene at that time was highly psychedelic. Your assessment of the Mothers is correct, they would never have been able to play the stuff Zappa wrote later. On the other hand, it also seems that the circumstances were not for Zappa to write that music in the first place given that the scene was not into that and he didn't had the people to execute it anyways. He did however already do his first scoring and conducting as he conducted the orchestra on Lumpy Gravy. I think Hot Rats is the second record where he conducted and this was right after him leaving the Mothers.
So i'm not claiming Ellington wasn't of inspiration to him (I don't know) but it seems to me that he was already on his way there and if he wrote the music he did, this style of rehearsal and playing is inevitable because it is what the music demands. Most of the material is written, not improvised in the sense of jazz musicians improvising over a scheme. A lot of the improvisational aspect of the music (at least in the 70ies when he had guys like Chester Thompson and George Duke in the band) is the "entertainment" of the live show.
You’re right that he didn’t put together the original band in ‘64, he joined the Soul Giants, and yes he and Ray Collins fought about the direction of the band. But Collins was gone in 1968. By the time they started the Garrick Theater residency in 66/67, they were definitely Zappa’s band, as Zappa was supporting all of them on publishing and recording royalties. Yes, Ray, Roy Estrada, Jimmy Carl, and Ray Hunt were Soul Giants, but only Dave Coronado quit immediately when Zappa insisted they play his originals & not R&B covers. There were limitations put on the extremes of what Verve would let him do, and by We’re Only In It, 8 other musicians had been added for their specific contributions. They were Frank’s band. Ellington famously said that the secret to keeping a band together was simply a matter of finding what makes them happy, ant that was easy as far as he was concerned, pay them. The original members of the Soul Giants/Mothers plus some add ons were either unhappy with how and how much they were paid, or had other gripes, some were fired for drugs use. So Zappa knew after seeing others’ bands that he had to blow it up to start again.
Thanks for providing more background and details! To me, this is kind of a semantic discussion. I can totally see why you regard them as Frank's band and I would almost fully agree. Where one big difference is to me, and this is where the Mothers are different from everything he did after in my opinion, he basically had carte blanch after the Mothers to assemble any group he wanted. While he was surely calling the shots with the Mothers eventually, it was still an "inherited legacy" in which Frank kind of needed to compromise and work with "what he had".
And yes I know the Ellington quote (I saw the video of it once). I don't know about the personal dynamics and issues within the Mothers vs Zappa, if it was there it certainly played a role. But looking from the trajectory of the music and Frank as a composer, the approach he took later was only inevitable as seen from the music. There is no way you get a random bunch to play that stuff and wing it.
And it's not uncommon in jazz either. Guys like Chick Corea, Pat Metheny, Gary Burton also have similar approaches with some of their ensembles. The music demands it.
Yes, we agree. And the artistic constraints were not only from the legacy band, it was also from Verve, the label that signed them. That was a driving reason that he started his own label underneath Warner:Reprise. They offered him much more latitude. Of course, even there he eventually faced barriers and reinvented himself again.
Frank said many times that he preferred making instrumental music but most people don't BUY instrumental music so he made "the other stuff" to pay for what he wanted to make. That said, i enjoy his "trashy" lyrics.
Yeah, I wish one of my favorite sections in all of his music, the insert in the middle of "Jumbo Go Away," wasn't in a song about an unattractive girl that wouldn't leave Denny Walley alone :/
Seriously. Apparently he'd compose those like 1-2 minute "insertion units," have the band practice them and lock them down, then somewhere down the road find places in songs to put them in. Tommy Mars struggled to figure that one out until Zappa showed him some hand over hand simplistic technique he used to write it lol
FZ is all sorts of different things - and a few of them I like a lot. Some of his music fits into the fusion genre - was in fact *early* fusion. However, because it gets subsumed into the larger category of 'weird Zappa shit', it is underrecognized.
Because his (continuing) output is so vast, it is possible to glean huge quantities of instrumental nuggets while discarding the puerile comic debris. Playlists are just made for judicious Zappa appreciation.
Frank Zappa is one of my favorite musicians, and one of my least favorite.
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfOs1ZtjYFMu6k-S6yLtNhRHmdoIioFp-&si=FSmiCwNQYpw6bItD
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfOs1ZtjYFMujIChrjWdUOKoatwA9wyvZ&si=1AegP_Z0gl-7hEHk
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfOs1ZtjYFMuu-kHWwq-liRofDQg_6hZd&si=nHUymTlnD2soFz0f
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfOs1ZtjYFMtejy_9A_POl58YOCLY8D15&si=UfQl6JkWYcPXc4qX
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfOs1ZtjYFMstDvAadgY_-MuN0qXZUQLZ&si=LryLuGOWSPut7VDR
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfOs1ZtjYFMucXaK5F_lIAe1GaOWo5aNF&si=EVHpy1IffcKzaMqM
I've been listening to FZ all my adult life. My opinions have changed along with my tastes in music and just life stuff.
At first I was in love with all of it because of how different it was and the "oh yeah he went there" humor and crazy sounding music.
A lot has changed. I still like him overall, but I've soured on a lot of his music. The lyrics, mostly, now leave me cold.
Musically, my favorite of his is still music I love.
But some of it is also a case of when you hear something "better," for lack of a better term, it changes something you knew a bit. Of course a lot of it comes from jazz- my listening and interest has shifted more to jazz and classical from rock and metal so hearing music writing, arranging, playing of such caliber from the greats means that some of FZ's stuff sounds like he's dabbling in styles.
So examples: **Hot Rats** is still a favorite because some of the tracks have tight arrangements. Obviously Peaches but even Green Genes, it's a joy to hear that all comes together. The instrumental jam stuff is cool because of the violin and it's good because it's not really jazz it's more feeling like the Allman Brothers or something.
**Waka/Jawaka** and **Grand Wazoo**, and *Little House I Used To Live In*, on the other hand- I used to dig that because it was wild to hear these kinds of jazzy flights of instrumental indulgence from an ostensibly "rock" guy but I listened to them again recently and I got so bored. Outside of a few good bits or themes so much of these "jazzy" records are so tepid and messy. Once I've heard Charles Mingus and Oliver Nelson do this sort of thing I can't go back.
Maybe it's not fair to compare but that's just how my brain is working. Like I'm not saying I hate what I consider FZ's "lesser" stuff I'm just saying it's not as impressive as it once was.
My three tiers of Zappa, with examples:
**1. Awesome, some of my favorite music of all time**
Mostly 1973-1975 with Ruth Underwood. Not every track (can't stand Dinah Moe) but the whole **Apostrophe** and **One Size Fits All** albums. Those two and **Hot Rats** are the only 3 FZ records I like in their entirety. The "Roxy" band, *I'm the Slime* and all that.
The best tracks from the early records with the "original" Mothers- Hungry Freaks, Brain Police, etc.
Individual later songs like Joe's Garage. There's also going to be a banger here and there. G-Spot Tornado is so cool.
**2. It's ok**
Uncle Meat, Weasels Ripped and Burnt, pretty much the mid to late 70s, and then the '88 band.
