Ritual Dance of the Young Zappa

Andre, , ,

CAL 110 (sleeve front)

At a young age, Zappa bought a copy of The Rite of Spring and loved every note:

The second 33 1/3-RPM record I bought was by Stravinsky. I found a budget-line recording (on Camden) of The Rite of Spring by something called ‘The World-Wide Symphony Orchestra.’ (Sounds pretty official, eh?) The cover was a green-and-black abstract whatchamacallit, and it had a magenta paper label with black lettering. I loved Stravinsky almost as much as Varèse.[1]

Much of my research relies primary sources. Lyrics, liner notes, bootlegs, interviews, and The Real Frank Zappa Book (FZ’s autobiography) make up the bulk of these sources. Along these lines, Avo Raup’s fantastic website Zappa Books–with its search-able database of interviews and zine articles–and Román García Albertos’ IINK (Information Is Not Knowledge)–a huge, cross-referenced database of lyrics and other album information–have been a tremendously helpful resources. But occasionally, I need to get right to the source. Such was the case with finding Zappa’s copy of Stavinsky’s The Rite of Spring.

In my current chapter (which examines cases of musical borrowings from Stravinsky in Zappa’s music), I make the argument that much of Zappa’s understanding of Stravinsky is influenced by the mythology surrounding the older composer. I wondered if there might be any juicy details on the liner notes that would provide some insight regarding the idiosyncrasies with which Zappa viewed Stravinsky. Armed with Zappa’s description I set out to find a copy of the same record…

As it turns out, Camden was a budget label for RCA Victor records, first introduced in 1955 (right about when Zappa would have been buying the record). Some quick Googling revealed that the Camden catalog did include a recording of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring! (I express surprise here due to prior aggravations brought on by tracing comments from The Real Frank Zappa Book…) CAL 110 features World Wide Symphony Orchestra performing The Rite!

341995093_7aa83c50f9The RCA Building in Camden, NJ
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ebot/ / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Further research revealed some interesting facts about the record. The World Wide Symphony Orchestra, it seems, was a pseudonym for the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra. This particular record (CAL 110) was actually dubbed from 78 rpm discs of another recording by the SFSO conducted by Pierre Monteux. (Monteux, like the SFSO, isn’t mentioned anywhere on the record. Presumably, the motivation here was to re-release a back catalog of 78 rpm records in a more commercially-viable format using pseudonyms to avoid conflicting with sales of newer recordings of the same artists. It was, as Frank would say, strictly commercial.)

3359562292_d1a7096d70The Théâtre des Champs-Élysées
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kerolic/ / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Monteux, as any responsible Stravinsky scholar will jump to tell you, premiered The Rite at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris in 1915 1913 (noted, of course, for the riot it incited). Zappa doesn’t seem to have been aware that his record featured such a prestigious conductor.

And–lucky me–a quick WorldCat search found a copy of the record at UC Santa Cruz! (Which means I could request it and get my grubby hands on it right quick.) This turned out to be a little more difficult that expected (frustrations with an inefficient interlibrary loan system), but the record arrived yesterday! Green-and-black abstract whatchamacallit and all!

Unfortunately, being the budget label that it was, Camden seems to have cut costs by not including liner notes. Oh well… The adventure wasn’t a total bust. I got to listen to the record and pretend to be a young Zappa listening to “The Augers” for the first time.

I snuck off to a remote corner of the library and took a few pictures of the record as well. You can see where some helpful librarian has scratched out “World Wide” and entered the correct performer data. (I would have ripped the vinyl to mp3s, but it was “in library use only.”) Here are some scans of the sleeve and label. Enjoy!

