Zappa - Love/Hate relationship

 

I feel the same way, I love everything I've heard from Frank - but those two were a mistake.  I can't even listen to most of Fillmore East '71 anymore...

 

And he left us Dweezil.

 

I don't know ... it's like listening to Gentle Giant 40 years later ... and the first thing you can say is ... wow ... you gotta be kidding me ... and please ... don't tell me that all your favorite bands only do a 4/4 or a 3/4 and usually have a lousy drummer that can only hit a smare drum every 4th beat to tell you that he's there!

The rational would hinge on those qualities that made Miles such an indelible character during his lifetime. Miles played with the top musicians of his day, influenced them & was influenced by them, redefined music genre's, created new styles, put out volumes of work, Zappa is in this same sphere, he surrounded himself with the top musicians, Zappa re-defined genre's & created new musical sphere's, his works stylistically were all over the place, he put out a TON of material & he was unique. I think it's interesting to listen to Miles solo with charlie Parker. Parker is a race horse that burns up the track. Miles doe not have the same technical ability, Dizzy G. is/was that guy (but not a junkie), so Miles puts a spin on his notes that color his solos making them of their own distinct quality. (a very bluesy feel early on) I hear that in Zappa's guitar soloing. Here he is, with guys like Vai (whom Zappa admits the reason why he asked Vai to join is because Vai could do things on guitar that he could not do) or Belew that could burn circles on the neck & perform guitar gymnastics beyond anything Zappa is capable of. The fact is, when I watch & hear Zappa solo for an extended period of time, like on Shut Up & Play Yer Guitar or Baby Snakes, I admit that he's not the greatest at solo's. He's a real "meanderer" or "noodle-er". He can be sloppy & sticks pretty close to modes & scales, throws in a few fast licks, bends notes like an old school player.  He sounds like a mixture between Iommi & many other players on his Gibson SG. But my point is that his greatest abilities I find are in his song writing, his arranging, his engineering of bands & ideas & brilliant album concepts & very entertaining shows like an opera or vaudeville productions, which is much more like a composer of yesteryear - which is very much again, like Miles Davis when you consider albums & with concepts like "Birth of Cool, Sketches of Spain, Porgy & Bess, Bitches Brew, Pangaea, Nefertiti". Davis is not nor ever claims to be the greatest trumpeter in a technical sense, but brilliant in many other facets that are more important than how fast one plays a scale (as in all the examples given for Frank). Also both artists early on had to work against a system that didn't want them, but they succeeded to influence what has now become the underground of music. If you haven't read "The Real Frank Zappa Book" by Frank Zappa w/Peter Occhiogrosso - I highly recommend it!