Even though he's best known by the general public for his seemingly silly, and occasionally, obscene songs, Frank Zappa was one of the most innovative musicians and greatest guitar players of the 20th ...

The music of psychedelic mind-bender Frank Zappa lives on thanks to his son. Fronting the foremost Zappa tribute band, guitarist Dweezil Zappa spent three years studying the intricate music and ...

The following is an excerpt from "Chapter 2: Early Encounters with Jazz" of Zappa and Jazz: Did it Really Smell Funny, Frank? by Geoffrey Wills (Matador, 2015). Was Zappa being disingenuous here?

Looking more and more like his late father Frank every year, Dweezil Zappa continues to keep his dad’s legacy of classically complex, absurdist jazz-rock alive through his constantly touring “Zappa ...

On Thursday, April 16, big band leader and arranger Ed Palermo will conduct the U.S. Army Blues ensemble in a program of the music of 20th century composer Frank Zappa. As a jazz arranger, composer, ...

At his core, Frank Zappa was a composer. As well, he was a humorist whose lyrical sensibilities ranged from satirical and silly to profane and absurd. He was also a fantastic guitar player. Still, ...

Frank Zappa was always waiting to get zapped. With his eccentric, experimental music, the rock iconoclast believed that, for all of his influential innovation, he was seen as a “threat” in the ...

Frank Zappa was a man who you could describe as aggressively anti-commercial and someone who courted divisiveness. He made all sorts of different kinds of music. He made jazz that only the most ardent ...

Dec. 21 would have been Frank Zappa‘s 79th birthday. Alas, he died Dec. 4, 1993 at his home in the Hollywood Hills of prostate cancer. As has been explored in my column on dozens of occasions, he had ...

Inside a home recording studio known as the Utility Muffin Research Kitchen, where the late Frank Zappa composed and recorded some of his most adventurous works, his youngest son, Ahmet, reflects on ...

When he resurfaced not long afterward with Hot Rats, his second solo album, he sounded little like the bizarre innovator who had skewered the mainstream and counterculture alike with the Mothers. Yet ...