What do Edgard Varèse, Igor Stravinsky, and the R&B (rhythm and blues) music of the 50's have in common? All of them are among the most important musical influences with regard to the music of Frank Zappa.
During his childhood, Zappa's family frequently moved to various places all across the USA, yet they never stayed in one place for very long. Zappa, being a son of Italian immigrants, was seeking acceptance from his peers by acting as the class clown. At first he taught himself how to play the drums; but he did not learn how to play the guitar until the age of 19. Zappa was working like a maniac, apparently living on coffee and cigarettes for the most part. He wrote songs about life as he experienced it: about friends, freaks, sex toys, or dental floss; he made fun of groupies and the hippie culture and had no respect for politicians. His tape recorder was almost always running. There was space in his work for nearly every recording or general observation; Zappa puzzled together everything that fit somehow (in this regard he comes close to James Joyce) - brilliantly utilizing the whole works of musical role models, tools, genres, and styles he came across: apart from R&B, his beloved Varèse, and Stravinsky (both of whom he never met in person though), these mainly were folk songs, marches, pastiche and persiflage, jazz, musical theatre, free improvisations, concrete and electronic sounds, and atonal rock music in changing and irregular meters. He tried to go beyond every single boundary he came across or was faced with. This way he wandered all over the various musical genres, until reaching the limits of performability, freely exceeding any stylistic boundaries - and as some people say, overstepping the boundaries of good taste on quite a few occasions.
So to some Frank Zappa is a civil bugbear, to others he is a master at the rock guitar, and to even others he is a composer with a virtually unceasing amount of energy and ingenuity. In short: an American icon.
Ascolta is performing a broad selection of his works: pieces from the late 60's, their nature almost coming across like a folk tune, pieces that are based on a long performance tradition already with Zappa himself stand next to jazz and jazz rock pieces from the 70's and the famous rock pieces from the 80's, or his relatively unknown synclavier pieces from the early 90's, composed to perfection (but never in perfect notation).
Personal connections various performers had to Zappa, are important with regard to the arrangement, as both ascolta percussionists were part of a recording of works by Varèse under the artistic direction of Zappa. All program pieces were transcribed and arranged by Andrew Digby and Hubert Steiner.
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