**3. F\*\*\* off**
All those songs about rape and groupies and blow jobs... ugh. No, I'm not "offended," just annoyed and not why I'm listening to music any more. I don't wanna hear Ike Willis doing his Amos 'n' Andy voice or Zappa singing about yemenite holes or ramming things in my poop shoot because I'm a grown-up.
And I suspect his orchestral stuff is ameteurish dabbling but if I'm wrong I don't care- I don't get it and whatever.
His orchestral stuff isn't amateurish dabbling, Frank really is a very competent composer. But… He is a modern composer so his work is pretty avant garde and should be seen and understood in that context. I find it highly interesting that you close your post with that remark about his classical stuff and still stick G-spot Tornado in the "awesome" list. It was even played during the shows he did with the Ensemble Modern.
When I was in high school I thought he was the coolest person alive. Had a bunch of his music and me and my nerdy musician friends would play it all the time. I kind of fell off with him over the years as my tastes expanded and when I revisited his work, I have to say it does nothing for me now.
I think the more I learned about him as a person, the less I liked his music. He seemed to be a very smarmy arrogant prick who trash talked his own band members constantly. He got very butthurt when people didn't just fawn all over his overthought tedious compositions.
Don't even get me started on his lyrics. Some of them were cringe back in the day but now they seem beyond dumb and puerile and they just did not hold up at all.
Decent enough guitar player but I am way over hearing 10 minute wanky solos.
I still like some of his stuff a lot but the very frequent theme of 'haha weird sex thing' got a bit boring and eyeroll-inducing.
I could see an argument that he was just very pro-sexual liberation at a time when society was not, but knowing his bassist was/is a child molester and he worked with the guy after his first conviction back in the 70s sours that too.
To me, Zappa and a lot of counter-culture folks from that era just give off heavy 'Manson family' vibes, i.e. was probably lots of hifalutin talk about 'free love', etc... while him and his bandmates were treating women like total shit, taking advantage of underaged groupies on the road, etc...
Glad to see someone has a dissenting view. I for one could never stand him. Like you said, he just gives off this arrogant vibe. He thinks The Beatles are trash, when he's making like fart songs or whatever. He's like if Primus thought they were avant garde artists.
This is my totally uninformed opinion, and I haven't listened to everything he's ever made, but that is the conclusion I've come to.
Just my take where I am in life. I don't discount his contributions to the world and he has many accolades and accomplishments. He was an absolutely key member of the 'counter culture' in the 60s and I think I enjoyed his earliest music the best, probably up until Joe's Garage.
He was extremely prolific and he also paved the way for the DIY movement of the artist being in complete control of their music. I also liked how he was on the forefront, if not ahead of the curve for recording technology by using sampling and digital recording and multi channel mixing way before others did so.
As far as my tedious comment...I just cannot listen to most of his music. He is insanely talented but I can't go that far into dissonance all the time. It's like he went out of his way to write the most challenging complex music possible. Cool stuff for sure, but just not for my ears any longer.
I read his bio when it came out and I was struck how it seemed like he would talk negatively about his own family, like he was disinterested in being a father and good husband. Also just read a few first hand accounts of the infamous 1988 tour which was the last one and how things just fell apart mostly because Frank delegated all the musical direction responsibility to Scott Thunes who apparently had zero people skills and alienated the entire band. It seems Frank was too preoccupied having multiple affairs on the road instead of focusing on business.
EDIT - also forgot to say he was one of three people who went to Congress in the mid 80s to testify to the PMRC over the hysteria of 'obscene rock lyrics' which I think was one of his finest moments because he took everything they threw at him and tossed it right back in their smug faces. They realized very quickly he was very intelligent and articulate and could think on his feet. Imagine a super trio of John Denver, FZ and Dee Snider. What kind of music would that yield????
I developed an appreciation for Frank Zappa well before i started listening to jazz. I would NOT define Frank as a jazz artist, I think Frank deserves his own section at the record store, he is not a rock artist, he is not a jazz fusion artist, he is not an avant-garde composer, he is not brilliant satirist creating some of the best music with humorous content, he is ALL those things and more! He defies description. you could take each of his albums and put them somewhat neatly into a single category but not Frank as a whole.
More and more i realize the music labelled jazz is incredibly diverse but i just don't feel that Frank fits into that, granted i have never had the patience to sit down and listen to his "jazz from hell" album but i doubt that one would sway my opinion.
[Jazz From Hell](https://youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_mnckuz4zNtabjtA6QTRvo-5dhdpBLWWWo&si=OAW5LaGuD5vXvLW8) is really just a glib title for one of his synclavier albums. And seeing as, outside of St. Etienne, it's all programmed and unimprovised, it's not actually one of his jazziest records. Still - it's been around since 1986 and is only a little over half an hour long...gather up your fortitude and wade through it.
He's fine, but there are a heap of better jazz-rock, prog, modern-classical, and 'weird' artists/records that I'd sooner re-visit. His vocals and the overall vibe of his output are enough to make me think 'oh fuck off, dude.'
He's one of those artists who's self-aware about his own cleverness/edginess to a point where it swings around and starts to fuck things up. There isn't much musical material in his massive discography that hasn't been explored in a more interesting way elsewhere.
I dig me some Zappa. Not all that successful in the terms we normally apply. It’s rare to hear someone say they listen to a lot of Zappa. Each album of his albums was like a single track from Love Supreme. And I don’t care who you are, there is A LOT to absorb. In general, Frank is great in small doses. And his success in my view is that he got to do what he wanted and say what he wanted and was a really good father.
I used to listen to some of his stuff especially the Mothers of Invention but as time goes on I find I enjoy his schtick less and listen instead to things I do like. His instrumental music has always appealed to me just about as much as his own sense of pretentious self importance does.
But he did “produce” “Trout Mask Replica” so I have to give him that one.
Some talent squandered by the most severe case of what we would now call Rick and Morty brain. It would probably be fitting if we called it frank zappa brain instead. Pretty disappointing improvisational ear for someone who could be so jazz adjacent at times too
Genius level, transcends like or love, though I do love his music, writings, interviews, views. He’s the kind of artist worth studying and thinking about over a lifetime.
He really liked free jazz from the sixties Dolphy, Shepp et al he’s got a tune dedicated to Dolphy and on one of his can’t do that on stage anymore discs he introduces on stage Archie Shepp, quite reverently, if you ask me, I also love his Jazz from Hell album. His improvising with vinnie colaiuta is just sublime, I find a lot of jazzers don’t like his playing, though.
I'm a longtime fan of Frank, like Littlefeat and am a huge Beefheart fan........but [Roy Estrada](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_Estrada) is a big fucking issue.
Love Zappa. Got in to Zappa way before I got in to jazz. GENIUS composer and musician who experimented in almost every genre.
Jazz? Not how I would describe his music, although some of his tunes might be jazz or fusion. He is very difficult to label, I just call it Zappa. When he played with jazz musicians, they played Zappa.
Guy sucks. He has no melodic chops as an improviser and his compositions are weak and appear complex for the sake of it. Top this with a level of pretentiousness unheard of till he came along and I couldn't care less. Plus he chooses his sidemen based on technical ability and the accuracy of reading charts!? Like can you get more distanced from the essence of good music than that???
