The Musical Box

A funny thing happens when a performance or musical event comes to town that centers around an artist whose work you grew up with. Sure, you assemble the story first, excited by the prospect of discussing (hopefully, intelligently) the music of someone who was a personal inspiration. But in doing so, you shove away the personal baggage that is unavoidably at your side.

Next you research the dickens out of what you’re writing subject. In other words, you pour over recordings and other musical data by the artist at hand. That can be either a session of endless fascination or something that can make the prospect of a root canal seem fetching.

The music of Frank Zappa - pictured above in the cover art to 1974’s Apostrophe (’) album - has been a personal favorite ever since a junior high teacher gave me a conduct demerit for reciting the lyrics to I’m the Slime during class. I tried to explain the song was merely about television, but my sentence was final.

Over the years, the appeal of Zappa’s music only grew. Like many, his rock oriented works hit me first. The orchestral music, initially, I just didn’t comprehend. I don’t know if I do today. But they do seem as intriguing now as the music saturated in guitar instrumentals, progressive jazz and social commentary. And if you managed to hit upon elements that touched upon all three, like Zappa’s landmark 1968 album Uncle Meat, you felt like you had struck gold.

Tonight’s discussion by Gail Zappa, the composer’s widow and head of the Zappa Family Trust (a talk curiously titled Some Musicians Don’t Enjoy Water Sports) and a performance to follow of Zappa compositions (along with works by Varese and Stravinsky that inspired Zappa) by the University of Kentucky Chamber Winds, gave me an excuse to dig out about 60 Zappa albums. Among them were bootlegs - unauthorized concert recordings the composer wound up approving for release (in boxed set collections called Beat the Boots) years after they initially surfaced.

Last Saturday’s snowstorm, which essentially shut down a good chunk of Lexington, afforded me the time to become reacquainted with the great Zappa. So as the ice and snow accumulated outside, here are some observations gathered by an afternoon spent with a steady supply of hot tea and a crate full of Zappa albums.

+ The orchestral arrangement of G- Spot Tornado on 1993’s The Yellow Shark is a thing of tense, tight wonder that blows by with gale force briskness. But the original version from 1986’s Jazz From Hell, recorded on the now-extinct digital synthesizer known as the synclavier, is even stormier.

+ Zappa manages to cut through the psychedelic pap of the late ‘60s on Oh No before launching into the warm, melodic and, dare we say, wholesome melodic stride of The Orange County Lumber Truck on 1970’s Weasels Ripped My Flesh. The tunes are reinterpreted on 1974’s Roxy & Elsewhere, which places Zappa’s sublime guitarwork front and center, and again with even greater tenacity on 1991’s Make a Jazz Noise Here.

+ Speaking of guitarwork, there are several recordings devoted exclusively to Zappa’s extraordinary instrumental prowess. Among them: 1981’s Shut Up ‘N Play Yer Guitar, 1988’s Guitar and the posthumous 2006 collection Trance-Fusion. But for pure compositional thrills, nothing beats what Zappa summarizes in a mere 10 minutes on the 1979 guitar instrumental Watermelon in Easter Hay.

+ The opening Sinfonia section of Stravinsky’s Octet (which will be part of tonight’s Singletary performance) bears a wind-savvy animation that is generously reflected in many of Zappa’s pop works, such as Uncle Meat’s The Dog Breath Variations (which is also on tonight’s program).

+Among the many topics that seemed to really frost Zappa’s pumpkin was organized religion. He prefaces a version of Stinkfoot on Make a Jazz Noise Here by discussing TV evangelist Jimmy Swaggart’s then-recent confession of engaging in “something pornographic.” But 1981’s Dumb All Over cuts deeper to suggest the only thing more insipid than corporate righteousness is a following that buys into it.

+ Finally, Zappa was one of contemporary music’s most underappreciated champions of free speech. In 1985, he testified before the U.S. Senate when the Parents Music Resource Center began promoting a rating and labeling system for the lyrical content of records. The testimony was sampled for a 12 minute synclavier montage called Porn Wars on 1986’s Frank Zappa Meets the Mothers of Prevention. Also included is a snippet of dialogue between Tipper Gore and Zappa.

Gore: I’d be interested to see what toys your kids ever had.

Zappa: Why would you be interested?

Gore: Just as a point of interest.

Zappa: Well, come on over to the house. I’ll show them to you.

Gail Zappa: “Some Musicians Don’t Enjoy Water Sports” and the University of Kentucky Chamber Winds’ “A Zappa Tribute: Inspirations and Music of American Composer Frank Zappa” will be presented at 7:30 tonight at the Singletary Center for the Arts. Admission is free.