Frank Zappa

Frank Zappa (el-g,voc):

[Frank Zap­pa: Apos­tro­phe / Over­ni­te Sen­sa­tion]
[Frank Zap­pa: The Best Band You Ne­ver Heard in Your Li­fe]
[Frank Zap­pa: Bon­go Fu­ry]
[Frank Zap­pa: Broad­way the Hard Way]
[Mo­thers of In­ven­tion: Burnt Wee­ny Sand­wich]
[Frank Zap­pa: Chun­ga’s Re­ven­ge]
[Mo­thers of Inven­tion: Fill­mo­re East – Ju­ne 1971]
[Frank Zap­pa: Joe’s Ga­ra­ge]
[Frank Zap­pa: Lum­py Gra­vy]

see also Tibor Zelig (track #2)
see also Jimmy Zito (track #2)

[Frank Zap­pa: Ma­ke a Jazz Noi­se He­re]
[Frank Zap­pa: Play­ground Psy­cho­tics]
[Frank Zap­pa: Sheik Yer­bou­ti]
[Frank Zap­pa: 200 Mo­tels]
[The Mo­thers of Inven­tion: Wea­sels Rip­ped My Flesh]
[The Mo­thers of In­ven­tion: We're On­ly in it for the Mo­ney]
[Frank Zap­pa: The Yel­low Shark]
[Frank Zap­pa: You Can’t Do That on Sta­ge Anymore Vol. 1]

see also Dweezil Zappa (CD1, track #1)
see also Allan Zavod (CD2, tracks #7-9)

[Frank Zap­pa: You Can’t Do That on Sta­ge Anymore Vol. 3]

see also Allan Zavod (CD1, CD2 tracks #8,11)

[Frank Zappa: You Can’t Do That on Sta­ge Anymore Vol. 4]

see also Allan Zavod (CD1 tracks #2-7, 10,13 CD2 tracks #3,6,11,13-16)

[Frank Zappa: You Can’t Do That on Sta­ge Any­mo­re Vol. 5]
[Frank Zap­pa: Zoot Al­lu­res]

I have already had a few chances to make some dismissive remarks on the person of Frank Zappa and his music. In a totally un-encyclopaedic fashion I am going to continue to add some personal words here - Zappa doesn't need to be introduced anyway.
In my early teenage years I was very politicized, i.e. I had naive ideas about how an ideal society should look like and felt attracted by everything that was - or seemed - protesting against the actual society that was surrounding me. Naturally, when it comes to protest, a teenage kid might easily turn towards punk rock; however, after a year or two the nihilistic nature of punk made me feel uncomfortable, because I though that's not the way to constructively build a better society. I kept looking further. I tried a bit of jazz and avantgarde music for the first time, and I tried a bit of Frank Zappa. Certainly, this cynic's utterings are as un-constructive for a better society as were the punkers' shoutings. However, I didn't understand that fast enough. I'm sometimes a very slow thinker and perceiver. And what was attractive to me was the musical crossing of boundaries, as it seemed to me: there were the rocking guitars that I still needed to satisfy my punk rock background, but there was also improvised soloing - as in jazz - and the proclaimed avantgarde composition. Well, you all know what to think of that, and if not, I can only once again recommed the Wire article to you. But, no matter what I think of Zappa's unbearable humour nowadays and no matter how relatively lame his music actually is: I guess without Zappa and his music I wouldn't be prepared for what was waiting for me. I doubt that I would appreciate or even like Henry Cow, if I hadn't listened to "Brown Shoes Don't Make it" for a hundred times before. I guess, my reactions to free jazz would have been different, if I wasn't prepared by Ian Underwood's reeds solos on the "Uncle Meat" album. Would I be able to love the music of Can, if I didn't know the lengthy, percussive pieces towards the end of the Mothers' of Invention "Freak out"?
Musical tastes are always developping and growing, so there have to be certain intermediate levels, where one can rest, look back, look forward, enjoy the presence for a while. To me Zappa's music was such an intermediate level, seemingly necessary to my very personal development of musical taste - and therefore he's got to have his place in this little blog encyclopaedia.