Frank Vincent Zappa b. After barely graduating from high school, and then dropping out of junior college where he met his first wife, Kay Sherman , Zappa worked at such jobs as window dresser, copywriter and door-to-door sales,an. With the money he earned from scoring Run Home, Slow written by his high school English teacher, Don Cerveris , Zappa purchased a recording studio and, after concocting an allegedly obscene recording for an undercover policeman, spent ten days in jail.
Zappa's diverse range of albums both with the seminal and protean groups The Mothers of Invention and Zappa; as well as solo releases are renowned not only for their bravura musicianship and satire, but for offending various groups usually conservatives, both religious and political. The Motels soundtrack was deemed too offensive by the Royal Albert Hall, which canceled scheduled concerts in ; and the song "Jewish Princess" led to Jewish calls for Zappa to apologize. Diagnosed with prostate cancer in , Zappa nonetheless continued working at his Hollywood Hills home, until his death on 4 December Sign In.
Edit Frank Zappa. Showing all 64 items. When marrying Gail Zappa in a civil ceremony, he attached a pin that said "Congratulations from Mayor Lindsay" onto her in lieu of a ring.
John V. Lindsay was mayor of New York City at the time. Has an enormous following in the former Communist countries of eastern Europe. As a child, his favorite television program was Robert Clampett 's puppet show Time for Beany The small town of Bad Doberan, Germany, holds an annual Zappanale festival, celebrating his life and music first held in In , a group of Lithuanian artists erected the world's first Zappa statue in Vilnius, the capital.
Since then one has been erected in Bad Doberan, Germany which Gail Zappa says does not look like him , and another a copy of the bust in Vilnius in Baltimore, Maryland. In recent years, various reworkings of his songs have been recorded, including versions in Baroque instrumental and a cappella vocal stylings.
Zappa is the first, and so far only, artist to be inducted into both the Jazz and Rock and Roll Halls of Fame. In March of his album "Joe's Garage" came 20th in Classic Rock Magazine's list of the 30 greatest concept albums of all time. Gave up his driver's license voluntarily, because he hated standing in line at the DMV. Wrote his own copyright notice, that appeared on his later records, and was the first to specifically mention sampling.
Used a wah-wah with his onstage guitar setup, which he had usually leave set in one position as a filter, rather than rock it to get the wah effect.
Bought a small recording studio with the proceeds of his score for Run Home, Slow ; first came to public attention when he was arrested in a scandal involving the studio he was later cleared.
Started out playing drums in his teens, then adopted his brother's f-hole acoustic guitar, trying to copy horn and guitar solos on blues and jazz records. Later studied Music Theory in college. Included a warning-cum-guarantee on his lates albums, deriding the Religious Right's attack on rock and pop music, and censorship in general, and concluding "If there is a Hell, its fires wait for them, not us.
During his last days, he wanted to make a movie called "Dwell". In , Captain Beefheart joined Zappa for a tour and despite an earlier rift, sang on Bongo Fury , both reuniting in disgust over the USA's bicentennial complacency. Zoot Allures in was principally a collaboration between Zappa and drummer Terry Bozzio , with Zappa overdubbing most of the instruments himself.
He was experimenting with what he termed " Xenochrony " combining previous unrelated tracks with different meters to create a piece of synchronous music and produced intriguing results on " Friendly Little Finger ". The title track took the concept of sleaze guitar onto a new level as did the orgasmic moaning of " The Torture Never Stops " , while " Black Napkins " was an incomparable vehicle for Zappa's guitar work.
If Zoot Allures now reads like a response to punk, Zappa was not to forsake large-scale rock showbiz. A series of concerts in New York in late had a wildly excited crowd applauding tales of singles bars, devil encounters and stunning Brecker Brothers virtuosity recorded as Zappa In New York. This album was part of the fall-out from Zappa's break-up with Warner Brothers Records, who put out three excellent, mostly instrumental albums with "non-authorized covers" adopted, strangely enough, by Zappa for his CD re-releases : Studio Tan , Sleep Dirt and Orchestral Favorites.
The punk-obsessed rock press did not know what to make of music that parodied Miklos Rozsa, crossed jazz with cartoon scores, guyed rock 'n' roll hysteria and stretched fusion into the twenty-first century. His guitar-playing seemed to expand into a new dimension: " Yo' Mama " on 's Sheik Yerbouti was a taste of the extravaganzas to come. In Ike Willis most of the time reinforced by the inseparable Ray White , Zappa found a vocalist who understood his required combination of emotional detachment and intimacy, and featured him extensively on the three volumes of [[ Joe's Garage.
After the mids interest in philosophical concepts and band in-jokes, the music became more political. This period showcased the unique talents of percussionist Ed Mann who gloriously took over the most important role of excellent Ruth Underwood , "Zappa's favourite" drummer Vinnie Colaiuta , "capable-of-all" guitar virtuoso Steve Vai who performed the unbelievably hard and valuable work of scoring Zappa's most "impossible" guitar solos , keyboard players Tommy Mars and Robert Martin , worthy partners of Zappa's most eccentric on-stage musical and practical jokes.
