Frank Zappa essays

Frank Zappa essays Frank Zappa was an American singer, composer, arranger, guitarist, bandleader, and all around musician who was one of the greatest iconoclastic musicians of the 20th Century. He also produced over 60 albums in 30 years. Some considered him to have demonstrated a mastery of pop idioms ranging from jazz to rock of every conceivable variety. As astute an entrepreneur as he was a musician, he was impatient with any division between popular and high art; he combined scatological humor with political wit, required of his players an intimidating skill, and displayed consistent innovation in instrumental and studio technology. I knew there was a big thing here that was unique, because the beat matched the great rhythm of the human body. (Frank Zappa, The New Rock; p.1) He was born in 1940 in Baltimore where his Sicilian-born, Greek-Arab meteorologist father was employed by an arsenal that manufactured poison gas during World War II. The eldest of four children of a guitar-playing government scientist, Frank Zappa moved with his family at age ten to California. At the age of twelve Zappa became interested in drums, learning orchestral percussion. By 1956 he was playing drums in a local RI was extremely suspect of any rock music played by white people. The sincerity and emotional intensity of their performances, when they sang about boyfriends and girlfriends and breaking up, etc., was nowhere when I compared it to my high school Negro R Wolf and Willie Mae Thornton. (Frank Zappa, The New Rock; p.1). Early exposure to a record of Ionisation by avant garde classical composer Edgard Varese instilled an interest in advanced rhythmic experimentation, which lead to the fascination of the electric guitar. Enlightenment is , to a certain extent, attributa ble to the evolution of rock and vice versa. (Frank Zappa, The New Rock; p.1). In 1963 Mr...