CONSIDERED OPINION OF THE RED {AN ORCHESTRA} CONCERT OF 16 FEBRUARY 2009

Anton Webern: Pieces for Orchestra, Op. 10; Edgard Varèse: Intégrales. Igor Stravinsky: Concerto for Piano and Winds; Frank Zappa: Various Works. (Spencer Myer, p.; Jonathan Sheffer, cond.)

He was half innovative musician, half crafter of novelty tunes, half canny capitalist, milking his trademark for every cent it was worth. And if that adds up to a hundred and fifty percent-well, you can guess that either you're in the presence of genius, or you've been scammed. In the case of Frank Zappa, both might well be true.

If you're seeking a comprehensive portrait of the guitarist, bandleader, and composer, you won't find it in Red {an orchestra}'s The Importance of Being Zappa. A truly inclusive view is far beyond the scope of a single concert. The discography at the online Zappa Wiki Jawaka lists 74 albums. But of the maybe half of those that I've heard, far too many add up to less than the sum of their parts. It's a strange thing to secure the services of such superb musicians as guitarist Adrian Belew, bassist Patrick O'Hearn, and drummer Terry Bozzio and come up with an album as well-nigh unlistenable as 1979's Sheik Yerbouti. Pressed to identify the height of Zappa's artistic achievement, I'd set the marker right at the start of his career: with the Mothers of Invention albums Freak Out! and Absolutely Free.

Zappa's classical compositions are as uneven as the rest of his work. But even within this subset of Zappa's output, conductor Jonathan Sheffer's selections are not particularly estimable. The Dog Breath Variations? The treatment of the same material on the Mothers' 1969 double-album Uncle Meat is more engaging and inventive. G Spot Tornado? In its original synthesized version, it has a manic, albeit dated, charm. Orchestrated, it sounds like a band-camp final exam. And the musicians of Red don't execute it with anything approaching the crackling energy of the canonical version—Ensemble Modern's performance on the 1993 album The Yellow Shark. Naval Aviation in Art? and Be-Bop Tango made a much better impression at Friday evening's concert. Sheffer and his troupe did an especially admirable job of navigating the latter's quicksilver changes of idiom.

The Importance of Being Zappa juxtaposes these rather modest efforts with works by well-known composers whom Zappa admired: Webern's Opus 10 Pieces for Orchestra, Varèse's Intégrales, and Stravinsky's Concerto for Piano and Winds. Webern and Varèse received generally convincing treatments. But pianist Spencer Myer deserved more accomplished accompaniment in the Stravinsky, which sounded labored and turbid.

Despite its occasional frustrations, The Importance of Being Zappa remains an laudable effort. But Zappa's importance? There's a stronger case to be made than this. At evening's end, you might feel a bit like Pierre Boulez, who conducted Zappa's work on the 1984 album The Perfect Stranger. Three years later, Boulez spoke of the bandleader to the French daily Libération. "I reserve judgment," said Boulez, "about all the qualities of Zappa's music."

I'm Jerome Crossley for WCLV 104/9.

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