The A Guide To The

Big Recorded Works

Of Frank
Note Zappa

Charles Ulrich

vancouver :: new star books :: 2018

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Contents

introduction: Frank Zappa’s jeff simmons 86

Project/Object    ix Civilization Phaze III 89
The Touring Chronology xxviii working version 90
Acknowledgments xli ali n. askin 99
Conceptual Continuity 719
Absolutely Free 1 ‘Congress Shall Make No Law . . .’ 104
igor stravinsky 4 Cruising With Ruben & The Jets 108
jim fielder 7 ray collins 110
Ahead Of Their Time 12 Dance Me This 118
jim ‘motorhead’ sherwood 14 tuvan throat singing 119
Anyway The Wind Blows 712 kaigal-ool khovalyg, anatolii
Apostrophe(’) 18 kuular, kongar-ool ondar 122
ralph humphrey 20 Disconnected Synapses 720
ruben and the jets (for real) 24 Does Humor Belong In Music? 125
The Ark 714 allan zavod 127
As An Am 716 The Dub Room Special! 130
At The Circus 717 Electric Aunt Jemima 722
Baby Snakes 27 Everything Is Healing Nicely 132
terry bozzio 28 todd yvega 133
Beat The Boots 711 Feeding The Monkies At Ma Maison 137
The Best Band You Never resolver + brutality 137
Heard In Your Life 31 Fillmore East – June 1971 140
mike keneally 34 bob harris #1 142
Bongo Fury 41 Finer Moments 147
captain beefheart 44 Francesco Zappa 151
Broadway The Hard Way 47 david ocker 152
robert martin 52 Frank Zappa Meets
Buffalo 58 The Mothers Of P­ revention 155
vinnie colaiuta 60 johnny ‘guitar’ watson 156
Burnt Weeny Sandwich 64 Frank Zappa Plays The Music
bunk & buzz gardner 66 Of Frank Zappa 163
cal schenkel 70 Freak Out! 165
Carnegie Hall 75 elliot ingber 167
Chunga’s Revenge 82 Freaks & Motherfu*#@%! 724
working version 84 FZ:OZ 174

v
 vi the big note

andre lewis 177 the piano people 308

The Grand Wazoo 179 Lumpy Money 317
Greasy Love Songs 183 Make A Jazz Noise Here 327
Guitar 186 the 1988 saxophone section 330
the guitar world according ed mann 332
to frank zappa 187 The Man From Utopia 335
chad wackerman 190 meltdown 336
Halloween 194 arthur barrow 338
l. shankar 196 The MOFO Project/Object 343
denny walley 198 Mothermania 353
Hammersmith Odeon 200 billy mundi 353
tommy mars 202 Mystery Disc 355
Have I Offended Someone? 206 the history & collected
Hot Rats 209 improvisations of the
ian underwood 212 mothers of invention 358
Imaginary Diseases 215 roy estrada 364
the petit wazoo band 216 One Shot Deal 368
Jazz From Hell 219 the impossible concert 369
bob rice 221 One Size Fits All 372
Joe’s Camouflage 227 ruth underwood 374
novi novog 228 Orchestral Favorites 380
Joe’s Corsage 231 Our Man In Nirvana 726
henry vestine 232 Over-nite Sensation 386
Joe’s Domage 235 over-nite vocalists:
joe travers 236 ricky lancelotti & kin vassy 389
Joe’s Garage Acts I, II, & III 239 The Perfect Stranger 393
peter wolf 243 pierre boulez 396
Joe’s Menage 252 the chord bible 400
norma jean bell 252 Philly ’76 404
Joe’s Xmasage 254 bianca 405
Just Another Band From L.A. 257 Piquantique 728
working version 258 Playground Psychotics 409
flo & eddie 260 the official mothers of
Läther 265 invention bootleg album 410
precursors of studio tan, sleep aynsley dunbar 413
dirt, orchestral favorites, Quaudiophiliac 420
& läther 266 max bennett 423
patrick o’hearn 272 Road Tapes Venue #1: Vancouver 425
London Symphony Orchestra, edgard varese 426
Vol. I & II 279 Road Tapes Venue #2: Helsinki 432
kent nagano 284 jean-luc ponty 434
a zappa affair 289 Roxy & Elsewhere 437
The Lost Episodes 296 the fowler brothers 440
sugarcane harris 300 Roxy By Proxy 448
Lumpy Gravy 306 chester thompson 450
 album
contents
_ title vii

