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In Reply to: What? posted by J on December 21, 2006 at 19:49:18:
...which is not to say he wasn't an amazing guitarist; I think Frank Zappa was brilliantly idiosyncratic with an extremely unique rhythmic vocabulary, a gift for spontaneous melody, a very distinctive touch, and killer tone. But his harmonic vocabulary was remedial, and I think he liked to listen to himself wail way more than most guitarists with even the slightest semblence of restraint would. The whole Shut Up & Play Yer Guitar thing was an undifferentiated vanity project, and the fact that some fans worship that aspect of his music seems to be one of the worst cases of misplaced deification I can think of.The man had a HUGE command of music...but only a fraction of that applied to his guitar playing. IMHO he gets way too much accolade for his guitar solos, and not nearly enough for his visionary scope.
Follow Ups:
Two comments- One is I don't think Zappa was one who sought popularity. He had a unique personal view of music, and his sole objective was to express it. His way. With an extreme passion that is all too rare in this recent time. Rock's version of Arnold Schoenberg, if you will. He probably could have tried more-conventional compositions to attain accessibility and recognition, and probably would have succeeded. But I got the impression he had no concern for general popularity. A rare
fish, in that regard. (The only other personality with such attitude I can think of is Weird Al Yankovic.)And those who embraced his work also looked for music outside the norm. And though a tiny portion of general rock fans, a portion that nevertheless revered him as one of the great rock and guitar gods. Attaining the oft-coveted "cult status." And maybe those not within that camp, in seeing those accolades, saw him as "overrated." But again, I don't think Zappa himself would have cared.
Not my cup o' tea personally, but like Bruce Springsteen, I do appreciate his unique and valuable contribution to the art. I don't think he was overrated, but it's all subjective.
Quite the opposite is true, in fact.
on December 22, 2006 at 12:30:27 markrohr wrote:> > Quite the opposite is true, in fact. < <
Mark, could you at least offer a citation or a substantiation to bolster this questionable assertion?"Quite the opposite is apparent to me, it would seem" maybe. But "True"? "Fact"? Please...
Sorry for the reduncy.Citation? Please. Whenever a discussion of great rock guitarists comes up, you hear Page, Clapton, Hendrix, etc.--unless you have particularly astute folks doing the discussing.
Meanwhile, even most folks who wouldn't recognize a single Zappa tune know he had "visionary scope." I would put that a little differently, but I know what you mean.
That's all. Perhaps you hang with more astute people.
Yeah, I've been accused of "hanging with the astutes" once or twice before. :)In the circles where I travel, the names Page & Clapton haven't come up since the 1970's. (Hendrix is pretty much a gimme; there oughtta be a corollary to Godwin's Law stating that in any conversation about guitarists, the invocation of Jimi Hendrix's name merits an instant cessation of any further discussion.) Whereas I hear Zappa's name all too often lumped in with shredders, chopsmeisters, Guitar Player cover models, poofy-haired axe-slingers, and all manner of other guitar "heroes" who play a million notes per second.
> > Meanwhile, even most folks who wouldn't recognize a single Zappa tune know he had "visionary scope." < <
I would contend that the folks who don't recognize a single Zappa tune are way more likely to know [sic] that he wrote "funny songs". Definitely not the same thing!
I am not sure Frank was guilty of anything that everybody else wasn't doing in the early seventies. Who wasn't playing ten minute guitar solos in their concerts? I honestly don't see where Hendrix or Page were exactly paragons of restraint. Want to talk about 27 minutes of "Dazed and Confused"? "Machine Gun"? Whether you like it or not, the art of overrating guitarists was what rock fandom was all about.As afar as the "Shut Up N Play your Guitar" set, maybe you are taking that a little out of context. It started out as a limited release available only via mail order. I don't see how it's any different than any other specialty product designed for completists, except that it sold enough units to be viable as a commercial release.
I can understand why you and J would take exception at the idea that FZ was underrated as a guitarist, but I can also see the other side of that coin. Maybe a better term would be underexposed. With Frank being pretty much blacklisted from air play for over two decades, there are a lot of people out there who have never really heard his music.I used to hang out in this little bar in Poughkeepsie where the bartenders would occasionally play customer CDs on quiet nights. One bartender in particular was a Zappa fan, and I would bring in stuff for him to enjoy. One snowy night, he and I were in there alone listening to "You Can't Do That On Stage Anymore, Vol. 5". The second disc of this set is the 1982 band featuring Steve Vai and Tommy Mars. It's a favorite of mine as I caught this band several times during the tour, and contains killer versions of standard catalog tunes like "RDNZL", "Black Page No. 2", "Pound for a Brown", etc.
Anyway, a couple of twenty something guys come in and start playing pool about half way through the disc. The music ends when FZ stops the show due to people throwing stuff on stage, at which point one of the guys asks me, "Who was that playing?". I told him and he replied "That doesn't sound like Frank Zappa".
Not in my opinion.....As long as you're delineating, - it might behoove you to get more specific....
Was he blazingly fast? Did he perform long reaches? Did he have amazing tone? Did he play things that no one ever played? Was he dynamic? Did he have good phrasing? Did he make unique sounds with effects? Did he write great melodies? Were the melodies memorable? Is the content of what he plays powerful? Rhythmic? or dramatic?
Lou Reed is a much different kind of guitar player than John McLaughlin. You can't judge Lou Reed on the basis of how he compares to Al Dimeola. You can't judge how Al Dimeola compares to Eric Clapton or Django Reinhardt.
Zappa wrote some amazing things, and yes, he was a great composer and conductor. Maybe he was a bit too busy for some folks. Maybe he was a bit to eclectic. His compositions were complex, and one didn't instantly stand up and start dancing to a four/four kick drum...
IMO, - Frank was a great all around musician, composer, arranger, conductor, band leader, lyricist, comedian, and simply, songwriter. That doesn't mean that I liked all of his stuff. It doesn't mean that all of his material was great. And, - it certainly doesn't mean that he was "accessible." Comparing him to somebody like Jeff Beck, - is a "wasted" effort as they were so disparate, - the "greatness" that they both possess bears little semblance to one another....
FZ was a great guitar player in relation to Frank Zappa and his music and to his fellow musicians. But he was so much more than a great guitar player. Singling out that aspect of FZ, - is OK to do, - but is only a part of the big picture, and only one part of his many talents...
Get that cheese grater going, against the grain, wearing me down, a pressure increase
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