Zappa had a hit in with " Valley Girl ", which featured his daughter Moon Unit satirizing the accents of young moneyed Hollywood people. That same year saw him produce and introduce a New York concert of music by Varese.
The title track of Ship Arriving Too Late To Save A Drowning Witch indicated that Zappa's interest in extended composition was not waning; this was confirmed by the release of a serious orchestral album recorded with the London Symphony Orchestra The Orchestra in Zappa was quite outrageously prolific in renowned French composer Pierre Boulez conducted Zappa's work on Boulez Conducts Zappa: The Perfect Stranger ; he released a rock album Them Or Us , which widened still further the impact of his scurrilously inventive guitar; Thing-Fish its scenario was first published in Larry Flynt 's Hustler magazine Jazz From Hell presented wordless compositions for synclavier that drew inspiration from the expatriate American experimentalist composer Conlon Nancarrow 's pieces written for piano player.
Zappa could satisfy here his liking for using samples and highly complicated, "impossible for humans" rhythmic orgy. From the flood of his works during the 80's it is absolutely worth mentioning the highly courageous, triple-LP box set, Shut Up 'N Play Yer Guitar , a collection of his madly individual guitar solos also a masterpiece of overdubbing and musical editing , which was the first of a series represented also by the later Guitar and Trance-Fusion albums.
After rehearsing for three months the power and precision of the band were breathtaking, but they broke up during their first tour. In Czechoslovakia , where he had long been a hero of the cultural underground, he was appointed as the country's Cultural Liaison Officer with the West, while he gave his last live performance in Budapest, celebrating the soviet troops' withdrawal from Hungary , in The same year he announced he would be standing as an independent candidate in the US presidential election almost immediately he received several death threats!
In the last years of his life Zappa finally had the chance to work with an orchestra that could achieve the level of performance he had always looked for in "serious" music.
He was to be the conductor in the series of concerts given by EM in Germany and Austria, but due to increasing pain he had to abandon the last shows and go home. In May Zappa, clearly weak from intensive chemotherapy, announced that he was fast losing the battle as it had spread into his bones.
In the long interview published in Playboy just before his death he nonetheless declared that he wouldn't start to write sad music just because he was going to disappear. He succumbed to the disease seven months later, and died in his home on 4 December , Los Angeles, California.
Around one year after his death Civilization Phaze III was released, his first posthumous release, which had been being made for 30 years by then. The earliest recordings on this album were originally made during the sixties, they are completed by synclavier pieces being mixed until his very last days: it can be regarded as a kind of testament of his thoughts and music, even though we must consider the fact that making a synthesis was always as far from Zappa's intentions as it possibly can be.
No doubt about that if he was still alive he would continue to surprise us by shocking new musical and other kind of ideas every day.
In , a remarkable reissue programme was undertaken by Rykodisc Records in conjunction with his widow Gail Zappa.
The entire catalogue of over 50 albums was remastered and re-packaged with loving care. Rykodisc deserve the highest praise for this bold move. Viewed in perspective, Zappa's career reveals a perfectionist using only the highest standards of musicianship and the finest recording methods. The reissued CDs highlight the extraordinary quality of the original master tapes and Zappa's idealism.
Additionally, he is now rightly seen as one of the great guitar players of our time. Although much of his oeuvre can easily be dismissed as flippant, history will certainly recognize Zappa as a sophisticated, serious composer and a highly accomplished master of music. This musical genius never ceased to astonish, both as a musician and composer: on the way, he produced a towering body of work that is probably rock music's closest equivalent to the legacy of Duke Ellington.
From Zappa Wiki Jawaka. Navigation menu Personal tools Log in. Namespaces Page Discussion. Views Read View source View history. He and Buff began writing and recording pop music with studio groups and licensing the results to such labels as Del-Fi Records and Original Sound Records.
On March 26, , he was arrested by a local undercover police officer who had entrapped him by asking him to record a pornographic audiotape. Convicted of a misdemeanor, he spent ten days in jail, an experience that embittered him. After completing his sentence, he closed the studio, moved into Los Angeles, and joined a band called the Soul Giants that featured his friend, singer Ray Collins , along with bass player Roy Estrada and drummer Jimmy Carl Black. In short order, he induced the group to play his original compositions instead of covers, and to change their name to the Mothers reportedly on Mother's Day, May 10, In Los Angeles, the Mothers were able to obtain a manager, Herb Cohen , and audition successfully to appear in popular nightclubs such as the Whiskey Go-Go by the fall of By this time, Elliot Ingber had joined the group on guitar, making it a quintet.