Saarbrücken 1978 729 sal marquez 573

Sheik Yerbouti 454 Wazoo 575
adrian belew 456 the grand wazoo band 576
Ship Arriving Too Late Weasels Ripped My Flesh 581
To Save A Drowning Witch 466 don preston 582
moon zappa 467 We’re Only In It For The Money 589
chalk pie 470 working versions 592
Shut Up ’N Play Yer Guitar 473 jimmy carl black,
warren cuccurullo 474 indian of the group 596
shut up ’n play yer acetates 479 the hippie riff 600
Sleep Dirt 482 The Yellow Shark 615
hunchentoot 484 ensemble modern 616
thana harris 482 You Are What You Is 630
Studio Tan 487 crush all boxes 632
gary panter 488 david logeman 638
james ‘bird legs’ youmans 491 You Can’t Do That On Stage
Swiss Cheese/Fire! 731 Anymore, Volume 1 645
Tengo Na Minchia Tanta 733 louie louie 646
Them Or Us 493 jim pons 649
sinister footwear 496 You Can’t Do That On Stage
steve vai 498 Anymore, Volume 2 654
Thing-Fish 502 george duke 656
ike willis 504 You Can’t Do That On Stage
working version 511 Anymore, Volume 3 662
Tinsel Town Rebellion 514 ray white 666
bob harris #2 516 You Can’t Do That On Stage
warts and all 519 Anymore, Volume 4 670
’Tis The Season To Be Jelly 736 You Can’t Do That On Stage
A Token of His Extreme 523 Anymore, Volume 5 677
napoleon murphy brock 525 lowell george 678
Trance-Fusion 527 You Can’t Do That On Stage
dweezil zappa 528 Anymore, Volume 6 686
scott thunes 530 Zappa In New York 694
Frank Zappa’s 200 Motels 533 eddie jobson 696
theodore bikel, phyllis the december 1976
bryn-julson, elgar howarth, horn section 700
classical guitar trio, martin Zoot Allures 704
lickert, top score singers 534 night of the iron sausage 707
predecessors of 200 motels 542
Uncle Meat 555 appendix: Beat The Boots 711
art tripp    556
Chronological Discography 742
no commercial potential 567
Index of Sidebars 746
Understanding America 569
Index of Song Titles 748
Unmitigated Audacity 738
Waka/Jawaka 572
Introduction

Frank Zappa’s Project/Object

Frank Zappa was one of the most prolific musical figures of the twentieth cen-
tury. Between 1966 and 1993, he released over sixty official albums — many of
them multi-disc sets. These include over four hundred compositions. Officially-
reissued bootlegs and posthumous albums bring the total to over one hundred
albums.
Some of the albums are credited to a band — the Mothers Of Invention or
The Mothers. Others are credited as Frank Zappa solo albums. FZ explained,
The thing that makes the difference between a Frank Zappa album and a Mothers
album is whether or not the group that’s on it is actually a touring Mothers unit.1
. . . Mothers music can only be played by people who have stayed together long enough
to be able to express it as a group. If I write a piece and hand it to an orchestra, it’s not
Mothers music. Or if I write a piece and hand it to a group of studio musicians, I’ll get
perhaps a note-accurate performance. But it won’t be Mothers music unless I get an indi-
vidual sum-total craziness of everyone in the group, and you can’t extract that unless the
group has worked together for a long time, has been together on the road, and has had
a chance for all the personalities of the people in the group to blend to a point where they
can feel comfortable being weird in a performance situation.2
But sometimes the distinction was arbitrary. Waka/Jawaka is billed as a solo
album (‘At the time of Waka/Jawaka, according to my contract, a Frank Zappa
album was called for’),3 while Grand Wazoo — which features many of the same
musicians plus more, most of whom never toured with FZ — was originally
credited to The Mothers.
MGM/Verve Records objected to the original band name The Mothers, so all
Mothers albums on Verve were credited to the Mothers Of Invention, as were
the first three on Reprise. Most fans associate this name with the group that
FZ disbanded in October 1969 — with gradually-changing personnel, and Roy
Estrada and Jimmy Carl Black as constants. While it is true that Weasels Ripped
My Flesh was credited to the Mothers Of Invention and Fillmore East — June
1971 was credited to The Mothers, FZ continued to use the MOI name sporadi-
cally through 1975. It appeared on the cover of 200 Motels and the head of Ralph
Humphrey’s bass drum. One Size Fits All was credited to Frank Zappa and the
Mothers Of Invention.
Circa 1976, FZ stopped calling his band The Mothers. The new band name
was simply Zappa (just his surname — like Santana, Argent, Montrose, or Van
Halen), although promoters still sometimes billed them as The Mothers or even
the Mothers Of Invention.
ix
 x the big note

