Frank Zappa
Frank Vincent Zappa[nb 1] (/ˈzæpə/ ZAP-ə; December 21, 1940 – December 4, 1993) was an American musician, composer, and bandleader. In a career spanning more than 30 years, Zappa composed rock, pop, jazz, jazz fusion, orchestral and musique concrète works; he also produced almost all of the 60-plus albums that he released with his band the Mothers of Invention and as a solo artist.[2] His work is characterized by nonconformity, improvisation[3] sound experimentation, musical virtuosity and satire of American culture.[4] Zappa also directed feature-length films and music videos, and designed album covers. He is considered one of the most innovative and stylistically diverse musicians of his generation.[5][6]
"Zappa" redirects here. For other uses, see Zappa (disambiguation).
Frank Zappa
December 4, 1993 (aged 52)
- Composer
- guitarist
- bandleader
1955–1993
-
Kay Sherman(m. 1960; div. 1963)
Los Angeles, California, U.S.
- Guitar
- vocals
- Synclavier
- percussion
As a mostly self-taught composer and performer, Zappa had diverse musical influences that led him to create music that was sometimes difficult to categorize. While in his teens, he acquired a taste for 20th-century classical modernism, African-American rhythm and blues, and doo-wop music.[7] He began writing classical music in high school, while simultaneously playing drums in rhythm and blues bands, later switching to electric guitar. His debut studio album with the Mothers of Invention, Freak Out! (1966), combined satirical songs in seemingly conventional rock and roll format with collective improvisations and studio-generated sound collages. He continued this eclectic and experimental approach whether the fundamental format was rock, jazz, or classical.
Zappa's output is unified by a conceptual continuity he termed "Project/Object", with numerous musical phrases, ideas, and characters reappearing across his albums.[4] His lyrics reflected his iconoclastic views of established social and political processes, structures and movements, often humorously so, and he has been described as the "godfather" of comedy rock.[8] He was a strident critic of mainstream education and organized religion, and a forthright and passionate advocate for freedom of speech, self-education, political participation and the abolition of censorship. Unlike many other rock musicians of his generation, he disapproved of recreational drug use, but supported decriminalization and regulation.
Zappa was a highly productive and prolific artist with a controversial critical standing; supporters of his music admired its compositional complexity, while detractors found it lacking emotional depth.[9] He had greater commercial success outside the US, particularly in Europe. Though he worked as an independent artist, Zappa mostly relied on distribution agreements he had negotiated with the major record labels. He remains a major influence on musicians and composers. His many honors include his posthumous 1995 induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the 1997 Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.
1940–1965: Early life and career[edit]
Childhood[edit]
Zappa was born on December 21, 1940, in Baltimore, Maryland. His mother, Rose Marie (née Colimore), was of Italian (Neapolitan and Sicilian) and French ancestry; his father, whose name was anglicized to Francis Vincent Zappa, was an immigrant from Partinico, near Palermo on the Italian island of Sicily, and was of Greek and Arab descent.[nb 2]
Frank, the eldest of four children, was raised in an Italian-American household where Italian was often spoken by his grandparents.[1]: 6 [10] The family moved often because his father, a chemist and mathematician, worked in the defense industry. After a time in Florida in the 1940s, the family returned to Maryland, where Zappa's father worked at the Edgewood Arsenal chemical warfare facility of the Aberdeen Proving Ground run by the U.S. Army. Due to their home's proximity to the arsenal, which stored mustard gas, gas masks were kept in the home in case of an accident.[1]: 20–23 This living arrangement had a profound effect on Zappa, and references to germs, germ warfare, ailments and the defense industry occur frequently throughout his work.[11]: 8–9
Zappa's father often brought mercury-filled lab equipment home from his workplace and gave it to Zappa to play with.[1]: 19 Zappa said that as a child he "used to play with it all the time", often by putting liquid mercury on the floor and using a hammer to spray out mercury droplets in a circular pattern, eventually covering the entire floor of his bedroom with them.[12]
Zappa was often sick as a child, suffering from asthma, earaches and sinus problems. A doctor treated his sinusitis by inserting a pellet of radium into each of Zappa's nostrils. At the time, little was known about the potential dangers of even small amounts of therapeutic radiation and mercury exposure.[11]: 10
Nasal imagery and references appear in his music and lyrics, as well as in the collage album covers created by his long-time collaborator Cal Schenkel. Zappa believed his childhood diseases might have been due to exposure to mustard gas, released by the nearby chemical warfare facility, and his health worsened when he lived in Baltimore.[1]: 20–23 [11]: 10 In 1952, his family relocated for reasons of health to Monterey, California, where his father taught metallurgy at the Naval Postgraduate School.[1]: 22 They soon moved to the San Diego neighborhood of Clairemont,[13]: 46 and then to the nearby city of El Cajon, before finally returning to San Diego.[14]
1965–1970: The Mothers of Invention[edit]
Formation[edit]
In April 1965, Ray Collins asked Zappa to take over as guitarist in local R&B band the Soul Giants, following a fight between Collins and the group's original guitarist.[10] Zappa accepted, and soon assumed leadership and the role as co-lead singer (even though he never considered himself a singer, then or later[29]). He convinced the other members that they should play his music to increase the chances of getting a record contract.[1]: 65–66 The band debuted at the Broadside Club in Pomona, California and was renamed the Mothers since this gig took place on May 10, 1965 – Mother's Day.[13]: 42 They increased their bookings after beginning an association with manager Herb Cohen, and gradually gained attention on the burgeoning Los Angeles underground music scene.[22]: 58 In early 1966, they were spotted by leading record producer Tom Wilson when playing "Trouble Every Day", a song about the Watts riots.[11]: 103 Wilson had earned acclaim as the producer for Bob Dylan and Simon & Garfunkel, and was one of the few African-Americans working as a major label pop music producer at this time. Wilson signed the Mothers to the Verve division of MGM, which had built up a strong reputation for its releases of modern jazz recordings in the 1940s and 1950s, but was attempting to diversify into pop and rock audiences. Verve insisted that the band officially rename themselves the Mothers of Invention as Mother was short for motherfucker—a term that, apart from its profane meanings, can denote a skilled musician.[30]
Death[edit]
Zappa died from prostate cancer on December 4, 1993, 17 days shy of his 53rd birthday, at his home with his wife and children by his side. At a private ceremony the following day, his body was buried in a grave at the Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery, in Los Angeles. The grave has since been unmarked.[11]: 379–380 [32]: 552 On December 6, his family publicly announced that "Composer Frank Zappa left for his final tour just before 6:00 pm on Saturday".[13]: 320
Beliefs and politics[edit]
Drugs[edit]
Zappa stated, "Drugs do not become a problem until the person who uses the drugs does something to you, or does something that would affect your life that you don't want to have happen to you, like an airline pilot who crashes because he was full of drugs."[137] Zappa was a heavy tobacco smoker for most of his life, and critical of anti-tobacco campaigns.[nb 12]
While he disapproved of drug use, he criticized the War on Drugs, comparing it to alcohol prohibition, and stated that the United States Treasury would benefit from the decriminalization and regulation of drugs.[1]: 329 Describing his philosophical views, Zappa stated, "I believe that people have a right to decide their own destinies; people own themselves. I also believe that, in a democracy, government exists because (and only so long as) individual citizens give it a 'temporary license to exist'—in exchange for a promise that it will behave itself. In a democracy, you own the government—it doesn't own you."[1]: 315–316, 323–324, 329–330
Tour and the relative video:
Timeline of videos with tour:
