A different Zappa emerges in epic 'operapantomime' By Rip Rense Special to The Journal The Milwaukee Journal, December 18,

1994 FOR THE LAST 10 years of his life, Frank Zappa worked obsessively on "Civilizati on: Phaze III," a sprawling, 113-minute epic. It marked the most complex and amb itious musical experimenting of his career. Finishing the massive work assumed an increasing urgency after the musician/comp oser was diagnosed with cancer in 1990. He made the last minor adjustments only weeks before his death, at 52, on Dec. 4 last year. "Civilization: Phaze III" was released earlier this month mail order only on Zap pa's own Barking Pumpkin Records. "I think it's very much about finishing his life," said Gail Zappa, his widow. " I would call this his masterwork. He said that after he finished this, he had no thing more to do. I asked him, 'Is there anything else you want to tell me about ?' He said, 'No, I've done everything that I can.'" Matt Groening, creator of "The Simpsons" and a friend of Zappa's, described the piece this way: "Listening to it, it feels like Frank was trying to cram as many musical ideas as possible, one after the other, into this piece. It's very thic k and dense and overpowering as a listening experience. Even if you think you kn ow Frank Zappa's music, I don't think anybody could be sufficiently prepared for the powerhouse this thing represents. PLANNED PRODUCTION Liner notes written by Frank Zappa describe the work as "an operapantomime, with choreographed physical activity (manifested as dance or other forms of inexplic able socio-physical communication)." Just before his death, Zappa explained the theatrical concept for the work to choreographer Jamey Hampton, of the ISO Dance Troupe, and Groening, who are planning to stage a production of the work. "Frank was very specific about his ideas for it," said Groening. "He wanted to u se old-fashioned stagecraft, nothing fancy, no TV monitors." "Civilization: Phaze III" culminates a composing career that began when a teenag e Zappa was first inspired to put musical notes on paper after hearing the work of avant-garde composer Edgard Varse. Although the likes of the London Symphony, Pierre Boulez and Kent Nagano have ch ampioned and recorded Zappa's works, he is ironically best known for novel pop-r ock satires like "Valley Girl" (sung with daughter Moon Unit), "Dancing Fool" an d "Jesus Thinks You're a Jerk." Composed largely at the Synclavier, a sophisticated computer-driven synthesizer capable of producing practically any imaginable sound, "Civilization: Phaze III" is basically orchestral in texture. About one-third of it was performed by the European new music group, Ensemble Modern. Conceptually and stylistically, the w ork is a continuation of Zappa's 1967 avant-garde ballet/narrative, "Lumpy Gravy ," and his 1966 album "We're Only in It for the Money," which has sometimes been called the "cynical flip-side of 'Sgt. Pepper'." "I think that 'Phaze III' is perhaps the ultimate destiny of this particular asp ect [of Zappa's work]," said Gail Zappa. " 'Phaze III' probably started off to be one thing, but because he worked so har

d to finish it before he died, it became something a little different than he or iginally intended." MAIL-ORDER EXPERIMENT Why release it mail-order only? I'm doing it this way," she said, "as an experiment, because I wanted to see who 's really out there, and how much attention they're playing to the importance of having Frank's music in their lives." Could the mail-order process hinder exposure of the music? (The album will likel y be marketed in music stores "at some point.") "It may seem unfair, in many ways, to treat his music this way," she said. "But he gave this record to me. And [it is] of particular importance to me personally . I wanted to make it available to those people who are loyal fans of Frank in t his country ... without having to rely on an industry that never supported Frank in any way as a composer." There are 19 pieces of music in "Phaze III," interspersed with a running dialogu e left over from the 1967 "Lumpy Gravy" sessions and new dialogue recorded by Mo on Unit Zappa and Zappa associates. For "Lumpy Gravy," Zappa prompted friends to "ramble incoherently" into microphones planted inside a piano, then edited thei r various speeches into an absurdist commentary that punctuated original orchest ral music. "Phaze III" continues that tradition, as Zappa's CD liner notes expla in. "In 'Civilization: Phaze III,' we get a few more clues about the lives of the pi ano dwellers and note that the external evils have only gotten worse since we fi rst met them." Cover art by Uri Balashov (whose misspelling of "Phase" was promptly adopted by Zappa as the formal title) depicts a massive piano atop a mountainous, fearsome civilization. With or without the "piano dweller" story, the music of "Civilizat ion: Phaze III" stands as the most dense and intricate stuff Zappa ever created. At least one of the titles, "Beat the Reaper," would seem to grimly attest to t he circumstances under which composer worked. Groening, a longtime admirer who befriended Zappa late in life, described the so und as "Stravinsky-esque orchestral tunes with Conlon Nancarrow tireless forward propulsion presented with the most cutting edge technology" adding, in more acc essible terms: "This music should finally get Zappa taken truly seriously as a c omposer. There is nothing else in contemporary music that sounds anything like i t. I'll be listening to this piece for the rest of my life that's for sure." Perhaps the centerpiece of the work is an 18-minute, six-movement composition ti tled "N-Lite." Zappa insisted the title was merely a convenient, and quite absur d, computer label, as he said in a 1992 conversation. "It's not really a dramati c story. You have only eight letters to name these things in the computer progra m." Groening remains unconvinced. "I think that was part of his artistic stance to not allow himself to be pinned down," he said. "He claimed there was no meaning to the title 'N-Lite.' It was j ust a name the computer assigned to the piece. I don't believe that. Is it about the end of light? Enlightenment?'" In any event, it names music that was a breakthrough and a departure in Zappa's

long, remarkable career; music that portends things that will, tragically, never come. "It's called mortality," said Gail Zappa. "I think ['Phaze III'] has a lot to do with Frank knowing that he wasn't going to be able to realize a lot of things t hat he wanted to do. So then you do what you can. Part of it is an expression of that. I don't think he was in a hurry, as much as he was pragmatic and said. 'I can do this.' I see it as a big time 'Thanks For the Memories,' in some ways."