There’s only one problem with that commercial. The name of the group is Zappa. It’s no
longer the Mothers Of Invention. I don’t know where they ever got that idea.4
Why be trapped in the Sixties? Know what I mean? [Zappa is] a good name. Two sylla-
bles, not too taxing. It looks good in print and it happens to be my real name.5
The Zoot Allures, Joe’s Garage Act 1, and Man From Utopia LPs were credited to
Zappa on the cover, but to Frank Zappa on the spine and labels. Basically, after
retiring the Mothers name, FZ stopped distinguishing between band albums
and solo albums.
FZ asserted that all of his albums, all of his concerts, and all of his interviews
were part of one large work, which he referred to as the Project/Object:
Perhaps the most unique aspect of The Mothers’ work is the conceptual continuity of the
group’s output macrostructure. There is, and always has been, a conscious control
of thematic and structural elements flowing through each album, live performance, and
interview . . .
The project/object (maybe you like event/organism better) incorporates any
available visual medium, consciousness of all participants (including audience), all per-
ceptual deficiencies, God (as energy), The Big Note (as universal basic building mate-
rial), and other things . . .
What I’m trying to describe is the type of attention given to each lyric, melody,
arrangement, improvisation, the sequence of these elements in an album, the cover art
which is an extension of the musical material, the choice of what is recorded, released,
and/or performed during a concert, the continuity or contrasts of material album to
album, etc., etc., etc. . . . all of these detail aspects are part of the Big Structure or The
Main Body of Work . . .
It is not fair to our group to review detail aspects of our work without considering the
placement of a detail in the larger structure.6
If you take a tape and put it on fast-forward, you can hear the bass line at a higher
octave. The same way, if you could take the whole output of what we are doing, and play
it at a higher speed, you’d be able to see that there are many macro-melodies and mac-
ro-rhythms going on inside of it.7
This book examines each song and places it in the context of the Project/Object.
FZ spoke of ‘conceptual continuity’: themes (verbal, musical, or visual) run-
ning through his oeuvre:
you may find a little poodle over here, a little blow job over there, etc., etc. I am not
obsessed by poodles or blow jobs, however; these words (and others of equal insignif-
icance), along with pictorial images and melodic themes, recur throughout the albums,
interviews, films, videos (and this book) for no other reason than to unify the ‘collection’.8
Cameron Piko notes that
if you are to buy any Frank Zappa album at random, chances are you are falling into a
minefield of cryptic self-referential lyrics from other albums, odd themes that only reveal
their importance in future works, or even pieces of music that originated from a work 20
years earlier.9
 introduction: frank zappa’s project/object xi

