#synclavier

New England Digital Corporation // Synclavier I (US, 1978)

The Synclavier II (1980)

Frank Zappa: Jazz from Hell (1986)

By 1986, Frank Zappa had reached the ripe old age of 46 and was thus an elder statesmen of rock ‘n’ roll, no matter what his increasingly avant-garde, genre-defying music, inevitably spiced with intellectually politicized and/or stubbornly puerile lyrics, may have said to the contrary.

And, building upon the previous year’s P.M.R.C.-obsessed Meets the Mothers of Prevention, 1986’s Jazz from Hell was recorded primarily on the Synclavier: a then cutting-edge, now ultra-primitive, computer/instrument/sampler that could execute any combination of notes with total precision.

For Zappa, the perfectionist, who by now considered the process of hiring, rehearsing, and conducting even the most talented musicians a “necessary evil” towards the goal of flawlessly executing his challenging compositions, the Synclavier was a dream come true.

So, the only piece on Jazz from Hell to feature, living, breathing, carbon-based, bipedal organisms, was a Zappa guitar solo called “St. Etienne,” drawn from a live performance of “Drowning Witch” -- all other sounds were produced by lengthy sequences of 1s and 0s.

And yet, somehow, the record was a critical, if not exactly a chart-climbing success, described as a “musical landmark,” by one critic, who went on to rave that it “pushed Zappa to the top of the list of world class futuro-composers.”

Uh, whatever that means ...

Other listeners were less impressed, turned off by “cold”-sounding material like “The Beltway Bandits,” “Massaggio Galore,” and title track, most of which were literally impossible for humans to play; but this didn’t stop the album from winning a Grammy for ‘Best Rock Instrumental Performance.’

Alas, as a typically unimpressed Frank said at the time: “The night before the Grammys, I was interviewed on CBS [but] they edited what I said [about] the Grammys [being] a farce [and] having nothing to do with merit. The real criteria are record sales or if the person is your friend.”

He wasn’t wrong ...

But back to the music, and a couple of cuts that I think managed to overcome the digital/organic divide, namely the frenzied “G-Spot Tornado,” later to attain an improbable humanity in the hands of the Ensemble Modern on ‘93’s The Yellow Shark, as well as the album’s very first cut, “Night School.” 

The latter was literally conceived as the theme for a late-night talk show to be hosted by Frank and a “permanent faculty,” who would discuss the news ignored by the mainstream network newscasts ... sort of like a Real Time with Bill Maher, come to think of it.

Viewers would even be given the chance to a “diploma” via phone order!

Needless to say, the show never came to be, but the exercise illustrates how varied and far afield Frank’s interests were moving, well beyond music, as his career entered its third decade.

Amazingly, Jazz from Hell also proved to be the final studio album released before Frank’s death in 1993, as he spent his final years remixing and releasing concert album after concert album (the Civilization Phaze III set was only issued after his death) instead of focused on composing or touring.

Maybe all of his music career dreams and ambitions had been satisfied with that Grammy win ... NOT!