An excess of material and Zappa 's agreement to accept a reduced publishing royalty led to the highly unusual decision to release it as a double-LP, an unprecedented indulgence for a debut act that was practically unheard, much less for an established one. Bob Dylan' s Blonde on Blonde appeared during the same period, but it was his seventh album. Freak Out! It was not an immediate success commercially, but it entered the Billboard chart for the week ending February 11, , and eventually spent 23 weeks in the charts.
In July , Zappa met Adelaide Gail Sloatman; they married in September , prior to the birth, on September 28, , of their first child, a daughter named Moon Unit Zappa who would record with her father. She was followed by a son, Dweezil , on September 5, He, too, would become a recording artist, as would Ahmet Zappa , born May 15, A fourth child, Diva, was born in August During the summer of , Zappa hired drummer Denny Bruce and keyboardist Don Preston , making the Mothers of Invention a septet, but by November , when the Mothers of Invention went back into the studio to record their second album, Absolutely Free, Bruce had been replaced by Billy Mundi ; Ingber had been replaced by Jim Fielder ; and Zappa had hired two horn players, Bunk Gardner on wind instruments and Jim "Motorhead" Sherwood on saxophone, bringing the band up to a nine-piece unit.
The album was recorded in four days and released in June It entered the charts in July and reached the Top After a two-week stint in Montreal, they returned to California, where Fielder left the group in February.
In March, Zappa began recording his first solo album, Lumpy Gravy , having signed to Capitol Records under the impression that he was not signed as an individual to Verve, a position Verve would dispute.
Later that month, the Mothers of Invention returned to New York City for another extended engagement at the Garrick Theater in Greenwich Village that ran during Easter week and was sufficiently successful that Herb Cohen booked the theater for the summer.
That run began on May 24, , and ran off and on through September 5. During this period, Ian Underwood joined the band, playing saxophone and piano.
On October 1, Verve failed to exercise its option to extend the band's contract, although they still owed the label three more LPs. They finished recording We're Only in It for the Money in October, but its release was held up because of legal concerns about its proposed cover photograph, an elaborate parody of the Beatles ' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band , which was finally resolved by putting the picture on the inside of the fold-out LP sleeve. Another legal dispute was resolved when Verve purchased the tapes of Lumpy Gravy from Capitol.
Zappa then finished recording this orchestral work, and Verve released it under his name and that of "the Abnuceals Emuukha Electric Symphony Orchestra and Chorus" on May 13, ; it spent five weeks in the charts. In the fall of , he began recording Uncle Meat , the soundtrack for a proposed film, with work continuing through February The label was intended to record not only the Mothers of Invention , but also acts Zappa discovered.
Early in the summer, Ray Collins quit the Mothers of Invention , who continued to tour. The LP spent 12 weeks in the charts. Zappa was then free of Verve, although his disputes with the company were not over. Verve put out a compilation, Mothermania: The Best of the Mothers , in March , and it spent nine weeks in the charts. It reached the Top The movie it was supposed to accompany did not appear until a home video release in In May, Bizarre released Pretties for You , the debut album by Alice Cooper , the only act discovered by the label that would go on to substantial success after switching to Warner Bros.
Records proper, that is. Zappa began working on a second solo album, Hot Rats , in July On August 19, the Mothers of Invention gave their final performance in their original form, playing on Canadian TV at the end of a tour. One week later, Zappa announced that he was breaking up the band, although, as it turned out, this did not mean that he would not use the name "the Mothers of Invention" for groups he led in the future.
Hot Rats , the second album to be credited to Frank Zappa , was released on October 10, It spent only six weeks in the charts at the time, but it would become one of Zappa 's best-loved collections, with the instrumental "Peaches en Regalia" a particular favorite.
Although the Mothers of Invention no longer existed as a performing unit, Zappa possessed extensive tapes of them, live and in the studio, and using that material, he assembled a new album, Burnt Weeny Sandwich, released in February ; it made the Top Chunga's Revenge , released in October, was billed as a Zappa solo album, even though it featured the current lineup of the Mothers ; it spent 14 weeks in the charts. After touring the U. But this strategy backfired when the Royal Albert Hall canceled the concert, alleging that Zappa 's lyrics were too vulgar.
He added to his expenses by suing the Royal Albert Hall, eventually losing in court. On June 5 and 6, , the Mothers appeared during the closing week of the Fillmore East theater in New York City, recording their shows for a live album, Fillmore East, June , quickly released on August 2.
They continued to tour into the fall. Meanwhile, the Mothers' European tour was eventful, to say the least. On December 4, , the group appeared at the Montreux Casino in Geneva, Switzerland, but their show stopped when a fan fired off a flare gun that set the venue on fire. The incident was the inspiration for Deep Purple' s song "Smoke on the Water. He suffered a broken ankle, among other injuries, and was forced to recuperate for months.
This was the end both of the tour and of this edition of the Mothers. While convalescing at home in Los Angeles, Zappa organized a new big band to play jazz-fusion music; he dubbed it the Grand Wazoo Orchestra and recorded two albums with it. The Grand Wazoo , credited to the Mothers , appeared in December and missed the charts.
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