Poodles are mentioned in ‘Dirty Love’, ‘Stink-Foot’, and ‘Cheepnis’, among oth-
ers. Blow jobs are mentioned by that term in ‘Sy Borg’, ‘In France’, and ‘White
Person’, and by synonyms or allusions in ‘Punky’s Whips’, ‘Yo Cats’, ‘Jezebel
Boy’, ‘Conehead’, and many others. Muffins are mentioned in ‘Call Any Vege-
table’, ‘Little Green Rosetta’, and ‘Muffin Man’. Zircon-encrusted tweezers are
mentioned in ‘Montana’, ‘Dinah-Moe Humm’, and ‘Poodle Lecture’.
FZ sometimes composed musical modules that could be combined in different
ways. These modules could be a single noise, a rhythm, a riff, a longer theme, or
even something that could stand alone as a complete song.
In the 1960s, the Mothers Of Invention rehearsed various noises and rhythms,
which FZ could then cue with hand signals. FZ explained,
A lot of the music that happens on stage is made up for you on stage. In rehearsal we
practice playing sort of musical building blocks, which are performed on cues. So I can
put together any series of sound events to make an instant composition on the stage —
and also to use up a lot of time while we’re changing horns . . . When I stick three fingers
out like this, it’s a signal for this noise [low rumble] . . . This signal [raising the hand
with the middle finger extended] means sing the highest note you can for a very short
period of time. It means something else too, but we won’t talk about that.10
Holding up five fingers meant to play in 5/8, holding up seven fingers meant
to play in 7/8, and extending the index and little fingers and drawing the hand
horizontally meant to make a vomiting noise. Some of these modules can be
heard on Weasels Ripped My Flesh, YCDTOSA 5, and Finer Moments. Sometimes
FZ taught the audience some of these hand signals and conducted the audience
(as seen in Video From Hell).
With the 1973–1974 Mothers, FZ utilized several longer modules, riffs of half
a dozen or a dozen notes. One of these was a percussion riff featuring Ralph
Humphrey and/or Chester Thompson on cowbells. It originated in the head of
‘Dupree’s Paradise’ (YCDTOSA 2), but it was also used at the end of ‘RDNZL’
(as heard on YCDTOSA 2) and as punctuation between solos in various songs (as
heard in ‘Be-Bop Tango’ on Roxy & Elsewhere and ‘Big Swifty’ on YCDTOSA 1).
A riff from ‘It Just Might Be A One-Shot Deal’ (Waka/Jawaka) was used at the
end of ‘Approximate’ (YCDTOSA 2) and could be cued elsewhere. ‘The Hook’
from ‘Be-Bop Tango’ (Roxy & Elsewhere) was played regularly between ‘Montana’
and ‘Dupree’s Paradise’, and in ‘Camarillo Brillo’. It could also be cued elsewhere
(as heard in ‘Smell My Beard’ on YCDTOSA 4). One particularly effective use
of these modules was in the fall 1973 arrangement of the encore medley of ‘Son
Of Mr. Green Genes’ / ‘King Kong’ / ‘Chunga’s Revenge’ / ‘Mr. Green Genes’
(as heard on Roxy By Proxy). Four repetitions of ‘The Hook’ and two of the
‘Dupree’s’ riff were interspersed with the melody of ‘Mr. Green Genes’.
Sometimes even longer modules could be combined in various ways. ‘The
Return Of The Son Of The Hunchback Duke’ was a suite built around some
of the themes heard in ‘Little House I Used To Live In’ on Burnt Weeny Sand-
wich. At various times, ‘The Duke’ also included ‘Aybe Sea’, ‘Holiday In Berlin’,
‘Cruising For Burgers’, and the theme released as ‘Another Whole Melodic
Section’ on Joe’s Domage. Some of these same themes were part of a different
 xii the big note

suite (as yet unreleased) entitled ‘Twinkle Tits’. The ‘Steno Pool’ section of ‘The
Adventures Of Greggery Peccary’ (Studio Tan) was also performed as part of
‘Farther Oblivion’ (Imaginary Diseases). ‘What’s The Name Of Your Group?’,
which was recorded for 200 Motels and eventually released on a single, combined
‘Epilogue’ (Ahead Of Their Time) and ‘Pound For A Brown’ (Uncle Meat), with
lyrics sung by soprano Phyllis Bryn-Julson as a rock & roll interviewer.
FZ gave countless interviews, hundreds of which are still available in written
or audio form. He had a low opinion of rock journalists in general, famously
declaring that ‘Most rock journalism is people who can’t write interviewing peo-
ple who can’t talk for people who can’t read.’11 (In later years, he revised this quip
to characterize rock musicians as ‘people who can’t think’.)12 He explained that
The problem with doing a rock interview in the first place is that the person coming to
talk to you (a) doesn’t know anything about what you do (b) doesn’t know about music in
general and (c) has already made up his mind in advance before he comes to you what the
answer ought to be to his precious little question.13
Most of the people in this business aren’t qualified to own or operate a typewriter, and cer-
tainly shouldn’t be allowed to enforce their emotional freight on the poor people who have
to read this stuff. They’re using my name to draw attention to an article which tells you
little or nothing about me, but tells you an awful lot about the hangups of the writer . . .14
But he persisted in giving interviews (except for a brief moratorium on print
interviews around 1981), and sometimes encountered interviewers who didn’t fit
the above description. Dan Forte asserted that
Zappa is an interviewer’s dream subject — articulate, witty, intelligent, willing to
address any subject, and probably capable of turning out a better article than most of the
professional journalists who write about him.15
I quote FZ throughout this book. Because he complained about being mis-
quoted, when possible I have favored audio interviews over print interviews.
(That solves the problem for me; readers will still have to take it on faith that I
have reproduced his words more accurately than journalists with more pressing
deadlines.)
I have utilized a variety of other sources of information. Session sheets filed
with the musician’s union list studio recording dates, personnel, and instru-
ments. Official and unofficial video recordings make it easier to distinguish an
alto saxophone from a tenor saxophone, a Fender Rhodes from a Wurlitzer elec-
tric piano, or a baritone oboe from an english horn. Audio software applications
make it possible to reverse-engineer operations such as speeding up, slowing
down, and reversing tapes.

