Band roll

Zappa's role in the band is equivalent to a coach in a soccer team - he pushed every member of the band to the very edge of their limits. Painstakingly demanding, he imposed several hours of rehearsals until the very nearest to perfection was accomplished. It was tough love but many musicians graciously appreciated this as it allowed them to reach their full potential. In many ways, Zappa would extend people's personal capacity.

"I was ready to dedicate myself completely to Frank's music. He really knew what buttons to push... he knew how to synthesize people's personalities and talents." - Ruth Underwood pg. 240

"He definitely wrote for individual players, writing more and more difficult passages until you would hit your wall...it made everyone play in top form" - Pamela Goldsmith pg. 248

His role was to enable and extract the talents of others. In this way his music could be played in top form. It also gave performances the quality that people don't often get.

Businessman by Necessity

Business-wise, Zappa was a machine in managing his music. In an article by Scott Harrison, he notes the fact that Zappa had two record labels (Bizarre and Straight Records managed with Herb Cohen), a mail-order company, a video company, and a music publishing firm - all of which was controlled by no one other than Zappa himself. 

I've narrowed two main reasons why Zappa was an excellent businessman:

1.) Zappa knew how unsellable the Mother of Invention were to the general public. He will even admit to that in a quote:

...the top musical figures were the Beatles, Herman and the Hermits, the Byrds, Dave Clark and the Rolling Stones...the general trend of the music business was nice attractive young lads playing attractive, pleasant, listenable semi-cosmic pop music. The Mothers of Invention were unattractive old lads and we knew had an immediate merchandising problem. - 1972 Rob Partridge/Paul Phillips

He made it possible to still have his music available by having sound business plans and partners. Zappa actually studied the Byrds as a business model so he could launch his band in the most appropriate and successful way possible. He managed to become friends with the members of the Byrds and had them promote his works. Zappa did this quite often - using names and artists to somehow promote his stuff. It's a really clever strategy because it not only brings people to listen to his music who might not have otherwise, but he get's other people to do a big part the promotional work. 

2.) Zappa was an absolute control-freak and needed to manage his music and business directly. It was his innate personality that would drive him to be a great business entrepreneur. In an interview, he explains why it was so necessary to be owners of a record label:


"...we [Cohen and Zappa] own our masters. I happen to like the idea of maintaining possession of the so-called works of art I'm involved in." - 1972 Rob Partridge/Paul Phillips

Whether it was writing his own music or owning his own business, Zappa always remained control of every situation. Control also was really important in keeping the integrity of his music. He was often battling with record companies because there was a mismanagement with not only his music, but with money. Zappa made sure that nothing was lost in translation. 

The mad ones are the only ones for Zappa

Although Zappa had undeniable talent, he couldn’t have been as accomplished without all of his muses. I believe that he knew this and realized that he constantly needed to be surrounded amongst creative energies. One of my favourite quotes from Kerouac’s On the Road nicely sums up Zappa’s intrigue towards “freaks”:

“I’ve been doing all my life after people who interest me, because the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones that never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn burn burn…”

Zappa was intelligent enough to realize how much potential unique people had, not just for his music, but for society. In a way, he fully maximized himself by using the resources around him – the freaks. Signing oddities like Wild Man Fisher or the GTO’s was a way of telling America to pay attention to these people because they revealed a lot that society was trying to keep hidden.

But Zappa wasn't the only one walking away with all the trophies. Every person he decided to collaborate with, he gave something back to them. His relationships were always reciprocal in the sense that there was always a give and take. Artists such as Terry Bozzio, Patrick O'Hearn, and Eddie Jobson are just a few people who became better musicians because of Zappa. Miles even says that "Zappa's great skills was to bring out the hidden talents in a player..." (pg. 373) 

Zappa the Eastern Music Man from the West

I recently read an article by Bill Viola in my video class that spoke about the differences between Western and Indian approaches to music. He said that Eastern music begins with a series/overtone of harmonic of notes; a sound field. From there, musicians pull notes from the range of sounds. This action is best described as a carving - a kind of sculpting of music. The Western approach differs by beginning with nothing instead of a sound field. The music is stacked piled up sounds, like a pile of papers. After reading more of Zappa’s style, I found him to approach music with an Eastern mentality – beginning with sounds from different styles and eras and selectively drawing out aspects to create a song. His obsession with Verèse's Isonisation reiterates Zappa's Eastern approach towards sound field tendencies.

