I feel he was all about "tone" as well. I can't think of ANYONE in the 70's who had more interesting tone. Also, his solos had fire! And they were often U-G-L-Y!! exactly the way an electric guitar should sound! LOL "with eyebrows" Hendrix taught us that. and I feel Zappa carried Jimi's torch after he died.
If you listen to a lot of the records you'll realize he had pretty good chops. I would not say below average, whatever that means?
So as a technical player he was below average. I can agree with that. He did have feel. A bloody tremendous amount. Like a prodigious amount. More technical players wish they had that kind of feel. He didn’t do anything inside of little boxes. He did not know what that meant.
I don't think it matters whether he could play through changes or not. As far as rock musicians are concerned, he was a genius.
watch this solo in the middle of "Alien Oriface" NOT beginner hack stuff! Very cleanly played and complimentary to the composition. And at the ending part of the solo he plays the main theme while the vibraphonist plays along in perfect sync! ..........not easy people....... Frank Zappa : Alien Orifice (Palladium, NY, Halloween 1981) - YouTube
Frank was a spectacular guitarist. Phenomenal in fact. His 60s work was incredibly creative and inventive, his early to mid-70s work was full of fantastic riffing and great chops, his late 70s and early 80s were full on sonic explorations. He was obsessed with tone, and never afraid to go completely out there during a live solo.
The thing is, these days there are so many technically astonishing players but hardly anyone I want to listen to.
yes too much art and no inspiration. lots of kids today can "play by the book" but few are making magic.
Saw the band one night (think it was '79) in Columbus, OH. Only time I've ever seen him live. Ike Willis was out in the lobby, schmoozing with fans. Just before the lights went down, two dudes in sheik outfits walked down the center aisle to their seats. And here it wasn't even Halloween. Oh yeah, the guitar. Every time the man took a solo, it was unconventional and deeply-contemplative to start. His sense of melody was truly from another place. The guitar growled, low, sonorous. Screeching for an instant, then diving back down where your girlfriend could listen. Absolutely no reen-toon-tee-noo-nee-noo-nee. I'd never heard a guitar quite like that. And I was a former music student, had been listening to him, and other stellar players on record, for years. I can tell you, I actually saw colors in the air above him, that night. I swear. The next day I finished up my job-hunt in Columbus with a record-buying excursion up and down that one long avenue that was all stores on one side, the college on the other. I missed the cutoff point of the afternoon, where they start towing every little thing still parked on the street; just came out of a store, and...where'd all the cars go. I learned later that, impounding everything that wasn't moving after 4pm, was a major revenue source for the city, and they hated - just HATED the kids at the college, so impounding everything outside a record store, bookstore, clothing store or gift shop that lined that side of the street, was a real thrill for them. It was a nightmare. But...damn...what a guitar...
FZ played some of his best stuff in '79 which is why so much from that year ended up on Shut Up N Play Yer Guitar.
he's a "young hip technically advantaged dude" playing Zappa's "Sinister Footwear 2" note the precision in the playing thus drawing attention to the complexity of the composition. He's playing to a backing track and you can hear that it is almost a note-perfect performance. This is NOT "nubie" stuff!! Frank would regularly compose on his guitar and write out the other instruments later. Frank Zappa-"Sinister Footwear II" cover - YouTube
here's a little blurb of Emil Richards talking about Frank's guitar skills... Emil Richards recalls the first Lumpy Gravy Sessions.flv - YouTube
Well, we're talking about Frank as a guitar player. Playing through changes is a huge part of (jazz) guitar vocabulary, why he did not, (that I have ever heard) is a question I don't know the answer to. Best I can come up with is it didn't fit his unique conception of how he wanted to play. His particular voice was modal. And he was amazingly good at it. Yes, as far as most rock guitarists are concerned he could play rings around them.
You got it. The guy had the deepest understanding of modes more than any other rock guitar player before or since him. No one even comes close. BTW I like him. Some of the comments here have to be from those that do not play guitar and have no idea what he is playing. No idea what modal playing is as well. Ignore them.
FZ wasn't a virtuoso (though, as a composer he was) instrumentalist, but he definitely had his own unique 'finger prints' on his solos and the way he played rhythmically. I have 800 or so audience/sbd recordings from almost every tour he ever performed. Considering this, it's very important to note that many of his studio solos were incredibly different than his unedited live solos. And then to makes things even more confusing, he would edit both together or make it appear the live solos were studio solos, etc., through a process called xenochrony. So consequently, I don't think his solos can necessarily be compared/rated (something he hated) adequately. And unfortunately, since there are nearly an infinite quantity of wonderful solos, I don't think I could list them without altering the list until the end of time...
I'd like to add that when soloing, despite the fact that FZ stuck to common modes and much of the time, the pentatonic scale, most people also generally don't realize how difficult it is to not repeat yourself while playing like this and for lengthy periods of time, let alone constantly trying to be creative simultaneously. But of course, this is one of the many things Frank excelled at...
I'd say he was a very good but limited guitarist. He found a sound and style that suited him and he stuck with it. He wasn't someone like Hendrix, who would routinely reinvent the sounds a guitar could make. More like Jerry Garcia. They kinda settled into one solo that lasted for years. Worked great, too - though you probably don't want to cue up the compilations Shut Up 'n Play Yer Guitar, Shut Up 'n Play Yer Guitar Some More, Return Of The Son Of Shut Up 'n Play Yer Guitar, and Guitar all in a row. In fact there's a pretty awesome Instrumental Zappa playlist on Spotify: it advises "Shuffle this and go bananas" to avoid exactly that overdose, I think.
I saw Zappa with the Mothers in 1970 in Berkeley, post-Mothers of Invention. I was not a huge Zappa fan, but some friends were going and it sounded interesting. I went expecting it would be some really strange freak out kind of show but was surprised by two things in particular- one, that it was pretty much a straight ahead, well performed rock show and, two, I quickly discovered something that was a huge and pleasant surprise- that Frank Zappa was one heck of a fine guitar player! His playing was, at varying times fiery, lithe, lyrical, and/ or very progressive sounding. And to sweeten the deal, Flo and Eddie were in the group at that time. Killer show!
Well, when those came out I did exactly that, lolol. But I was guitarded then. I've kinda / sorta recovered, thank you ;-)
