Zappa: Rock's Mozart

I suspect Zappa would be annoyed by the comparison to Mozart. I think he'd at least rather be compared to Stravinsky, Webern or Varese.

 

Correct - Mozart is so easy listening and unintellectual - two things that I suppose Zappa wanted to avoid at any cost.

 

OK, let’s assume that to some people both Zappa and Mozart are geniuses. But are there any similarities between them, in order their names to be mentioned in a same sentence? Let see the differences:

- At 5, Mozart was already a virtuoso pianist, and already composed his first works. At 7 he started his first 3 years long European tour to great acclaim. At 14 he wrote his first full opera, that was immediately staged in a successful run of 20 performances. Zappa started his musical career in his twenties, and achieved some notable success nearing his 30's, and became a good electric guitar player.

- Mozart career and development as a composer was supported to great extent by the establishment; Zappa was always anti-establishment.

- Mozart was openly commercial, working day and night, writing (together with his chef-d’oeuvres) tons of junk just for money (by his own admission), and teaching the rich kids playing piano. Zappa was a non-commercial intellectual artist. As a result Mozart died relatively poor, while Zappa non-commercial approach made him multi-millionaire.

- Zappa was all over the place – music, lyrics, movies, politics etc., while Mozart was exclusively focused on composing and performing music (he didn’t even wrote the lyrics/libreti for his operas).

- Mozart was a small short fellow without facial hair; Zappa was a tall guy with mustaches.

The list can goes on, and the only similarity between them I can spot is that they both made music of some sort. Can someone point out some other similarities between them? Why of all genial people in the history of the world Zappa have to be compared exactly to Mozart?

 

My fave guitar work by Zappa on is the track Nine Types of Industrial Pollution. The one that inspired Faust.

 

Ahh... Faust...
With those horns, and that piano.
Those first three Faust albums are the 'missing link' between "Uncle Meat" & "Meet The Residents"!

 

One of my faves too. There was a very interesting analysis of this particular solo by an English or European prog guitar player, which was published as an essay or article in some book I have read a long time ago. It's unfortunate that I have forgotten all details about it... Perhaps member pbuzby or someone else could chime in for help here...

 

I could only guess it being Fred Frith. What other prog-era guitar-composer would get it? He also wrote an article on Dali's Car.

 

Apples and Oranges

 

That's it! Too bad I can't seem to find the piece through Google for the time I have on hand now, only indirect references...

 

Or two simultaneous developmental branches on the same evolutionary tree. Spontaneous genetic mutations.

 

Yes, I'd love to read it, too. I read only recently that he had some kind of guitar column in Melody Maker, which I was totally unaware of at the time. Could have been in that? The Dali's Car article is in my original copy of Life n Times of Capt. B paperback A4 book.

 

Well....if you've ever listened to the 'unreleased albums' The Residents made before "Meet The...", you'd swear they gave those Faust albums a good listening!

 

Did Fred Frith write an article about "Nine Types..."? I didn't know that, but I remember Michael Grey's book about Zappa had some commentary from Frith praising early Zappa/Mothers.

 

Lehrer never got arrested and put in the slammer for nine days for making a fake sex tape. Don't underestimate the effect of that experience on his subsequent behavior.

 

I often wonder which had a stronger effect. The arrest or his fall off the stage. Both had a profound effect on him but which greater affected his world viewpoint. He was undoubtdly more careful socially after the fall but did the arrest push him even further into the counterculture.

 

It was in a little paperback book; perhaps this piece indeed had been extracted from MM. Please see my reply to pbuzby below (I still can't figure out multiple quotes!!)...

 

It was probably that same darn old anthology book I keep referring to all the time, published in this form in the earlier part of the 70s. As I remember it, it featured pieces on The Beatles by Tony Palmer (including his White Album review from the UK back cover of "Yellow Submarine"), and also a few Zappa interviews from the 60s, possibly with Miles, with comments on Sgt Pepper's. This may (or not) be the book with the Fred Frith piece on Nine Types. As mr. datsun wrote above, it could have been a column by Frith originally featured in Melody Maker.

 

I was thinking of those albums, and then thinking that The Residents started at more or less the same time as Faust. '69, I think.

 

To paraphrase an old refrain, "it's the melody, stupid". I can still enjoy Zappa's sometimes esoteric and complex music, and he will surely be remembered, but hummable melody wasn't really "his thing" and it's the thing kids always want. Many grownups, too. It's also something no amount of training or craft or hard work can give to you, at least beyond a certain degree.

 

For those with time to look this up, Phil Manzanera from Roxy Music also commented, a long time ago, very favorably re. the guitar solo from the original version of "Willie The Pimp". I only have the French translation here with me, from Alain Dister's old Zappa bio from 1975 (the first ever, in book form, as far as I know).

 

And Syd Barrett, or rather Pink Floyd's "Apples and Oranges" I think.

 

Zappa had a huge influence one the Residents (they covered "King Kong"!) and Faust (their drummer is nicknamed Zappi, to this day!) but I prefer both of them to Zappa, to be honest.

 

Swamp Fish

 

Better think before I post.

 

I'll take any sensible discussion of Zappa. I'm quite the fan.

My comment was based on your subjective assessment- that Zappa was rock's Mozart- but you weren't touched (?emotionally) by his music. It just seemed weird, unless you have an emotional ambivalence towards Mozart's music too- which maybe you have, as well.