Zappa Workaholic?

There was a quote from Frank Zappa saying that he wasn't a workaholic. Which I find interesting, seeing that I've read many descriptions from several websites and even in Barry Miles biography that will specifically describe Zappa as a workaholic. And even though Zappa would put in 16-18 hrs a day into creating his music, it occured to me that Zappa really didn't regard it as "work". It was a necessity. The messages he was trying to put out into the world was a sort of an inner quest that had to be done.

This was Zappa's definition of a workaholic:

"A workaholic is a guy who works in an insurance agency, a bank, or a ladder of success"

Obviously he viewed work as a meaningless chore. His music may have been a chore, but it certainly was not meaningless. Zappa's music wasn't meant to be listened at leisure. It was politically and socially conscious and was created to confront people with the harsh truth and reality.

Whether or not Zappa was a workaholic, what he certainly was was a perfectionist. Zappa was quite strict about how his music was played and wanted things a certain way. His ideals in music follows the Romantic era that strived for the note-playing perfection. He would force hours and hours of practice on his band members and himself until the closest to perfection was created. Just one example would be when the London Symphony Orchestra performed his pieces, conducted by Kent Nagano. The performance was highly regarded yet Zappa was still critical and commented that "...it wasn't a very accurate performance of the music. There was a lot of wrong notes in the show and the acoustics of the place were really shitty" (pg. 313 - Barry Miles) Franks use of the Synclavier reiterates his obsession with perfection. The perfectionism that was demanded in turn made it difficult to work with Zappa since nothing was ever good enough.

Things To Do List

So while reading Barry Miles biography, I've made note of mentioned artists that Zappa listened to and subsequently, was influenced by. A lot of the artists I had no idea existed, so I made a list and I'm going to go through them all and make note of the ones that stand out

- Joe Houston

- Howlin' Wolf

- Muddy Waters - falling in love with this style of music

- B.B King

- Edgard Varese - I can see why Zappa was obsessed

- Bela Bartok

- Igor Stravinsky

- The Jewels

- Ornette Coleman - this guy is mad skilled

- Cecil Taylor

- Eric Dolphy

- Oliver Nelson

- Pat Boone

- Gale Storm

- Tab Hunter

- The Fontane Sisters

- David Crosby

- Steven Stills

- Graham Nash

- Lee Andrews and the Hearts

- The Thrillers

Drink your fizz, Roll your car and say "Gee Whiz!"

Since I have a minimal background in music, I find it a struggle to follow Zappa's compositions. I admit, many of his songs come off as abrasive, disjointed, and confusing. But even with little musical knowledge, Zappa's innovation within and outside music is very clear. His innovation can be attributed to his varied musical influences of Doo-Wop like The Medallions, R&B and jazz musicians like Eric Dolphy and Cecil Taylor, as well as classical composers, with Edgard Varese being one of his bigger influences. He had a tendency of collaging, reinventing, and mashing up the several forms to create something utterly unique. The collaged mash up style led to many innovative songs and arrangements. For example, "Where are the Brain Police" exemplifies an approach towards free jazz while also introducing avant garde music. The spoken words in the song "Trouble Everyday" dubbed it as being the first account of rap.


Some of Zappa's innovative ideas include mixing tapes from different shows, mashing up different styles, and using unconventional objects like kazoo’s, washboards, and even bikes. To be innovative, you have to experiment. Experimentation was a staple process for Zappa, although he rarely experimented within the usual boundaries: 


“He bought a copy of H.A Clarke’s Counterpoint: Strict and Free (1928), the second page of which began: ‘Never write any of the following successions…Frank played them on the piano…he wondered ‘Why can’t we do this? This sounds great!’ He never read further”. (pg 39, Barry Miles) 


Zappa's experiments did not aim to create beautiful songs, but to create reactive and content-driven works. He was one of the first to integrate concept into music and even adopted principals of Dada-ism and Surrealism in specific works like "Call any Vegetable" and "American Drinks"