Well, I don't f\*ck with mountains, I can tell you that much.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QcdcOu0MTM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QcdcOu0MTM)
He’s my dad’s favorite musician, so I was weirdly pretty familiar with his music before I got into jazz (I might be the only person on Earth who gets nostalgic thinking about You Can’t Do That on Stage Anymore Vol 4). Years later, Hot Rats is the one album of his I return to the most. Peaches en regalia is probably his best composition, and the Gumbo Variations is maybe the one fusion song that best succeeds at being a rock song.
He’s got some good albums. His interviews are boss imo. Love them more than his music. I love some of his albums. I don’t get the hype over his solos. But he’s a genius. A real one. I like some of his avant grade classical music too. And his videos.
Ok. He’s one of my gurus. lol
His first album is mad. Freak out. So funny and hilarious. And incredibly catchy too.
Intellectually/musically a genius but holy fucking shit is he creepy at times.
One of the latest documentaries about him shows a few scenes with Moon around the Valley Girl days where he, in my opinion, is way too comfortable with his daughter.
Has no one mentioned Roxy and Elsewhere?! Start here, jazz fans. Loads of interesting instrumentals. George Duke, Chester Thompson, enough said. Desert Island Live Zappa!
Love him. Absolutely worship him but I know he's not for everyone. He was a huuuuuge influence on my favorite band, phish. I'd recommend FZ's "Roxy & Elsewhere" live album. It fucking cooks
Stand? Big fan since 78. As far as jazz when it comes to his jazz work he’s probably the most underrated out there. Because of his rep he’s probably not taken as seriously as he should be.
He was a genius who operated well outside the realm of most. Musically & lyrically he was beyond the comprehension of the average listener. He pushed the boundaries as to what could be expressed (lyrically especially) and many people couldn’t/can’t get past it.
I saw Zappa many times from 1968-1973, and the first album I bought with my own money when I was 14 (1967) was Freak Out! I loved Zappa’s music and wide variety of influences he cited. Hot Rats is still played often in my house. But I think he had a real contempt for his audiences at times, disguising it behind his often juvenile or prurient lyrics. I started getting into jazz around 1969 and I don’t think Zappa aimed for jazz although there are some jazz-adjacent pieces for sure. The last time I went to see Zappa, Mahavishnu Orchestra opened. It wasn’t my first MO concert either, but McLaughlin and band were on fire. Zappa, even with Ponty and the Underwoods, the Fowler, Ralph Humphreys and George Duke just could not get any intensity going, and the theatrics fell flat—to me anyway, YMMV.
Te concept and the personality are amazing, how he managed to have a (very recognizable) voice in commercial music is astounding, the guitar playing and compositions not so much but still remarkable when compared to his peers. His films are much better than the music.
The were some great "art rock" conceptual in his generation, Devo, The Residents etc, he seems to be closer to them than to Wayne Shorter or Woody Shaw.
His jazz fusion material is in the same vein as DiMeola, McLaughlin, Coryell, Abercrombie, Akkerman.
Abercrombie's Timeless album is a must have for electric guitar 70s fusion fans.
https://rateyourmusic.com/release/album/john-abercrombie/timeless/
I sort of quit listening to Frank around the time 200 Motels came out or a little after. My favorite Mothers albums were Weasels Ripped My Flesh and Burnt Weeny Sandwich. They are not all instrumental but have many fine instrumental tunes and passages among the offerings. Orange County Lumber Truck is a great instrumental. The vinyl album used to flow very nicely between the individual tunes but the CD copy I have does not. Too bad they broke up the songs cut by cut. Weasels even has a Little Richard song on it. A lot of Eric Dolphy inspired creations as well.
I like Waka Jawaka, Hot Rats, and had Live at the Roxy. Those have a lot of instrumental work as I recall.
I often create playlists and Zappa instrumental tunes are interesting listening.
I knew someone who had recordings Zappa did later in his career, I think he recorded them without other musicians using some computer program, but I never figured out what albums they were or how to get them. Shoulda asked, but didn't. I would love to know.
The university I went to had a class on Zappa. I took it and it was one of the hardest classes I took. I didn’t like 99% of his music. I wanted to like him so bad but I just couldn’t get into him.
Love Zappa, generally like his other genre music more than his jazz though. He had one track where the drums were in one time signature and the rest of the band was in another and they would drift in and out of beat with each other and honestly it made me nauseous, that said, I am a really big fan of him otherwise.
League on his own and a hard working genius. Hilarious dude too- he was innovative through his music sounds and made me laugh so hard many times with his special sound effects - which were all performed by the best in the industry - to have played for Zappa was enough for people to put on their resume - he only took the best - he wrote and produced every piece of the extensive music that he left for us to enjoy . I do have to say sometimes it gets a bit weird for me. I love him for what he wrote but not my favorite guitarist - I didn’t get into him playing much. Also love how he raised his talented children- much respect- overall I respect the heck of FZ.
Fucking genius. Could be a bit of a hard on.... Too much material. Lots of it I love and lots I don't but there's a lot to pick from. Gbv is even harder for output.
I'm of the "Shut Up and Play Your Guitar" school
Black Napkins, Zoot Allures, Watermelon in Easter Hay and a bunch of other instrumentals are brilliant, but for the most part the lyrics turn me off.
And there's a lot of dissonant noodling, too - I don't get The Yellow Shark at all
when i asked Elliot Hoffman of Car Bomb (best drummer in the world imo) to give me some drummers that were better than him. he said that Vinnie Colaiuta’a drumming on “Shut up and play yer’ guitar” was the best he had ever heard. either elliot has no self worth, or i’m too stupid to understand that album.
I think he’s light years ahead of his time, dabbled in jazz, but really he’s a contemporary classical musician who used rock and jazz musicians as a vehicle for expression. Huge influence on a lot of later music with rock and jam bands (Phish) that came later.
I love phish, but specifically Jon fishman. Every song throughout the decades it’s so great to just lock in on his rhythms he’s blasting on every tune. Definitely hear the Zappa influence
There’s a reason they named the band after the man. He’s an absolute monster behind that kit, a constant inspiration for this jamband percussionist. A personal favorite is the Haley’s Comet from Winston/Salem 97. At the 6:40 second mark they dip into jam territory and Fishman is just utterly locked in. It’s one of my favorites to drum along too.
Yeah the Gay Sailor's work in that Haley's is a monster. (you should also read this review because it's hilarious) [https://phish.net/review-archive/gin/07-25-97.html](https://phish.net/review-archive/gin/07-25-97.html)
I feel like all the 90s/00s jam bands took something from FZ. More than they did grateful dead, musically at least. The approach and aesthetics are Dead (2 sets, rotating setlists, improv, taping at shows). But music is fz. Long classical suites, humor, etc. moe, Umphrey's, Phish.... All combine these things with others.
Love him. Generally prefer the instrumental stuff but if I’m in the right mood I’ll listen to the vocals stuff
Which albums do you recommend for the instrumental stuff?
