Dweezil Zappa re-creates his dad's iconic 'Hot Rats' album at LI show

    Dweezil Zappa openly admits that his current roadshow — in which he faithfully re-creates one of his father’s greatest works, “Hot Rats” — isn’t the kind of show his late dad would ever perform. “We try to make it sound just like the record, and my dad had no interest in that,” he said. “My dad always wanted the music onstage to sound different from the record.”

    At the same time, the younger Zappa points out that “some of the songs from ‘Hot Rats,’ like “It Must Be a Camel” and “Little Umbrellas,” my dad never played live. So, you’re seeing and hearing something that never took place before.”

It doesn’t hurt that fans who attend this tour — which comes to the Paramount Theater on Saturday, March 7— will be hearing music that wasn’t only a milestone in Zappa’s career, but a watershed in modern music. (Saturday’s show will also feature other music the elder Zappa composed.) When “Hot Rats” first appeared, 50 years ago, it represented a major shift in Frank Zappa’s style, while also pointing the way to both a new fusion in sound and a fresh approach to production. Unlike Zappa’s earlier albums with the Mothers of Invention, which were peppered with satirical pastiches and vocal flights of fancy, “Rats” was almost entirely devoted to instrumentals, which combined psychedelic-rock, jazz, classical compositions and sounds of the avant-garde. It also represented Zappa’s first true solo album outside The Mothers. An earlier collection credited to him alone, “Lumpy Gravy,” didn’t feature the guitarist as a performer but rather as a conductor of an orchestra playing pieces he composed. In another first, “Rats” focused on Zappa as a guitar hero, putting him right in step with the progressive rock tastes of the late 1960s.

In that sense, “Rats” may be the most accessible album from Zappa, who died of prostate cancer in1993. Certainly, it was one of his most popular, becoming a Top Ten hit in the U.K. and an FM radio contender in this country. Dweezil finds that surprising. “It’s funny that people view it as accessible because it’s largely instrumental and there are some very, very long guitar solos, which is hardly the recipe for success,” he said.

     At the same time, the album rocked hard and opened with a track, “Peaches En Regalia,” that became one of the artist’s most beloved pieces. “When we play that song in certain parts of the world, people spontaneously sing the whole melody,” said Zappa. “It’s weird to see that happen because it’s a complicated melody to sing.”

     But, it’s also a witty one, full of passages so colorful they could serve as the theme song for a Saturday morning cartoon. “I think my dad’s music is very cinematic,” Zappa said.

    But to convey the range and feeling of music that rich and resonant is no easy feat. After all, key sounds on “Rats” were created through considerable overdubbing, made possible by the then-new 16-track recording techniques, as well as by manipulating the speed at which some instruments were taped. “From saxophone to woodwinds, certain instruments were recorded at speeds that gave them a range they’re otherwise not capable of,” Zappa said.

    In concert, Zappa’s seven-member band makes up for that by using modern technologies, though he stresses that they never use samples. An even tougher challenge is to re-create the precise feel of “Rats.” “It’s one thing to learn the rhythm and the notes, but I’ve always heard music as sound,” Zappa said. “To me, that’s part of the song. We try to re-create the timbres of the instruments, to have a true apples-to-apples comparison.”

      In long passages, he also aims to re-create his father’s guitar solos. “For a song like “Son of Mr. Green Genes,” which has a seven-minute solo, what he played is so integral to the sound and feeling that I chose to learn it note for note,” Zappa said. “He improvised that and if he were to play it live, he would improvise something completely different. But I want fans to hear the ‘Hot Rats’ version of the song.”

       As thrilling as this may be for “Rats” fetishists, it leaves the star open to accusations of imitation. “A lot of people say, ‘you’re supposed to change it and make it your own’,” Zappa said. “I view this differently, because my father was a composer and specifically wrote his music to be performed a certain way. That’s the same premise used by orchestras around the world. If you’re going to say we’re a cover band, then an orchestra is a cover band.”

     In fact, by faithfully delivering the sounds of “Rats,” the young Zappa is aiming to bring listeners back to a time when this music helped usher in several important trends. Its calibration of rock and jazz made “Rats” one of the first fusion albums, something seldom acknowledged. “Rats” also originated a key movement of the early to mid-70s to bring the electric violin to rock, a connection mirrored by acts from Jefferson Airplane to King Crimson to Mahavishnu Orchestra” Last month, the full scope of “Rats” received a new honor via a six CD box-set, “The Hot Rats Sessions,” featuring numerous outtakes from the historic sessions.

    For Zappa to play this music, half a century after it appeared, has elevated meaning for him. “Rats” came out three months after he was born and was dedicated to him. Decades down the line, he still marvels at the album’s invention. “When you hear it,” he said, “you find yourself thinking, ‘man, how did somebody come up with this?’”