The Resurrection of Frank Zappa's Soul

Fifteen years ago last Thursday, American iconoclast Frank Zappa died at age 52; on December 21, he would have been 68. He left an impressive body of musical work, both on his commercial recordings and on various unreleased media, enough material to keep several people employed for years to come in preserving his legacy. His son Dweezil is currently in the middle of a three-night stand at the Roxy, which runs through Saturday, December 13. The younger Zappa and his band perform as Zappa Plays Zappa, and the stint commemorates the 35th anniversary of Dweezil’s father’s own recorded performances at the venue. And Frank’s widow, Gail, administers the Zappa Family Trust.

Despite the family’s heroic efforts to preserve his memory, Frank Zappa remains an enigma. That’s partly due to his having assumed so many roles: of composer working in the neoclassical and post-Webern traditions and seeking acceptance in that anoxic world; of rock songwriter-guitarist rising within the catalytic stew of the mid- to late-’60s; of record producer wielding a razorblade on two-track edits; of Swiftian chronicler of Southern California life.

Courtesy Zappa Family Trust

Zappa in the studio during the Lumpy Gravy sessions

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More About

• Frank Zappa
• Joe Travers
• Eric Clapton
• The Mothers of Invention (Musical Group)
• Anton Webern

There are simply so many Frank Zappas that his true identity remains elusive. But if there is a musical locus to the soul of Frank Zappa, an upcoming release (date to be determined) might be Ground Zero. Fans will soon rejoice in the special 40th-anniversary three-CD reissue of two of his most important works: Lumpy Gravy and We’re Only In It for the Money. The reissue’s title? Lumpy Money.

The history of the first two of those albums is convoluted, and concerns much of 1967 and 1968 in Los Angeles and New York City. Gravy and Money are inextricably linked in their conception, which is one reason the merged reissue makes sense as a package.

Unlike the majority of Frank Zappa recordings that currently appear on the Rykodisc label, Lumpy Money will receive the Zappa Records imprimatur. Joe Travers, the “vaultmeister,” who oversees the massive Zappa tape collection, explains: “Since Ryko distributes the approved masterworks of those two records, we are left with lots of yummy things.” Ryko, he explains, can only release the official, Zappa-approved versions of his LPs. But that leaves a vast archive of previously unreleased material from which the estate can dig.

Gail stresses that her first obligation in releasing archival material is to Frank’s vision. “If we’re going to reintroduce something, it has to be the iteration that Frank produced.” Once those recordings are available, however, the estate looks for complimentary unreleased recordings. Explains Gail: “What do we have that’s in the vault that people would like to hear that’s related to that project?”

Lumpy Gravy was originally to have been released on Capitol Records as a solo Frank Zappa project, freeing him from the strictures of the Mothers of Invention (who recorded for the Verve Records division of MGM). Nik Venet produced. Venet, says Gail, “was farsighted in those days as a producer to create an opportunity.” The result was roughly 22 orchestral minutes.

Travers continues, “The Capitol version of Gravy got as far as an acetate — a finished, cut four-track sequenced master — and then MGM/Verve stepped in. They said, ‘What the fuck are you doing? You’re signed to us. You can’t do this.’” What followed, explains Travers, was a protracted 11-month battle between Verve and Capitol, which Verve eventually won. As a result, Gravy came out after Money. “By the time that happened,” adds Travers, “Frank completely changed the initial project [from] where it was in the Capitol days 11 months later, to the masterwork that it is now.”

This might explain why the released version of Lumpy Gravy sounds like the wizard let loose in his workshop. The central orchestral tracks — “Oh No,” “King Kong” and “I Don’t Know if I Can Go Through This Again” — are bridged with surreal monologues and goofy dialogues set inside a giant piano (reused many years later in Civilization Phaze III, and a good example of how Zappa never regards something as finished but as always usable material).

Zappa knew he had a good thing going with “Oh No” and had it reprised on the album (“Oh No” was later reworked as a song with lyrics on 1970’s Weasels Ripped My Flesh). It contained fundamental Zappa motifs: rapid musical triplet figures, Zappa’s enduring love of vibes and marimbas, and a lilting melody. To counterbalance that melodicism, the percussive, aleatoric influence of composer Edgard Varèse is heard elsewhere on the album.

“Money and Gravy are really hand in hand,” explains Gail. “Because he was continuing to work on Lumpy Gravy while they were having this whole battle [between Verve and Capitol], I think that [battle] became the inspiration for Money.

But the evolution of released versions of Money, Zappa’s first outing as a producer, is controversial. In 1984, he did a remix of Money, which included overdubbing new bass and drum parts. To many fans, this was sacrilege.