There's a lot to like in the 'ZAPPA' movie

The recently released movie about Frank Zappa was compiled using never-before-seen footage from his extensive music and video archive. It provides a level of detail that even uber-fans will find revealing. Those less familiar will also enjoy it if they are open to learning about this unique composer.

Zappa remained a maverick throughout his life and wasn't afraid to confront the petty morals of those attempting to curtail his activities. Above all, he is deserving of greater recognition for the enormous catalogue of music he created - even if you and I don't care for some of it. ZAPPA the movie, does him justice, highlighting his considerable talents not just as a rock musician, but as a composer of orchestral works.

Early in the film we see inside the massive Zappa tape archive which director Alex Winter had full access to in making ZAPPA. The project was crowd-funded (I contributed a modest amount), allowing the estate managers to back up and preserve all the old tapes.

FZ with his master tapes and other treasures

With unearthed home movies from the period, we see how from an early age Frank saw himself as an outsider. After a childhood in Baltimore, his family lived in a series of small towns in California and this sense of cultural isolation contributed to his singular vision.

He was a contrarian from the outset, seeking out unusual and unpopular music - the uglier the better. He took inspiration from modern 20th century classical composers such as Varese and Stravinsky, particularly in the primitive early recordings he made with his group The Mothers Of Invention, and in his later orchestral pieces.

His earliest compositions were all classical in nature, he said, even if they didn't conform to most people's idea of classical music. As his percussionist Ruth Underwood says of the tune 'Oh No' in the movie: "This music could sit comfortably in a concert hall. It was a product of everything that was in him. But you couldn't really categorise it. What the hell is it? It's Zappa."

An early Mothers concert poster

This interpretation of 'Oh No' by Owen Adams is a great example of, as he says, the beauty and complexity of Zappa's music.

This wasn't rock and roll and it wasn't jazz. It was like psychedelic art with musical interludes, that could be anything from classical to avant-garde.

The early Mothers records, from 1966 to '68, such as Freak Out! and We're Only In It For the Money  were like musical collages, with tape looping and orchestral interludes laced into the more mainstream rock music of the period. 

If there was a lyrical thread running through his rock/jazz records, it was mostly to do with getting laid. This led naturally to many costly run-ins with the guardians of the public morals.

The movie includes film of the band's legendary residency at the Garrick Theatre in New York, where Frank would delight in toying with the audience. On one occasion, Zappa brought a bunch of marines onto the stage and had them acting out a battle scene with plastic dolls.

"We were loud, we were coarse and we were strange," recalled Frank.

He disbanded the original Mothers in the late 60s, saying that having a road band on a full time basis was unsustainable. So he concentrated for a while on solo albums, including many people's favourite, Hot Rats. He then regrouped the Mothers with different musicians and the singers Mark Volman and Howard Kaylan from the pop group The Turtles.

The cover of Zappa's album Overnite Sensation

In the mid 1970's, he produced probably his most consistent and enduring records for a wider audience, such as Overnite Sensation, Apostrophe and One Size Fits All. The smut quotient did not diminish.

By the late 70s, as one of the more astute musicians business-wise, it was only a matter of time before he fell out with his record company.

He and wife Gail set up one of the first truly independent record labels, Barking Pumpkin. His first album release under his own label, Sheikh Yerbouti, turned out to be one of his biggest sellers, allowing him to sustain his performing career and pursue his orchestral ambitions. 

The Mothers at The Whiskey in LA, 1967

My interest in this movie was in the treasures that lay in the vault. Overall, Winter and his editors did a good job of giving us (albeit short) glimpses of this material, including early home movies.

I appreciated the way they spent much of the first half of a two-hour movie on the earliest incarnations of the Mothers - from the 60s to the early 70s, which musically I think is far more interesting - and anyway, the later stuff is easily available on DVD and Youtube. 

The strange evolution of Zappa's music is brought to life with never-seen clips of his earliest musical exploits. Though I'd seen some of it before, it's fascinating, for example, to see extended footage of the Mothers evolving their bizarre act via a 5-month residency in 1967 at the Garrick Theatre in New York's Greenwich Village.