FZ As Composer

Previous books about FZ have tended to concentrate on his life, his socio-histor-
ical position, or his lyrics — never devoting sufficient space to his actual music.
In The Big Note, I have attempted to shift the focus in the direction of the music.
 introduction: frank zappa’s project/object xiii

I summarize some of the key points made by scholars who have conducted
musical analyses of FZ’s compositions. My summaries are no substitute for the
studies I cite, but I hope they will serve to direct the reader to further reading.
The paucity of analysis of FZ’s music may result in part from the difficulty of
obtaining scores. In this book, I attempt to note all FZ compositions for which
sheet music has ever been published, either in magazines, songbooks, or sepa-
rately-published scores. FZ’s Munchkin Music published two songbooks. The
Frank Zappa Songbook, Vol. 1 (1973) contains arrangements of sixteen songs for
piano and vocal, with guitar chords, as well as four of FZ’s manuscript scores.
The Frank Zappa Guitar Book (1982) contains transcriptions of twenty-two guitar
solos, some with transcriptions of drumset or rhythm guitar accompaniment.
Hal Leonard has published songbooks of four albums: Hot Rats (2000), Apostro-
phe (2003), Over-nite Sensation (2010), and One Size Fits All (2011). These con-
tain transcriptions of the guitar, keyboard, and horn parts on the albums, all
arranged for guitar. In the 1980s and 1990s, scores and parts of selected chamber
and orchestral works could be purchased from Barfko-Swill, FZ’s mail-order
company. These are no longer available for purchase, but many of them can be
rented from Schott Music by ensembles intending to perform the pieces.
Some of the musical characteristics of FZ’s work are rhythmic complexity,
chords without thirds, lydian melodies over two-chord vamps, quotations from
other musical works, and the juxtaposition of beautiful and ugly elements.
Some of FZ’s compositions are written in unusual time signatures. ‘Water-
melon In Easter Hay’ is in 9/4 (notated as 4/4 + 5/4), ‘Outside Now’ in 11/8 (6/8
+ 5/8), ‘Thirteen’ in 13/8 (5/8 + 4/4), and ‘five-five-FIVE’ in 5/8 + 5/8 + 5/4. Even
such accessible songs as ‘Don’t Eat The Yellow Snow’ and ‘Oh No’ are in 7/4 (the
latter notated as 4/4 + 3/4, and with the ‘And in your dreams’ section in 5/4). The
sheet music of ‘Revised Music For Low-Budget Symphony Orchestra’ indicates
forty-three changes of time signature, with thirteen different time signatures
(2/4, 3/4, 4/4, 5/4, 3/8, 5/8, 6/8, 7/8, 9/8, 12/8, 5/16, 7/16, 9/16).
Of course, many of FZ’s songs are in more conventional time signatures.
‘Uncle Meat’, ‘Sofa’, and ‘Idiot Bastard Son’ are in 3/4. Hot Rats is entirely in 4/4
except for parts of ‘It Must Be A Camel’, which are in 3/4. FZ remarked,
We can play in 4/4 and play some awful weird shit in 4/4. By the same token you can
play in 9/16 and play some really boring stuff too, as evidenced by a lot of jazz rock
groups. I think that the real interest of what to do with rhythm is to have people’s feet
tapping to a normal beat, and then superimpose interesting things against that steady
beat, instead of having a whole band playing a bunch of 8th note or 16th note unison
riffs. We do it both ways but usually what happens when it’s time to play the guitar,
I go for a basic concept of a steady pulse at a medium tempo and then play all around
that . . .16
The real rhythmic complexity in FZ’s music comes not from odd time sig-
natures but from rhythmic dissonance or tuplets. While triplets (three notes in
the space of two) are commonplace in music, FZ utilizes 11-tuplets (e.g. in ‘The
Pleated Gazelle’), 17-tuplets (e.g. in ‘Mo & Herb’s Vacation’), and 23-tuplets (e.g.
in ‘T’Mershi Duween’). Frequently, several musicians are called upon to play