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Dweezil hopes to get it right when Zappa Plays Zappa
On any given night, countless bands perform cover versions of songs by the legends of the "classic rock" era: the Beatles, Rolling Stones, Doors, Grateful Dead ... you name it.
An exception is the music of one of the era's most inventive and iconoclastic figures, the late Frank Zappa.
"The main reason is that it's almost impossible to play correctly," Dweezil Zappa, Frank's son, said shortly before embarking on a tour to accomplish just that.
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"Everywhere we've been, we're getting a good response," said Dweezil, who will turn 38 while Zappa Plays Zappa is on an extended road trip that eventually takes the ensemble to Europe and Australia.
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"It is important to keep in mind that Frank's music is the only reason this tour exists," he noted. "We love it and want to see and hear more of it. It is the true focus and star of the show."
Along with his music, Frank will play a starring role. Through the magic of 21st-century technology, the composer-musician, who died in 1993, appears by way of a video screen to "perform" with the Zappa Plays Zappa band.
"It's complicated, but we're able to do it," said Dweezil.
For fans who caught Zappa Plays Zappa last year, the core lineup remains the same. Joining lead guitarist Dweezil are Aaron Arntz, keyboards and trumpet; Scheila Gonzalez, woodwinds, keyboards and vocals; Pete Griffin, bass; Billy Hulting, percussion; Jamie Kime, guitar; and Joe Travers, drums.
If Travers sounds familiar to Zappa fans, he also serves as "vaultmeister" for Frank's legendarily massive accumulation of archival material and has lent his name to such recent releases as "Joe's Corsage" and "Joe's Domage."
Also familiar to fans is the tour's special guest, Ray White, a member of several incarnations of the Zappa band in the '70s and '80s, and is best known for his booming lead vocal on Frank's fact-based epic "The Illinois Enema Bandit."
While the 2007 Zappa Plays Zappa cast is similar, the songs are not. Dweezil promises "97 to 98 percent all-new music compared with last year."
Finding a variety of material to perform - Frank Zappa has about 80 albums to his credit - is easy. Learning it is not. Many of his compositions are extremely complex, delving into unusual time signatures and mathematically precise rhythms that even the most talented of musicians might find daunting.
That includes Dweezil, a veteran guitarist who at age 15 played several shows with his father's band and since has built a well-regarded career of his own. After he envisioned the Zappa Plays Zappa project, Dweezil spent two years becoming more familiar with Frank's vast catalog.
"In order to play my father's music correctly, I needed to understand the fundamentals of his music more thoroughly, which meant a lot of studying," he said.
Despite his prowess on the six-string, Dweezil acknowledges the difficulty of tackling Frank's repertoire.
"To do what I'm doing now has taken a lot of effort," he said. "A lot of things I'm doing aren't supposed to be done on a guitar."
That's the opinion of plenty of fans who saw Frank perform in his heyday.
"His solos are crazy, rhythmically complex," said Dweezil. "I just try to play in the context of the music, to play in the style of Frank."
The elder Zappa probably is best remembered for what loosely can be termed "novelty" songs, especially "Don't Eat Yellow Snow" and his showcase for daughter Moon, "Valley Girl." But his compositions run the gamut of genres: rock, jazz, classical, satire, electronic, blues, doo-wop, even some forays into country and rap. And that's not to mention his numerous sound experiments that defy categorization.
Since his death, examples of his archival material have appeared sporadically, and Dweezil said to expect more releases soon, including concerts in their entirety and a DVD version of the full show recorded for KCET-TV in 1974, parts of which have appeared on the video "The Dub Room Special."
Speaking of DVDs, Zappa Plays Zappa had material recorded at the end of the '06 tour for a package due for release in August, containing about four hours' worth of material.
Between the tour and DVD, Dweezil hopes to bring his father's unique brand of music to people who otherwise would remain in the dark:
"If you're a young music listener and all you've ever heard has come from modern popular radio, I would urge you to step outside that tiny bubble and see what you've been missing."