Ruth nails The Black Page

As the movie illustrates, Zappa was driven to write and compose. He toured regularly around the world until the late 1980s. The proof of his worth as a composer - and his skills as a band leader - are the sheer number of virtuoso musicians who came through his ranks. Only Miles Davis could beat him in that regard.

Ruth Underwood said of Frank, "there was always more music" He never stopped working and writing out manuscripts for the band to work on.  

There's a lovely moment in the movie where Underwood and drummer (and Zappa archivist) Joe Travers have a go at one of Frank's most difficult to play compositions, The Black Page. There's a look of surprise and joy on Ruth's face as she finishes playing and Travers exclaims "You fucking nailed it!". That's a measure of the challenge that Zappa set for his musicians.

Frank and Alice Cooper in 1969

Zappa nurtured other bands too, including his school friend Don Vliet, otherwise known as Captain Beefheart. He produced Beefheart's album Trout Mask Replica in 1969.

Frank was also the only one who would take a chance on the Alice Cooper group when they were starting out.

Alice said Zappa came to a show: "We scared the hell out of the audience - they were all on acid. We looked like we'd just come up out of the ground, and we didn't mind a little violence onstage. That audience couldn't get out of the room fast enough. It was like somebody yelled "FIRE!" There were three people left standing. Frank said, "Anybody that can clear a room that quick, I've got to sign."

Seeing the cover of We're Only In It For The Money  brought to life is another treat. Jimi Hendrix can be seen among the people appearing in the film of the cover shoot.

Jimi Hendrix at the cover shoot

The Beatles also feature in the movie, once when Frank complains how Paul McCartney was unwilling to help resolve any potential problems over the cover of We're Only In It For The Money - a pastiche of Sgt. Pepper. Frank was forced to reverse the cover when The Beatles failed to see the joke.

The Moptops appear again briefly in a clip of them arriving in the US on their first tour in 1964, which shows fans holding up signs saying 'Beatles Unfair to Bald Men' and 'Beatles are starving the barbers'. My, how times have changed.

Another highlight of the movie for me is seeing rare film of Frank going over a passage of written music with drummer Vinnie Colaiuta. It's unusual to see any drummer, let alone one of the greatest of all time, up close and in an informal setting working with Frank.

FZ conducting the Ensemble Modern

As the movie progresses, we learn more about Frank's clashes with the forces of political correctness. He was a lone voice in the fight against censorship of the record industry, on the basis that he was not beholden to anyone, unlike most artists.

We also get to understand more about his challenges in getting his classical compositions played live. Some orchestras proved incapable of playing his compositions to Frank's satisfaction. He said he'd rather not have them performed at all, than have them done badly.

Close to the end of his life, in 1992 we see him conducting a performance of the Yellow Shark by the Ensemble Modern, which Frank described as one of the most fulfilling projects of his career, and as the best representation of his orchestral works.

Zappa meets with Havel

Frank died of prostate cancer in 1993, working right to the end to complete written compositions. The movie does a good job of reflecting the frustrations of his final years, when he was embraced by political leaders in eastern Europe, while the US government tried to undermine his efforts. 

Zappa met with Czech leader Vaclav Havel, who led the country's Velvet Revolution and the collapse of the Soviet regime in 1989. The Bush administration's message to the Czechs was simple - you either deal with the US government, or you deal with Zappa.

The casual viewer of Zappa the movie will learn much about this unique character. I came away from it pleased that Alex Winter had done justice to the complex life and music of FZ.

If you want to see more from the early days, there is this Day In The Life clip available on YT.

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Steve Vai talks about the Zappa movie

Audio - The Mothers at The Garrick Theatre, New York, 1967

Mothers - Live at the Fillmore, San Francisco, 1970 

Frank Zappa & The Mothers - Montana, Live at the Roxy, LA, 1973

See also on this blog:
Zappa's album One Size Fits All reviewed in 1975

Unveiling a Frank Zappa statue in Baltimore - Dweezil plays live, 2010

Frank Zappa and Lowell George together, 1969