![](http://www.syracusenewtimes.com/newyork/file-172-.jpg")
Composer, singer, songwriter, guitarist and producer Frank Zappa left behind a massive and multifaceted legacy when he passed away in 1993: feature-length films, artwork and a musical footprint including more than 60 albums he wrote, produced and released with the band The Mothers of Invention, and as a solo artist.
His weird and musically challenging pieces continue to inspire and alter the thinking of musicians and listeners the world over through recordings and live bands like Zappa Plays Zappa, led by his son Dweezil. However, a small group of former “Mothers” also decided to revive the music live in their own way in 2002 and they haven’t stopped. On Tuesday, Aug. 7, The Grandmothers of Invention, including three original members from the days of Zappa’s 1974 album Roxy & Elsewhere (Zappa Records), will visit the Westcott Theater, 524 Westcott St. for an 8 p.m. show.
Don Preston, Zappa’s keyboards and synthesizer player from the late 1960s and early 1970s, is 79, but it’s hard to tell in a phone interview from his home in Los Angeles. The only hint to his vintage is his impressive resume, which includes stints playing with musicians including Elvin Jones, Gil Evans and Bobby Bradford as well as Zappa.
“Well, ya know, you don’t get to be 79 without having done a lot,” he jokes. “I mean, if you want to.” Preston grew up in a musical family: His father was a composer for the Detroit Philharmonic and worked in radio. But the young pianist wasn’t encouraged to be a musician. “My father tried to talk me out of being a musician even though he provided music lessons for me,” he says.
Preston joined the army and while stationed in Europe, another soldier, Herbie Mann (who would go on to become a prominent jazz musician himself), noticed his playing. He told him to audition for the Army band.
“I got in the band and I think that was one of the most important things that happened to me in my musical career because I started writing a lot of music,” Preston explains. “Before I got into the band I didn’t really know…I could read music but I didn’t know much about the structure of songs and things like that. I was one-sided in my education.”
Many of the musicians in the band were heavy into jazz, so Preston found himself learning the standards on piano and bass guitar. When he took those skills back home to Detroit, it opened up an entirely new world to him and won him a gig playing with Elvin Jones, who played with John Coltrane from 1960 to 1966. Preston moved to California in 1957 and once again, doors began swinging wide open. He would often play late-night jam sessions as a way of networking—and it worked.
“I always gravitated toward the jam sessions that are at after-hours places that you could sit in because it’s a form of networking for me,” he says. “I’d go to these places and hand out my card, and if they liked the way you played or they needed a piano player they’d call you.”
Several people did call including jazz musicians, Paul and Carla Bley, and Preston played around town with various groups until a certain Zappa came knocking on the door. “He used to come over to my house and we would play a jam, improvise to films of microscopic life and things like that,” Preston says. “Then I didn’t see him for a while and a few years later he showed up at my house looking like we all know—before he had short hair and looked like the high school photo on one of the albums—and he asked me to audition for the band. I did and he said, ‘You don’t know anything about rock’n’roll. I can’t get you in the band.’ So, I started playing in rock bands for a long time and then gradually I auditioned again and became a member of the band.”
Preston joined in 1966 and performed with the Mothers of Invention as well as several other reincarnations of the group that formed throughout the early 1970s. It was during this time that Preston got to know current bandmates, Napoleon Murphy Brock and Tom Fowler.
“It was a different experience with each band,” Preston explains of his time with Zappa. “In the first band, some guys could not read a note of music, no idea how to read at all. So that learning process was really different from say, the Roxy band {on the album Roxy & Elsewhere}, because those guys were monster sight-readers—everybody in the whole band. They could sight-read almost anything and Zappa would go the limit. If you look at the music from “Be-Bop Tango,” that is one of the hardest pieces there is on the planet.”
While Preston was with Zappa, he also branched into unknown synthesizer territory, then an unimagined instrument. “When I joined the Mothers, there was no such thing,” he says with a laugh. “It didn’t have a name, but I knew I had to have that kind of system. So I built it myself, mostly comprised of a lot of oscillators and filters and things like that…it did a lot of amazing sounds and was very useful. Zappa loved it.”
As the bands fractured throughout the mid to late 1970s, musicians went on to pursue other projects and Preston kept himself occupied by contributing to the albums of Robby Krieger, John Carter, Jefferson Airplane, John Lennon and many more. He also branched into acting, appearing in the 1969 film Ogo Moto among others.
In August 2002 former Mothers members were invited to perform Zappa’s music in Leipzig, Germany and finally on March 27, 2003, they did. The Grandmothers of Invention took the stage and thanks to the overwhelming response, they’ve gone on to perform throughout the world ever since. Today, the Grandmothers play a variety of Zappa tunes, and nearly all of the album Roxy & Elsewhere, which Preston, Brock and Fowler all appear on, and do so in true Zappa fashion, along with new members Christopher Garcia and Robbie Mangano.
“One thing I have to say about, for instance, Zappa Plays Zappa, I personally believe that Dweezil’s making the mistake of trying to play everything exactly like the record because Zappa would never do that. Never,” Preston emphasizes. “As long as I was in the band he always changed the music. It was never like it was on the record. I just don’t think that’s the way to go. We try to play the music as accurately as we can, but on the other hand, there’s a lot of things you can do within the context of playing—making it maybe a little bit more interesting in some respects.”
Throughout the show, Preston will play keyboard, synthesizers, electronics, iPod, magic tricks and vocals. Back-up: iPod and magic tricks? “I started doing magic when I was 12 and a lot of it has stuck with me,” he says. “I’d never done it in a concert before and decided, why not? During one song I’m playing and I produce four eggs out of my mouth while I’m playing the solo. So, there’s that. And then there’s another thing where I play a solo on my iPod and at the end, the whole iPod explodes and disintegrates. That’s an expensive trick, especially if you do it every night.”
To see the music of Frank Zappa performed and iPods explode, be at the Westcott Theater, 524 Westcott St. on Tuesday, Aug. 7, at 8 p.m. Occupanther will open the show. Tickets are $25 and for more information, visit thewestcott theater.com.
