It is Frank Zappa week-end in Baltimore and Eastern Avenue is plastered with posters and abuzz with excitement. The Patterson Theater and Highlandtown if hosting an array events celebrating his life and work.
His wife, Gail Zappa, is giving a talk tomorrow morning down stairs at Theater. Tomorrow night a big party is planned and his son, Dweezil, will perform his father's music. Tomorrow afternoon is the dedication of a bronze sculpture of Zappa down the street at Highlandtown's Enoch Pratt Library commemorating August 9, which the mayor has proclaimed Frank Zappa Day. The original bronze sculpture by artist Konstantinas Bogdanas is erected in Vilnius, Lithuania. This second casting was offered to Baltimore by Saulius Pokstys. Given Zappa's vast creativity and intellect, it is fitting that his image should watch over the entrance of a public institution of learning and mental explorations.
I saw Frank Zappa in Seattle in the mid-80s. He was playing the Paramount Theater, another theater I also lived above at the time. It was a wild, exciting, fun, brilliant, classical, ironic, jazzy, r&b, and rock n' roll mash up - Zappa style, the creation of a uniquely gifted composer and musician.
What a great welcome to town.
Cheers from Zappa Land,
LAFF
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