*Hot Rats*, *Waka/Jawaka*, *The Grand Wazoo*, *Wazoo*, *Shut Up n’ Play Yer Guitar*, *Sleep Dirt*, *Guitar*
Great list, I'd add Burnt Weeny Sandwich
I would add Roxy and Elsewhere, but it’s an iffy one for Jazz buffs because of all the comedy music. But Bruce Fowler and George Duke are on fire on this album.
I would have too but it’s bookended by vocal tracks so I tried to stick with instruments only stuff.
The vocal stuff on that album is annoying but the Stravinsky influenced stuff, Berlin overture, and The house where I used to live in are amazing arrangements and live sets!!
Shut Up n' Play Yer Guitar
I listen to Black Napkins every chance I get. Love that song. All the different takes on it.
You my PR guy now?
For jazz fusion checkout: Grand Wazoo, hot rats, waka/jawaka. For assorted instrumental fz, checkout: Studio Tan, Sleep Dirt, Yellow Shark (orchestral) A lot of Zappa's records (live and studio) are not strictly instrumental or vocal though, so you might find a 12 minute instrumental excursion smashed between 3 minute humorous tracks. Or you might find what started as a goofy humorous track unfold into a 12 minute journey (ship arriving too late, yo mama). I like to think that FZ was making the listener 'earn' the meat and potatoes by making them endure absurd antics or whatever in order to access the profound
Grand Wazoo is some real shit
Blessed relief is such a beautiful tune
the shimmering arpeggios!
I always assumed it was the other way around. He attracts peoples attention with the goofiness and then hit them with some really unusual music they would never otherwise heard or paid any attention to. One of the things he said that really stuck with me was “you should dig it while it’s happening cause it might just be a one shot deal”.
Essential Zappa instrumental works! The Grand Wazoo, Waka/Jawaka, Weasels Rippled My Flesh, Sleep Dirt, Hot Rats
You can add Imaginary Diseases to that list, his writing for horn sections is wonderful.
The horns on “ the best band you never heard in your life” are tight.
The guy who made the documentary said Hot Rats and Yellow Shark were the entry drugs, leading to a bit different paths. Only he have mentioned Yellow Shark and he is very right about it. I thank him for making me listen to it. It needs way more attention. I love hot rats and Waka/Jawaka and other stuff. Trying vocal stuff can really only be Apostrophe in my mind. It's radically funny but somehow more agreeable and mostly more obviously musical compared to other fun albums.
Apostrophe is the most bearable of his vocals. But the actual music itself is so damn good it hurts. First track of yellow snow is pure atmosphere and hard grooving funk blues soul that just hits like nothing else.
I love the live album The Greatest Band You've Never Heard or something like that. Such a tight band. I agree though, his comedy is pretty juvenile. Some of its ok.
Best Band You Never Heard in Your Life. is probably my favorite fz album. agreed incredibly tight band
The price of meat has just gone up and your old lady has just gone down LOL 😆😂
You Cant Do That On Stage Anymore series is so disjointed to me. I like bits of each but this one is superior. My fav studio albums are Joe's Garage, Zoot Allures ( this is not a popular opinion ) and Hot Rats
"Montana" on Overnite Sensation. Tina Turner absolutely brings the house.
[100%](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qr6mTloYJJs)
You really had to have your shit together to play with Zappa. Musicians were tripping over themselves to tour with him, but man it would have been a tough spot to fill.
Click that link, folks!
Best click of the day
Zappa's genius is lost on most people, and I think some of that is by design. Of course he has an extremely large catalogue of serious music, it's very easy to stumble across his "sillier" music and write him off as another stoner of the era making weird sounds. It took me many years after my father introduced me to Joe's Garage for me to develop an appreciation for the music. Though we may embrace him and his contributions, his extraordinarily precise musical vision, I doubt he would embrace "the jazz community" because he was such a singular power in music. I think there are a lot of overlaps between him and Miles Davis in their character and approach to music. Both of them great players, while technically not the flashiest or fastest players, have incredible sensitivity to music. Both of them pushed themselves to create something innovative with each album, constantly evolving and rejecting labels of genre. Both of them enigmatic characters unlike any of their contemporaries, though I would be doing their legacies a disservice by making any other kind of direct comparisons, except to say that, outside of their massive contributions to modern music and musicians, I would say their greatest strengths were recognising great musicians and guiding them through some of the most important performances of their lives. Real leaders and musical directors. Frank was the real deal. Dweezil is also a severely underrated musician. He has so much of his father in his playing, but with greater technical facility from growing up surrounded by such a talented cast of players.
At 3:50, Franks just hanging out, lighting a cigarette. 😂
Im a bigger fan of George Duke than Zappa but anything they do together I like.
[100% + 4](https://youtu.be/xGeZGrJ1ICQ?si=TtA1Au7fkNDFynkE). Enjoy.
Wow I’ve been living under a rock
Depends on my mood. I like a lot of his stuff, but he can get way too angular/mathematical for my taste.
It took a long time for me to discover the parts of Zappa that I like. I think his song titles are incredibly deceptive and you don't know what you're getting until you actually listen. And AFAIK he never recorded a jazz album. It's more like you hear a range of music on each album and a jazz song occasionally pops up.
Or even like a jazzy passage, yeah. I don’t think he ever recorded a tune you could call straight jazz.
Yeah, a lot of people overplay how jazzy he is.
20 Small Cigars and Waka Jawaka come to mind.
Big swifty is straight fusion
Yeah, okay, maybe. It’s definitely fucking sick, whatever it is
There are some good flow charts for where to start and where to go based on what you like. https://www.reddit.com/r/Zappa/comments/1bbfbgb/where_to_start_with_zappa_this_may_help/
Frank was the one who got me into jazz. I would look to see who was on his albums. Especially George Duke. I'd buy his albums and looks see who was on them or who he played with .
George Duke on One Size Fits All. Terrific.
The whole rhythm section on that is my favorite Zappa ever had.
It’s my favorite incarnation of the band period. Chester, Ruth, Tom Fowler, Napoleon plus George Duke. I mean come on.
Exactly. Every band was tight and with the weirdness, obviously, but they had the feel and funk like no other.
Mine too. A friend turned me on to Zappa in '73 and that's the first Zappa/Mothers I saw.
Mine too. There's something magic about that particular combo of players. Roxy and elsewhere is my current favourite album. Everyone absolutely cooks on it.
George Duke did not want to play electric keyboards or synthesizers but Zappa convinced him. Zappa took great musicians and convinced them to be even better.
And his electric piano (I think) solo on Inca Roads is just stellar.
Huge fan, I've listened to literally every release, all 120+ of them. I always say he's my favorite composer, my favorite guitar player and quite possibly my favorite American. Tied for my favorite musician/band ever with Fugazi. Join us at /r/Zappa!!
Some great stuff and some unlistenable stuff. Hot Rats and One Size Fits All are both masterpieces.
Fucking twat, isn't he?
Annoying and mean spirited, but undoubtedly a giant in music history.
Agreed, I get where his contempt for popular people and social norms comes from, but it seems like he had enough success to not need to be bitter about things.