CAL 110 (sleeve front)CAL 110 (sleeve back)

CAL 110 (side A)CAL 110 (side B)

The first record Zappa bought, by the way, was The Complete Works of Edgard Varèse, Vol. I (EMS 401). And if Zappa played the Stravinsky as much as he played the Varèse, this disc got a lot of attention. (By one account, Zappa claimed to have listened to The Rite of Spring more than “any man in the world”![2])

References:
[1] Frank Zappa and Peter Occhiogrosso, The Real Frank Zappa Book (New York: Poseidon Press, 1989), 34.
[2] Rip Rense, “A Unique Musical Force or Blasphemous Freak: Which Is Frank Zappa?,” The Valley News (June 27, 1976).
Ritual Dance of the Young Zappa

47,791 thoughts on “Ritual Dance of the Young Zappa”

  15. oakley occhiali da vista currency traduzione

    Today, I went to the beach with my kids. I found a sea shell and gave it to my 4 year old daughter and said “You can hear the ocean if you put this to your ear.” She placed the shell to her ear and screamed. There was a hermit crab inside and it pinc…

  17. cheap ray bans london

    Hi there this is kind of of off topic but I was wanting to know if blogs use WYSIWYG editors or if you have to manually code with HTML. I’m starting a blog soon but have no coding skills so I wanted to get guidance from someone with experience. Any he…

  19. ladies nike air max sale

    Do you have a spam issue on this website; I also am a blogger, and I was wanting to know your situation; many of us have created some nice practices and we are looking to trade techniques with other folks, be sure to shoot me an e-mail if interested.

  20. women nike shoes

    It’s a shame you don’t have a donate button! I’d most certainly donate to this brilliant blog! I guess for now i’ll settle for bookmarking and adding your RSS feed to my Google account. I look forward to new updates and will share this website with…

  22. ray ban kvinder 50

    When someone writes an article he/she maintains the image of a user in his/her mind that how a user can know it. Therefore that’s why this article is amazing. Thanks!

  23. nike air max 90 vintage

    I’ve read several good stuff here. Certainly value bookmarking for revisiting. I wonder how so much attempt you set to create such a excellent informative website.

  27. nike air max 97 44

    After looking at a few of the articles on your site, I really like your way of blogging. I book-marked it to my bookmark webpage list and will be checking back in the near future. Please visit my web site too and tell me how you feel.

  29. salomon running precios justos

    Today, I went to the beach with my kids. I found a sea shell and gave it to my 4 year old daughter and said “You can hear the ocean if you put this to your ear.” She put the shell to her ear and screamed. There was a hermit crab inside and it pinched…

  30. ropa deportiva femenina nike

    I love your blog.. very nice colors & theme. Did you design this website yourself or did you hire someone to do it for you? Plz answer back as I’m looking to design my own blog and would like to find out where u got this from. kudos

  34. oakley frogskin rootbeer

    Very nice post. I just stumbled upon your blog and wished to say that I’ve really enjoyed surfing around your blog posts. In any case I will be subscribing to your feed and I hope you write again very soon!

  35. nike free run til kvinder

    Good day! I know this is somewhat off topic but I was wondering which blog platform are you using for this site? I’m getting sick and tired of WordPress because I’ve had issues with hackers and I’m looking at alternatives for another platform. I wou…

  39. replica van cleef earrings

    Recieved it product before the day offered in a very cool present package . Some sort of visualize that’s revealed for bracelet are exactly what you’ll recieve. It is most delicate yet letter breathtaking part to precious jewelry which will endure as…

  43. nike dames zwart quote

    Thank you for every other informative web site. The place else may I get that type of info written in such a perfect way? I’ve a challenge that I’m just now running on, and I have been at the look out for such info.

  44. Nike Nike Roshe Nm Tp formatori in Grigio -Online-Shop

    Hey I know this is off topic but I was wondering if you knew of any widgets I could add to my blog that automatically tweet my newest twitter updates. I’ve been looking for a plug-in like this for quite some time and was hoping maybe you would have so…

  47. replica ray ban wayfarer 2140

    Thanks a lot for sharing this with all folks you actually recognise what you’re talking approximately! Bookmarked. Please additionally visit my website =). We can have a hyperlink alternate contract among us

  50. vans zapato del barco ebony mail

    Hi, i believe that i noticed you visited my web site thus i came to return the choose?.I’m attempting to in finding issues to improve my web site!I suppose its good enough to make use of some of your concepts!!

Comments are closed.