Mrs. Jenkins Turned Him Green

Recently I've been intrigued by one of Zappa's oddest LPs, Francesco Zappa. I actually found it in the MassArt library in the classical LP section and was kinda blown away by that. It is a compilation of two opuses by Italian composer and cellist Francesco Zappa (yes he is real) who flourished around 1763-1788. The music was found by Frank Zappa in the 1980s at UC Berkley and performed by the Barking Pumpkin Digital Gratification Consort (aka Zappa on the Synclavier II).

Zappa's Synclavier work was criticized, both then and now, for being too "cold" and lacking "human touch." This is true to some end since Zappa never really used warm tones with the Synclavier in any of his work- even in the highly advanced Civilization Phase III. The coldness in FZ can be found with the hard-to-identify instrumentation (except the really good harpsichord synth) and the lack of intonation.

However, this detachment works to the album's advantage due to Frank Zappa's distaste for court music (hilariously explained in David Ocker's liner notes). Using his line of thinking, a composer can sadly be removed from his own work if he has to write it to please a hierarchy of society. Francesco Zappa was the court composer for the Duke of York right before Europe was swept with the spirit and terror of the French Revolution so he too must have felt this emotional detachment from his work.

Another note on the digital orchestration- it's fun. It's almost goofy. It sounds like early computer game music. This was most likely an aesthetic choice by Frank Zappa. The two biggest clues to this is the silly (but brilliant) Donald Roller Wilson cover and the collage on the back cover that contains a sign reading "UMRK DIGITAL BAROQUE AMUSEMENT FACTORY." Frank argued through his career that his music was for entertainment and amusement and "should not be confused with any other form of artistic expression." (from the liner notes of The Perfect Stranger) Francesco's music was for the amusement of the European elite. Frank Zappa takes the music, puts it into the musical aesthetic of the 1980s, and makes it for the amusement of everyone. You can say a lot about Frank, but you can't say his stuff isn't amusing.