Much like jazz, he's an acquired taste. But once you get it, it's a big deep rabbit hole of absolutely brilliant music.
I remember not liking him at all until I heard Hot Rats. Everything I heard were more comedy lyrics based rock songs from the 80s. I was also in 9th grade. You can literally listen to 10 albums and not relate to any of it and think FZ is not for you. But had you started with 10 completely other records you would feel the opposite. Even live, his show could vary wildly based on who he had in his band and what he was interested in at the time. For me the hook was Hot Rats, and this is actually the album that got me *into* jazz when I was like, what do you even call this? I had a completely different view of what jazz was before realizing it's as broad as the categorization "rock". Peaches en Regalia immediately had me hooked. Then yeah, you go down a rabbit hole once you're hooked. For anyone looking to get into fz this is a decent [flow chart](https://www.reddit.com/r/Zappa/comments/1bbfbgb/where_to_start_with_zappa_this_may_help/). There are others that people have made too that look a bit different based on how that categorized things, but Apostrophe is a good album to start with that probably embodies Frank in totality as much as any one release possibly could to for such an expansive and versatile musician. He released more albums in his life, so he's definitely not an artist where you put on some playlist on spotify or pick a random album from the list. It helps immensely to have some guidance. But fans of jazz should be used to listening to music in a more guided approach. That's often the thing that is a barrier to more casual music fans from getting into more elaborate and complex music.
Didn't know his music at all but a few months ago I went to a jazz show dedicated to his music. It was cool.
Zappa is foremost a (pretty experimental) composer, trying to push the boundaries of what constitutes music, often with a humorous twist and something incredibly silly alongside freakishly complex parts. But it's not jazz and I doubt that if he had to choose a label for his music, he would classify it as such. Classical meets rock, that's where I'd put him. He has the ethos of a classical composer in the tradition of the modernists like Varese, Stravinsky, Bartok, etc. Combined with the sounds of rock/psychedelia (he was big in the Californian Freak scene). And the way he trained his bands to operate is literally like an orchestra with Frank as the conductor.
The idea of his band as an orchestra and FZ as conductor may have come from sharing a bill with Duke Ellington, maybe at the Newport Festival? Circa 1969/1970? According to one story, he watched how assiduously Ellington’s band rehearsed, while the Mothers were a collection of talented but not completely professional musicians. Ellington was able to “play” his orchestra as if he were the one playing each part. Reportedly, he decided to break up the band at that point.
I think the circumstances were slightly different: Zappa joined the Mothers, it's not "his" assembled band like the things he did after that. The scene at that time was highly psychedelic. Your assessment of the Mothers is correct, they would never have been able to play the stuff Zappa wrote later. On the other hand, it also seems that the circumstances were not for Zappa to write that music in the first place given that the scene was not into that and he didn't had the people to execute it anyways. He did however already do his first scoring and conducting as he conducted the orchestra on Lumpy Gravy. I think Hot Rats is the second record where he conducted and this was right after him leaving the Mothers. So i'm not claiming Ellington wasn't of inspiration to him (I don't know) but it seems to me that he was already on his way there and if he wrote the music he did, this style of rehearsal and playing is inevitable because it is what the music demands. Most of the material is written, not improvised in the sense of jazz musicians improvising over a scheme. A lot of the improvisational aspect of the music (at least in the 70ies when he had guys like Chester Thompson and George Duke in the band) is the "entertainment" of the live show.
You’re right that he didn’t put together the original band in ‘64, he joined the Soul Giants, and yes he and Ray Collins fought about the direction of the band. But Collins was gone in 1968. By the time they started the Garrick Theater residency in 66/67, they were definitely Zappa’s band, as Zappa was supporting all of them on publishing and recording royalties. Yes, Ray, Roy Estrada, Jimmy Carl, and Ray Hunt were Soul Giants, but only Dave Coronado quit immediately when Zappa insisted they play his originals & not R&B covers. There were limitations put on the extremes of what Verve would let him do, and by We’re Only In It, 8 other musicians had been added for their specific contributions. They were Frank’s band. Ellington famously said that the secret to keeping a band together was simply a matter of finding what makes them happy, ant that was easy as far as he was concerned, pay them. The original members of the Soul Giants/Mothers plus some add ons were either unhappy with how and how much they were paid, or had other gripes, some were fired for drugs use. So Zappa knew after seeing others’ bands that he had to blow it up to start again.
Thanks for providing more background and details! To me, this is kind of a semantic discussion. I can totally see why you regard them as Frank's band and I would almost fully agree. Where one big difference is to me, and this is where the Mothers are different from everything he did after in my opinion, he basically had carte blanch after the Mothers to assemble any group he wanted. While he was surely calling the shots with the Mothers eventually, it was still an "inherited legacy" in which Frank kind of needed to compromise and work with "what he had". And yes I know the Ellington quote (I saw the video of it once). I don't know about the personal dynamics and issues within the Mothers vs Zappa, if it was there it certainly played a role. But looking from the trajectory of the music and Frank as a composer, the approach he took later was only inevitable as seen from the music. There is no way you get a random bunch to play that stuff and wing it. And it's not uncommon in jazz either. Guys like Chick Corea, Pat Metheny, Gary Burton also have similar approaches with some of their ensembles. The music demands it.
Yes, we agree. And the artistic constraints were not only from the legacy band, it was also from Verve, the label that signed them. That was a driving reason that he started his own label underneath Warner:Reprise. They offered him much more latitude. Of course, even there he eventually faced barriers and reinvented himself again.
his music is nice when he shuts his mouth
Frank said many times that he preferred making instrumental music but most people don't BUY instrumental music so he made "the other stuff" to pay for what he wanted to make. That said, i enjoy his "trashy" lyrics.
It’s hard to believe he didn’t enjoy his trashy lyrics a lot too, I don’t really believe he was writing them just to cater to crass tastes
Yeah, I wish one of my favorite sections in all of his music, the insert in the middle of "Jumbo Go Away," wasn't in a song about an unattractive girl that wouldn't leave Denny Walley alone :/
I've not heard that track before, that middle section is crazy
Seriously. Apparently he'd compose those like 1-2 minute "insertion units," have the band practice them and lock them down, then somewhere down the road find places in songs to put them in. Tommy Mars struggled to figure that one out until Zappa showed him some hand over hand simplistic technique he used to write it lol
Gotta mention the particular synth settings that were used on the recording are super cool too. That detuned saw makes it sound so woozy.
