The two bandmates that Frank Zappa slagged off: “Mistakes all the time”
Any eager musician hungry to join Frank Zappa’s band had to understand one key fact: Zappa was running the show.
“Window or aisle, how would you like to return home?” were the cutting remarks when any newcomer thought about showboating or deviating from Zappa’s meticulous compositions.
Once he emerged as the captain of The Mothers of Invention across the mid-1960s, Zappa would practice his alternative libertarianism by doggedly pursuing a strict business acumen in isolation from the big label interferences as much as possible, as well as making it crystal clear his creative vision as director of the unwieldy Zappaverse for the next nearly three decades.
It’s probably what drew him so much to orchestral works late in his career, the perfect arena in which the symphonic ensemble adheres to every note, clef, and time signature with unwavering compliance. On the other end of the spectrum, but no less in Zappa’s dictatorial element, was his experiment with the Synclavier DMS digital sampler and workstation on 1986’s Jazz from Hell, able to do away with session musicians or other human beings that stood in the way of his strenuous efforts to realise the scores in his head.
Like any control freak, loyalty is often prized above work ethic or technical expertise. Not that the latter wasn’t vitally important, but Zappa’s rigid commitment to his work had no time for big personalities questioning a record’s conceptual shape or live translation. That was Zappa’s domain.
When corralling his Mothers team around the Freak Out! and Absolutely Free era, personal affinity and a dependable commitment to the Zappaverse’s distinct output would ultimately sway the band captain’s recruitment process.
“In the early days I kept a bunch of people in the group ’cause I liked them and because they had good spirit in spite of the fact that they weren’t great musicians,” Zappa confessed to The Varsity in 1973. “Jimmy Carl Black’s one of them. He’s not the greatest drummer that ever happened, but he had a great spirit, and he added a lot to the group. Don Preston used to make mistakes all the time in his parts, but he also has one of those personalities that was just so right for the band.”
Sometimes, certain personalities act as crucial binding agents for a band, Black and Preston no exception. Sharing Zappa’s freak ethos and fully present in the early Mothers work, if not lending a hand in the actual composition, the respective drummer and keyboardist stand for many longtime fans as Zappa’s ‘classic’ line-up, namechecked by the group leader over the years with particular affection.
Zappa would eventually pursue a more ruthless overview of his band personnel by the time his solo career was taking off, however, “But I don’t like to maintain that attitude anymore, I’ve been doing this for so long, I’ve been waiting for so long to get the right notes played every time, that I’m looking for people that not only have the right spirit, but get up there and do it – really play the notes.”
