ASCOLTA / ZAPPA at Bates Mill, Huddersfield

Saturday 29th November 2008 - part of the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival 2008.

Beforehand, I read up a bit on Frank Zappa on Wikipedia and found out a bit more about Edgard Varèse.

I remembered his quote "The present day composer refuses to die", which was printed on many of Zappa's albums, but didn't know anything about him. I still don't know much, but one thing I picked up was that Varèse was very keen on rhythm and percussion.

While listening to this wonderful performance with this in mind, I was struck by how many sections of Zappa's music seem to be built on the percussion part. It is as though he started with a drum & percussion solo and then added tonal parts on top. So the three percussionists were a very important part of the night, especially Lukas Schiske, who was fantastic on the drum kit. As were all the musicians, but the audience especially cheered Lukas when introduced. (I must also mention Hubert Steiner who was excellent on guitars. He mostly played an Ibanez electric, but I particularly liked the classical guitar part on one of the numbers).

I also thought that this is the reason Zappa's music is so accessible, even though it is very demanding - there is a strong rhythm to follow, even if you can't follow all the melodies and harmonies.

The programme was listed as:
I was in a Drum - UK PREMIERE
Reagan at Bitburg - UK PREMIERE
Overture to Uncle Sam - UK PREMIERE
Samba Funk - UK PREMIERE
Plus other works by Frank Zappa

But Erik Borgir (announcements / cello / electric cello) told us the pieces were changed round and I can't remember which was which. I'm not sure I can say much about them either - you just have to hear them! At the end there was a medley of well known tunes, including 'American Womanhood' / 'Harry you're a beast' bits of "We're only in it for the money", which had me singing along. A vocalist may have added something on these! The audience demanded an encore, which was 'Peaches en Regalia', another old favourite from 'Hot Rats', of course. The audience still wanted more - but perhaps we'd exhausted Ascolta's Zappa repertoire. It certainly must take some time to learn some of those pieces!

Great players; wonderful music; an enthusiastic audience; all adding up to a fantastic night. It's just a shame that it is such a rare event to hear Zappa's music played live.