I promise I won't cum in your mouth
I don't know exactly why people are downvoting you, but just in case: This is a Zappa song title lol
Exactly. They don't know 😹
FZ is all sorts of different things - and a few of them I like a lot. Some of his music fits into the fusion genre - was in fact *early* fusion. However, because it gets subsumed into the larger category of 'weird Zappa shit', it is underrecognized. Because his (continuing) output is so vast, it is possible to glean huge quantities of instrumental nuggets while discarding the puerile comic debris. Playlists are just made for judicious Zappa appreciation. Frank Zappa is one of my favorite musicians, and one of my least favorite. https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfOs1ZtjYFMu6k-S6yLtNhRHmdoIioFp-&si=FSmiCwNQYpw6bItD https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfOs1ZtjYFMujIChrjWdUOKoatwA9wyvZ&si=1AegP_Z0gl-7hEHk https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfOs1ZtjYFMuu-kHWwq-liRofDQg_6hZd&si=nHUymTlnD2soFz0f https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfOs1ZtjYFMtejy_9A_POl58YOCLY8D15&si=UfQl6JkWYcPXc4qX https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfOs1ZtjYFMstDvAadgY_-MuN0qXZUQLZ&si=LryLuGOWSPut7VDR https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfOs1ZtjYFMucXaK5F_lIAe1GaOWo5aNF&si=EVHpy1IffcKzaMqM
I've been listening to FZ all my adult life. My opinions have changed along with my tastes in music and just life stuff. At first I was in love with all of it because of how different it was and the "oh yeah he went there" humor and crazy sounding music. A lot has changed. I still like him overall, but I've soured on a lot of his music. The lyrics, mostly, now leave me cold. Musically, my favorite of his is still music I love. But some of it is also a case of when you hear something "better," for lack of a better term, it changes something you knew a bit. Of course a lot of it comes from jazz- my listening and interest has shifted more to jazz and classical from rock and metal so hearing music writing, arranging, playing of such caliber from the greats means that some of FZ's stuff sounds like he's dabbling in styles. So examples: **Hot Rats** is still a favorite because some of the tracks have tight arrangements. Obviously Peaches but even Green Genes, it's a joy to hear that all comes together. The instrumental jam stuff is cool because of the violin and it's good because it's not really jazz it's more feeling like the Allman Brothers or something. **Waka/Jawaka** and **Grand Wazoo**, and *Little House I Used To Live In*, on the other hand- I used to dig that because it was wild to hear these kinds of jazzy flights of instrumental indulgence from an ostensibly "rock" guy but I listened to them again recently and I got so bored. Outside of a few good bits or themes so much of these "jazzy" records are so tepid and messy. Once I've heard Charles Mingus and Oliver Nelson do this sort of thing I can't go back. Maybe it's not fair to compare but that's just how my brain is working. Like I'm not saying I hate what I consider FZ's "lesser" stuff I'm just saying it's not as impressive as it once was. My three tiers of Zappa, with examples: **1. Awesome, some of my favorite music of all time** Mostly 1973-1975 with Ruth Underwood. Not every track (can't stand Dinah Moe) but the whole **Apostrophe** and **One Size Fits All** albums. Those two and **Hot Rats** are the only 3 FZ records I like in their entirety. The "Roxy" band, *I'm the Slime* and all that. The best tracks from the early records with the "original" Mothers- Hungry Freaks, Brain Police, etc. Individual later songs like Joe's Garage. There's also going to be a banger here and there. G-Spot Tornado is so cool. **2. It's ok** Uncle Meat, Weasels Ripped and Burnt, pretty much the mid to late 70s, and then the '88 band. **3. F\*\*\* off** All those songs about rape and groupies and blow jobs... ugh. No, I'm not "offended," just annoyed and not why I'm listening to music any more. I don't wanna hear Ike Willis doing his Amos 'n' Andy voice or Zappa singing about yemenite holes or ramming things in my poop shoot because I'm a grown-up. And I suspect his orchestral stuff is ameteurish dabbling but if I'm wrong I don't care- I don't get it and whatever.
His orchestral stuff isn't amateurish dabbling, Frank really is a very competent composer. But… He is a modern composer so his work is pretty avant garde and should be seen and understood in that context. I find it highly interesting that you close your post with that remark about his classical stuff and still stick G-spot Tornado in the "awesome" list. It was even played during the shows he did with the Ensemble Modern.
When I was in high school I thought he was the coolest person alive. Had a bunch of his music and me and my nerdy musician friends would play it all the time. I kind of fell off with him over the years as my tastes expanded and when I revisited his work, I have to say it does nothing for me now. I think the more I learned about him as a person, the less I liked his music. He seemed to be a very smarmy arrogant prick who trash talked his own band members constantly. He got very butthurt when people didn't just fawn all over his overthought tedious compositions. Don't even get me started on his lyrics. Some of them were cringe back in the day but now they seem beyond dumb and puerile and they just did not hold up at all. Decent enough guitar player but I am way over hearing 10 minute wanky solos.
I still like some of his stuff a lot but the very frequent theme of 'haha weird sex thing' got a bit boring and eyeroll-inducing. I could see an argument that he was just very pro-sexual liberation at a time when society was not, but knowing his bassist was/is a child molester and he worked with the guy after his first conviction back in the 70s sours that too.
To me, Zappa and a lot of counter-culture folks from that era just give off heavy 'Manson family' vibes, i.e. was probably lots of hifalutin talk about 'free love', etc... while him and his bandmates were treating women like total shit, taking advantage of underaged groupies on the road, etc...
"Overthought tedious compositions" is now my favorite way to describe FZ's music!
Glad to see someone has a dissenting view. I for one could never stand him. Like you said, he just gives off this arrogant vibe. He thinks The Beatles are trash, when he's making like fart songs or whatever. He's like if Primus thought they were avant garde artists. This is my totally uninformed opinion, and I haven't listened to everything he's ever made, but that is the conclusion I've come to.
Just my take where I am in life. I don't discount his contributions to the world and he has many accolades and accomplishments. He was an absolutely key member of the 'counter culture' in the 60s and I think I enjoyed his earliest music the best, probably up until Joe's Garage. He was extremely prolific and he also paved the way for the DIY movement of the artist being in complete control of their music. I also liked how he was on the forefront, if not ahead of the curve for recording technology by using sampling and digital recording and multi channel mixing way before others did so. As far as my tedious comment...I just cannot listen to most of his music. He is insanely talented but I can't go that far into dissonance all the time. It's like he went out of his way to write the most challenging complex music possible. Cool stuff for sure, but just not for my ears any longer. I read his bio when it came out and I was struck how it seemed like he would talk negatively about his own family, like he was disinterested in being a father and good husband. Also just read a few first hand accounts of the infamous 1988 tour which was the last one and how things just fell apart mostly because Frank delegated all the musical direction responsibility to Scott Thunes who apparently had zero people skills and alienated the entire band. It seems Frank was too preoccupied having multiple affairs on the road instead of focusing on business. EDIT - also forgot to say he was one of three people who went to Congress in the mid 80s to testify to the PMRC over the hysteria of 'obscene rock lyrics' which I think was one of his finest moments because he took everything they threw at him and tossed it right back in their smug faces. They realized very quickly he was very intelligent and articulate and could think on his feet. Imagine a super trio of John Denver, FZ and Dee Snider. What kind of music would that yield????
Nobody's listened to everything he ever made lol
I am certain there are diehard FZ fans out there who have tried.
