Frank Zappa on guitar: Underrrated, overrrated or just about right?

[mjudge]

It was, however, astonishingly cheap to get the Boys' Choir penciled in as a sacrificial hekatomb – apparently they can be replaced for almost nothing – so there will be an appearance, if a brief one.

[chalkpie]

[Baribrotzer]

Or perhaps in other words, he just had a quirky and complex way of phrasing that he was naturally inclined toward....mathematical on some level in his brain, but was realized instinctually in real time?

I think that's it. It was like you or I playing quarter-note triplets in a solo - we don't stop and count them, we just know what they sound and feel like, and when we start a phrase with that grouping/feel, we finish it as such. With FZ, that extended to quintuplets, septuplets, and more complex combinations - he knew what they sounded and felt like, and his phrases fell into them.

It would be interesting to listen to his solos, going all the way back to the MoI days, and see whether those odd groupings became more prevalent and more "difficult" over the years as his playing developed. His writing back then didn't seem to have quite those extreme rhythms - there'd be the occasional quintuplet or septuplet, but not the nested multi-tuplets of his later music.

[mjudge]

It would be interesting to listen to his solos, going all the way back to the MoI days, and see whether those odd groupings became more prevalent and more "difficult" over the years as his playing developed. His writing back then didn't seem to have quite those extreme rhythms - there'd be the occasional quintuplet or septuplet, but not the nested multi-tuplets of his later music.

There were flashes of it, especially something like "Nine Types of Industrial Pollution." And I remember every time I hear "Get a Little" and "Orange County Lumber Truck" that FZ was also probably my favorite "white" blues guitarist of the era, too.

[mjudge]

Listening to Buffalo right now, and I'm thunderstruck all over again at Zappa's ability not simply to play solos but to direct the whole musical movement of the band with his playing. He reminds me of Miles Davis in that regard. The stuff he gets out of Vinnie and Barrow especially on "Pick Me, I'm Clean" and "City of Tiny Lites" is amazing.

[chalkpie]

Listening to Buffalo right now, and I'm thunderstruck all over again at Zappa's ability not simply to play solos but to direct the whole musical movement of the band with his playing. He reminds me of Miles Davis in that regard. The stuff he gets out of Vinnie and Barrow especially on "Pick Me, I'm Clean" and "City of Tiny Lites" is amazing.

Right on! I know that "Pick Me" solo fairly well - its a solo full of motifs, and he develops these ideas before moving onto the next amazing idea in his head like chapters in a book. He does some quasi-phrygian mode at 6:30 - its SO hip. A masterclass in how to divide a bar of 4/4 - you could dissect that sucker and write a goddamn doctoral dissertation on these ideas, and I'm only half joking.

[alucard]

As a player, FZ has the ability to stretch time like a rubber band, sometimes to the point where it is going to snap, but it really never does. He is so flexible , yet one can always subdivide his playing if one can really follow it. Slowing it down helps - there is software out there - and maybe even apps now. This is only my opinion, but folks who claim he is "sloppy" is mistaking that notion for a lick or licks that he pulls off in some odd-ass tuplet - like 17:4.......it goes against our even, quantized natural feeling in duple or triple meter, and it takes a certain type of rhythmic understanding to really comprehend what he is pulling off. Our brain can process it as "sloppy", but its really just an odd set of numbers juxtaposed next to an even set of numbers. You dig? Without going into names, there are a ba-billion guitarists with unbelievably clean technique with absolute zero fret noise that have never attempted subdividing a measure of 4/4 into a group of odd tuplets. From a rhythmic standpoint, this separates most guitarists from FZ, and it makes him much more interesting to my ears. I haven't even gone into the melodic aspect of his playing here, but that is a topic (or series of topics) all on its own. When you look at the FZ Guitar Book, you begin to see these tuplets that I am talking about.

Zappa was a drummer before picking up the guitar and IMO a bigger part of his compositions comes from his rhythmic understanding of music. He was always in search for musicians who had the ability to get his ideas. As a guitarist he wasn't interested in "perfect " techniques. I always liked the way he phrases considering the guitar like a "tool" to express his ideas. From memory Pat Metheny and Bil Frisell were both trumpet players and have also developped a more unconventional way to play the guitar.

[Reid]

Metheny's older brother Mike is a trumpet player. I think Pat attempted to play trumpet as a kid but didn't stick with it too long. I feel like FZ must have been a musician in Bulgaria or Romania in a previous life. You just don't hear musicians in the west with that kind of phrasing. Or maybe he attempted to play along with some of the exotic records in his small collection as a teenager? And it contributed to his style of playing? It's kind of blues based with some Bulgarian clarinet phrases mixed in. Ever listen to Ivo Papasov? He can do it ten times faster that FZ!

[walt]

Worth pondering what the impact of Indian classical music was(if any) on Zappa's melodic, structural conception.I seem to vaguely recall the odd interview i read over the years where Frank speaks about his respect for the structures,both melodic and rhythmic, in Indian music.Jimmy Carl Black, in his autobio, writes that Frank played records of Indian raga for the Mothers,and had the band play compositions in the form of a raga(in studio).

[Zeuhlmate]

Frank Zappa said: ‘Ivo Papasov’s wedding music, played first thing in the morning, provides thorough and long-lasting attitude adjustment for the busy executive’.

And remember FZ was originally drummer.

[Reid]

He mentioned in an interview that he wanted to take a trip to India to experience some of the music and culture first hand. But I think there were some vaccinations required for some of the diseases still prevalent there, so Frank said "I'll get the records instead".

[Mister Triscuits]

Zappa listed Ravi Shankar, Chatur Lal, and N.C. Mullick in the famous Freak Out influences list, suggesting he was familiar with the Sounds of India LP on Columbia (and it's not like there was all that much else available in the west at that time). Some time later, he praised Bulgarian folk singer Valya Balkanska, who appeared on a Nonesuch Explorer album.

[mogrooves]

the famous Freak Out influences list.

That list had an enormous impact on me in '66, for sure.

[pb2015]

Of course it is also worth mentioning Zappa's collaboration with L. Shankar. I exchanged emails with a guy who was at one of the shows where Shankar sat in with Zappa's band, and he said that while Zappa usually looked bored when someone else played a solo during his show, he looked fascinated by what Shankar was playing.