Jazz Articles about Frank Zappa

About Frank Zappa

Radio & Podcasts

Frank Zappa's Jazz Legacy Refuses to Die, Part 2

by Ludovico Granvassu
December 26, 2018

This week we continue the retrospective dedicated to Frank Zappa's complex relationship with jazz, through a mix of the jazzier compositions performed by Zappa himself and countless tributes to his music paid by jazz musicians. As Frank Zappa loved to say, quoting Edgard Varèse, “the present day composer refuses to die" and the music featured in this show provides plenty of evidence that he was right. Happy listening! [The first part of this Frank ...

Radio & Podcasts

Frank Zappa's Jazz Legacy Refuses to Die

by Ludovico Granvassu
December 13, 2018

Frank Zappa may have said “jazz is not dead, it just smells funny" but looking at his life and music one does not get the impression that he really believed that jazz was decomposing or dying a slow death. On Freak Out, one of the most impressive debut albums of all times, he included a list of 179 people that had influenced him, including jazz luminaries like Charles Mingus, Cecil Taylor, Eric Dolphy and Rahsaan Roland Kirk ...

Live Review

The Yellow Shark di Frank Zappa al Romaeuropa Festival

by Mario Calvitti
October 16, 2018

The Yellow Shark di Frank Zappa Romaeuropa Festival Parco della Musica Roma 10.10.2018 The Yellow Shark è l'ultima opera orchestrale realizzata da Frank Zappa nel corso della sua vita, e rappresenta la summa (e probabilmente anche l'apice) della sua attività di compositore e musicista “serio," come ha sempre voluto essere considerato. La prima esecuzione mondiale avvenne nel Settembre 1992 al Festival di Francoforte, che aveva commissionato il lavoro. Zappa era ...

Live Review

Ai Confini Tra Sardegna e Jazz - XXXI Edizione

by Paolo Peviani
September 21, 2016

Sant'Anna Arresi (CI) 01-10.09.2016 Per questa trentunesima edizione, il festival Ai Confini Tra Sardegna e Jazz ha messo al centro del proprio programma la figura di Frank Zappa. Trattandosi di una manifestazione prevalentemente dedicata all'improvvisazione radicale, la rivisitazione del repertorio zappiano non poteva (non doveva!) limitarsi all'agiografia, al tributo, alla riproposizione di cover. La musica del chitarrista di Baltimora doveva piuttosto offrire lo spunto per una riflessione sull'eredità di un artista che è stato tra ...

Film Review

Freak Jazz, Movie Madness and Another Mothers - Frank Zappa 1969-1973

by Mario Calvitti
July 21, 2016

Frank Zappa Freak Jazz, Movie Madness and Another Mothers -Frank Zappa 1969-1973 Sexy Intellectual 2015 L'interessante catalogo di documentari sul rock targati Sexy Intellectual si arricchisce di un nuovo capitolo dedicato a Frank Zappa, già protagonista di due precedenti titoli che esaminavano i suoi anni con i Mothers of Inventions (In the Sixties) e la sua attività di produttore discografico (From Straight to Bizarre). Procedendo cronologicamente, questo Freak Jazz, Movie Madness and Another Mothers ...

Film Review

Frank Zappa: The Lost Broadcast - The Full Performance

by Glenn Astarita
March 5, 2016

Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention The Lost Broadcast -The Full Performance Gonzo Multimedia 2016 There aren't many videos floating around of Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention, but The Lost Broadcast should be received with welcome arms by loyal Zappa enthusiasts and others who still have a burning interest in his legacy. Recorded in 1968 at the Beat Club in Bremen, Germany, and broadcasted for a German TV station in 1970, the ...

Book Excerpts

Zappa and Jazz: Did it Really Smell Funny, Frank?

by Geoffrey Wills
September 15, 2015

The following is an excerpt from “Chapter 2: Early Encounters with Jazz" of Zappa and Jazz: Did it Really Smell Funny, Frank? by Geoffrey Wills (Matador, 2015). When, at the age of fourteen, Zappa entered Mission Bay High School in San Diego in 1955, his first exposure to the elitist snobbery of a certain type of jazz fan occurred. It was like a red rag to a bull, and was no doubt the source of all his ...