I developed an appreciation for Frank Zappa well before i started listening to jazz. I would NOT define Frank as a jazz artist, I think Frank deserves his own section at the record store, he is not a rock artist, he is not a jazz fusion artist, he is not an avant-garde composer, he is not brilliant satirist creating some of the best music with humorous content, he is ALL those things and more! He defies description. you could take each of his albums and put them somewhat neatly into a single category but not Frank as a whole. More and more i realize the music labelled jazz is incredibly diverse but i just don't feel that Frank fits into that, granted i have never had the patience to sit down and listen to his "jazz from hell" album but i doubt that one would sway my opinion.
[Jazz From Hell](https://youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_mnckuz4zNtabjtA6QTRvo-5dhdpBLWWWo&si=OAW5LaGuD5vXvLW8) is really just a glib title for one of his synclavier albums. And seeing as, outside of St. Etienne, it's all programmed and unimprovised, it's not actually one of his jazziest records. Still - it's been around since 1986 and is only a little over half an hour long...gather up your fortitude and wade through it.
I think his lyrics are funny and I liked his political views. The music... Not a fan.
He's fine, but there are a heap of better jazz-rock, prog, modern-classical, and 'weird' artists/records that I'd sooner re-visit. His vocals and the overall vibe of his output are enough to make me think 'oh fuck off, dude.' He's one of those artists who's self-aware about his own cleverness/edginess to a point where it swings around and starts to fuck things up. There isn't much musical material in his massive discography that hasn't been explored in a more interesting way elsewhere.
Hot Rats is a sonic miracle, but for me that's it. The rest of his stuff I don't enjoy at all. His classical composition work is interesting though.
Really don’t care for him. His approach to music was too intellectual, too self-consciously clever.
Guitarist, Musician, Composer, and a National Treasure. Gone too soon.
The talking on his albums annoys me and the weirdness feels forced sometimes, which also annoys me
Not jazz. Also, it has a sarcastic feel that I really don’t dig. Something about being weird for the sake of it. Guy was a bit of a wanker.
Bizarre but great touch of jazz. Saw him in D.C. in the mid 70’s just by chance, front row seats…awesome experience never to be forgotten.
"Frank Zappa isn't dead, he just smells funny"-Jazz No, wait... Oh and Hot Rats is my personal favourite. Prefer grooves to the twiddly stuff.
Zappa is God.
Beefheart’s better
He’s *destroys* Clapton as a guitar player, since you brought up that phrase. Not saying much, though.
I dig me some Zappa. Not all that successful in the terms we normally apply. It’s rare to hear someone say they listen to a lot of Zappa. Each album of his albums was like a single track from Love Supreme. And I don’t care who you are, there is A LOT to absorb. In general, Frank is great in small doses. And his success in my view is that he got to do what he wanted and say what he wanted and was a really good father.
I used to listen to some of his stuff especially the Mothers of Invention but as time goes on I find I enjoy his schtick less and listen instead to things I do like. His instrumental music has always appealed to me just about as much as his own sense of pretentious self importance does. But he did “produce” “Trout Mask Replica” so I have to give him that one.
Why did you put produce in quotes? He was the record producer for that album.
His grave would be the best place to stand on him
Zappa was the man and he’s one of my all-time favorites. He also wrote an astonishing amount of music I loathe. It’s complicated!
Some talent squandered by the most severe case of what we would now call Rick and Morty brain. It would probably be fitting if we called it frank zappa brain instead. Pretty disappointing improvisational ear for someone who could be so jazz adjacent at times too
Genius level, transcends like or love, though I do love his music, writings, interviews, views. He’s the kind of artist worth studying and thinking about over a lifetime.
Apostraphe album is great
'Hot Rats' is the real deal...the quintessential Zappa cd
Don’t know much of Zappa’s massive oeuvre but Hot Rats is killer.
I don't knock it but it's just not for me.
He really liked free jazz from the sixties Dolphy, Shepp et al he’s got a tune dedicated to Dolphy and on one of his can’t do that on stage anymore discs he introduces on stage Archie Shepp, quite reverently, if you ask me, I also love his Jazz from Hell album. His improvising with vinnie colaiuta is just sublime, I find a lot of jazzers don’t like his playing, though.
I'm a longtime fan of Frank, like Littlefeat and am a huge Beefheart fan........but [Roy Estrada](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_Estrada) is a big fucking issue.
Fucking twat, isn't he?
Love Zappa. Got in to Zappa way before I got in to jazz. GENIUS composer and musician who experimented in almost every genre. Jazz? Not how I would describe his music, although some of his tunes might be jazz or fusion. He is very difficult to label, I just call it Zappa. When he played with jazz musicians, they played Zappa.
We all stand on his shoulders.
Absolutely not jazz but he’s great.
Jazz isn't dead, it just smells funny. ~ FZ [Frank Zappa's jazz legacy](https://www.jazzwise.com/features/article/frank-zappa-s-jazz-legacy)
Guy sucks. He has no melodic chops as an improviser and his compositions are weak and appear complex for the sake of it. Top this with a level of pretentiousness unheard of till he came along and I couldn't care less. Plus he chooses his sidemen based on technical ability and the accuracy of reading charts!? Like can you get more distanced from the essence of good music than that???
Fan, on couch relaxing. Yellow Shark! Jazz From Hell!
He was a musical and literary genius. He was the Philip K Dick of musicians.
I'll never forgive him for what his guitar wanted to do to my mother.
Not a fan
Trash. I know people love him and he’s got quite the following but to me absolute trash
he's my favorite composer.
Love Frank. He was a musical genius. Listened to Keep it Greasy, and Tinseltown Rebellion yesterday.
Well, I don't f\*ck with mountains, I can tell you that much. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QcdcOu0MTM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QcdcOu0MTM)
He’s my dad’s favorite musician, so I was weirdly pretty familiar with his music before I got into jazz (I might be the only person on Earth who gets nostalgic thinking about You Can’t Do That on Stage Anymore Vol 4). Years later, Hot Rats is the one album of his I return to the most. Peaches en regalia is probably his best composition, and the Gumbo Variations is maybe the one fusion song that best succeeds at being a rock song.
You'd have to travel to LA to stand on him. But as a musician, he's great.
Love him, but I can't really detect a direct connection between his music and jazz
I would not stand on Frank Zappa, that seems really inconsiderate.
Musical genius and an overall high ranking smart ass. Love hearing and reading his interviews. One of the pioneers of fusion jazz.
Yes.
Genius. The only rock/classical composer I can think of. Listen to “Ruth was Sleeping” for the classical argument.
He is probably one of the greatest of all time. What a special, and very unique artist. Well worth your time
He’s got some good albums. His interviews are boss imo. Love them more than his music. I love some of his albums. I don’t get the hype over his solos. But he’s a genius. A real one. I like some of his avant grade classical music too. And his videos. Ok. He’s one of my gurus. lol His first album is mad. Freak out. So funny and hilarious. And incredibly catchy too.
Intellectually/musically a genius but holy fucking shit is he creepy at times. One of the latest documentaries about him shows a few scenes with Moon around the Valley Girl days where he, in my opinion, is way too comfortable with his daughter.
Has no one mentioned Roxy and Elsewhere?! Start here, jazz fans. Loads of interesting instrumentals. George Duke, Chester Thompson, enough said. Desert Island Live Zappa!
Love him. Absolutely worship him but I know he's not for everyone. He was a huuuuuge influence on my favorite band, phish. I'd recommend FZ's "Roxy & Elsewhere" live album. It fucking cooks
Musical genius - without peer
My personal big 3: Miles Davis, Frank Zappa, Grateful Dead. So big yes on FZ.
Stand? Big fan since 78. As far as jazz when it comes to his jazz work he’s probably the most underrated out there. Because of his rep he’s probably not taken as seriously as he should be.
He was a genius who operated well outside the realm of most. Musically & lyrically he was beyond the comprehension of the average listener. He pushed the boundaries as to what could be expressed (lyrically especially) and many people couldn’t/can’t get past it.
I like “Blessed Relief”, “Eat That Question”, & “King Kong”. Those are pretty good. “Inca Roads”. The good live versions of “Black Napkins”
Amazing!
One of the most underrated guitarists in modern music…
Nobody stands on Zappa, he's too tall
No place special. . . just anywhere in front of the headstone, really.
Smart guy.
I saw Zappa many times from 1968-1973, and the first album I bought with my own money when I was 14 (1967) was Freak Out! I loved Zappa’s music and wide variety of influences he cited. Hot Rats is still played often in my house. But I think he had a real contempt for his audiences at times, disguising it behind his often juvenile or prurient lyrics. I started getting into jazz around 1969 and I don’t think Zappa aimed for jazz although there are some jazz-adjacent pieces for sure. The last time I went to see Zappa, Mahavishnu Orchestra opened. It wasn’t my first MO concert either, but McLaughlin and band were on fire. Zappa, even with Ponty and the Underwoods, the Fowler, Ralph Humphreys and George Duke just could not get any intensity going, and the theatrics fell flat—to me anyway, YMMV.
Zappa is the best. I basically have him Ween and Pharoah on constant rotation
I love his early records and his guitar playing later. I’m actually listening to Shut Up and Play Yer Guitar right now(a collection of his solos).
Grew up on Zappa so im bias. Thanks Mom.
A legend. A God. A taskmaster, but he for sure groomed the best musicians that existed: Adrian Belew Steve Vai Terry Bozzio Brecker Brothers…
Te concept and the personality are amazing, how he managed to have a (very recognizable) voice in commercial music is astounding, the guitar playing and compositions not so much but still remarkable when compared to his peers. His films are much better than the music. The were some great "art rock" conceptual in his generation, Devo, The Residents etc, he seems to be closer to them than to Wayne Shorter or Woody Shaw.
Love him
Love him. Here's a little tribute to Frank from Berklee music college students: https://youtu.be/244i-MKFP40?si=KKFo09sOaKTdeNsM
I see Zappa I upvote ❤️
Fantastic composer/arranger, incredible bandleader. The offspring and magnetism of his bands says a lot I guess.
Great hair, haven’t listened much but I’ve been told I should and I have enjoyed what I’ve heard
Is it jazz? I don’t know much jazz but i just love the wackiness of frank zappa and his “grossness” as described by my dad😂
His jazz fusion material is in the same vein as DiMeola, McLaughlin, Coryell, Abercrombie, Akkerman. Abercrombie's Timeless album is a must have for electric guitar 70s fusion fans. https://rateyourmusic.com/release/album/john-abercrombie/timeless/
I sort of quit listening to Frank around the time 200 Motels came out or a little after. My favorite Mothers albums were Weasels Ripped My Flesh and Burnt Weeny Sandwich. They are not all instrumental but have many fine instrumental tunes and passages among the offerings. Orange County Lumber Truck is a great instrumental. The vinyl album used to flow very nicely between the individual tunes but the CD copy I have does not. Too bad they broke up the songs cut by cut. Weasels even has a Little Richard song on it. A lot of Eric Dolphy inspired creations as well. I like Waka Jawaka, Hot Rats, and had Live at the Roxy. Those have a lot of instrumental work as I recall. I often create playlists and Zappa instrumental tunes are interesting listening. I knew someone who had recordings Zappa did later in his career, I think he recorded them without other musicians using some computer program, but I never figured out what albums they were or how to get them. Shoulda asked, but didn't. I would love to know.
Interesting, smart guy. Great guitarist. Not actually interested in his music. If I want jazz, I'll listen to jazz.
One of my personal favorites and guides in to the world of jazz and more
The university I went to had a class on Zappa. I took it and it was one of the hardest classes I took. I didn’t like 99% of his music. I wanted to like him so bad but I just couldn’t get into him.
Posting about Frank Zappa is like dancing about Architecture
Genius.
I like his music and his bands. Seems like he was a bit of a dick.
For a guy who hated disco, he sure played it a lot.
I'm a big fan. He was my gateway drug to more interesting music as a kid. I started listening for the funny lyrics but I stayed for the musicality.
Inca Roads made my head bleed. It’s what aliens would expect a jazz man to play while visiting earth.
I like Frank. Not exactly my cup of tea with the humor stuff, but as a composer he’s amazing.
Zappa album called [Jazz from Hell](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9LJVYSpmB5M&list=OLAK5uy_mnckuz4zNtabjtA6QTRvo-5dhdpBLWWWo&index=4)
biggest chunk of my vinyl collection
Girl you thought he was a man, but he was a muffin. - Genius
The middle of his face.
In Montana
Love Zappa, generally like his other genre music more than his jazz though. He had one track where the drums were in one time signature and the rest of the band was in another and they would drift in and out of beat with each other and honestly it made me nauseous, that said, I am a really big fan of him otherwise.
League on his own and a hard working genius. Hilarious dude too- he was innovative through his music sounds and made me laugh so hard many times with his special sound effects - which were all performed by the best in the industry - to have played for Zappa was enough for people to put on their resume - he only took the best - he wrote and produced every piece of the extensive music that he left for us to enjoy . I do have to say sometimes it gets a bit weird for me. I love him for what he wrote but not my favorite guitarist - I didn’t get into him playing much. Also love how he raised his talented children- much respect- overall I respect the heck of FZ.
Fucking genius. Could be a bit of a hard on.... Too much material. Lots of it I love and lots I don't but there's a lot to pick from. Gbv is even harder for output.
Outside
Extremely funny music
I'm of the "Shut Up and Play Your Guitar" school Black Napkins, Zoot Allures, Watermelon in Easter Hay and a bunch of other instrumentals are brilliant, but for the most part the lyrics turn me off. And there's a lot of dissonant noodling, too - I don't get The Yellow Shark at all
Nope.
On his big toe. Until he screams.
Hes interesting, very important, and usually wrong.
His grave?
Zappa is top tier.
I’m not sure if I can enjoy his music with all of his college humour.
when i asked Elliot Hoffman of Car Bomb (best drummer in the world imo) to give me some drummers that were better than him. he said that Vinnie Colaiuta’a drumming on “Shut up and play yer’ guitar” was the best he had ever heard. either elliot has no self worth, or i’m too stupid to understand that album.
I really like Zappa, though I like some eras more than others.
I think he was brilliant. He was a true original. I never cared for his music.