A zeal for Zappa

By JOHN FLEMING, Times Performing Arts Critic

© St. Petersburg Times, published August 4, 2000

The band Bogus Pomp knows what a lot of people don't: that Frank Zappa was a musical genius of surprising complexity and charm, and well worth emulating.

LARGO -- It all started in Rick Olson's garage.

Six years ago, guitarist Jerry Outlaw was coming off an unhappy experience. He had been in the Genitorturers, a Florida heavy metal band infamous for its sadomasochistic stage show, and was feeling ripped off and burnt out. He wanted to get back to rock 'n' roll basics.

Outlaw and his friend Olson, a keyboard player, got together for some jamming in the studio Olson had built at his home, behind a bagel shop off Seminole Boulevard.

"We did some Hendrix, some Pink Floyd, and then we had the idea, "Hmmm, what's the chord to Zoot Allures? Wouldn't it be cool to play a Zappa song?' " Outlaw said. "So we spent a few nights and learned some chords to it, just listening to the record, trying to repeat it. We got overwhelmed by the charm of it all."

Thus began the improbable saga of Bogus Pomp, the band formed by Outlaw, Olson and bass player Alex Pasut that plays only the music of Frank Zappa, the composer, band leader and guitarist whose devoted fans regard him as something like the Stravinsky of rock.

Bogus Pomp, named after a Zappa orchestral composition, made its debut on Halloween night in 1994 at Mr. Joe's, a Madeira Beach bar. The band, which grew into a crack 10-piece ensemble that includes some of the area's finest players, developed a strong local following in the next few years for its performances at bars and clubs. But lately it has moved onto a higher plane.

The past two Januarys, Bogus Pomp has teamed up with the Florida Orchestra and resident conductor Thomas Wilkins for innovative, wildly successful concerts of Zappa music at Mahaffey Theater. In March, Wilkins and the band took their act on the road to perform with the Buffalo, N.Y., Philharmonic Orchestra.

Saturday night, Bogus Pomp returns to Mahaffey, this time to share a bill with the legendary a cappella group the Persuasions, who have a close Zappa connection. The group was signed to its first record deal by Zappa for his own Straight Records label in 1969. Its latest album is a collection of sparkling vocal arrangements of Zappa songs, Frankly A Cappella: The Persuasions Sing Zappa.

Singing with Bogus Pomp will be Napoleon Murphy Brock, the vocalist in Zappa's band on mid-1970s albums such as One Size Fits All and Roxy & Elsewhere. Brock, who lives in San Jose, Calif., has become a regular with Bogus Pomp.

Trombone player David Manson, who does the horn arrangements for Bogus Pomp, is a college teacher and composer.

"It makes it a hundred times more special when we do it with Napoleon because he was an original component of the stuff we try to re-create," Outlaw said. "Sometimes it really blows me away. After a performance I'll go, "Wow! I've just played Inca Roads with Napoleon singing, and at the time the song was created, he was standing there next to Frank doing it.' His presence makes it all that much more authentic."

Bogus Pomp is not the only band that specializes in Zappa. In New York, jazz composer and arranger Ed Palermo leads a big band in occasional performances. In Europe, the Ensemble Modern is a champion of Zappa's work. Symphony orchestras are dipping into his repertory of classical pieces.

But Zappa's music is tough to play, full of tricky rhythm changes and complex relationships among the instrumental parts. Bogus Pomp has at least weekly rehearsals -- still at Olson's home studio -- but limits its performances.

"We don't do very many shows because I don't ever want to give anyone the chance to say, "I won't go see Bogus Pomp this Saturday, I'll go see 'em next Saturday.' No you won't. You'll see us this Saturday or you won't see us for three or four months. It's more special that way."

Even with its zeal for Zappa, Bogus Pomp just scratches the surface of his catalog. He put out more than 60 albums in his amazingly productive, varied career, cut short when he died of prostate cancer at 52 in 1993.

Zappa was better known for novelty hits such as Don't Eat the Yellow Snow and his provocative cultural politics than for his serious compositions, which were recorded by the likes of Pierre Boulez and the London Symphony Orchestra. His bands were a training ground for countless top-level rock musicians such as George Duke, Adrian Belew and Steve Vai.

Outlaw enjoys being able to introduce people to Zappa.

"People who are getting into the new progressive music, bands like Dream Theater, have the brainpower to understand and appreciate music of a higher level such as Zappa's, but lots of them haven't ever heard it," he said. "They'll say, "Isn't he the guy who sang about yellow snow?' or "Isn't he the guy who said f-- onstage in the '70s?' but people don't really know the music. He has music that is so melodic and beautifully constructed that it really takes you by surprise."

Outlaw, 35, a North Carolinian who moved to St. Petersburg in 1984, never saw Zappa in concert. He doesn't try to imitate his idol's guitar playing.

"Naturally I model some of the things I try to do after what Frank did, but I don't sound like him. My own vocabulary is going to come through, no matter what. I don't try to impersonate Frank, but I do try to re-create some of the same vibe that his music gave me when I first listened to it."

The members of Bogus Pomp are an eclectic lot. Percussionist David Coash is in the Florida Orchestra. Trombone player David Manson, who does the horn arrangements, is a college teacher and composer. Saxophonist David Pate is a virtuoso jazz player.

Outlaw -- his real name, by the way ("You can tear a whole page of Outlaws out of the North Carolina phone book") -- continues to play heavy metal. Recently, he was asked to audition for Savatage, a popular band in the Judas Priest-Iron Maiden mold. He marvels at his leading a group of such accomplished musicians as those in Bogus Pomp. Coash and Manson, for example, both have Ph.Ds in music.

"Everybody else in the band has formal training, to some degree," he said. "So me being the guy out front, and having two doctors of music in the band behind me, really makes me feel funny sometimes, because I'm a garage hack who plays blues with a loud distortion pedal. But in this context, I can excel because I have memorized a huge part of the Zappa vocabulary. My familiarity is my big edge. I have spent a lot of time with my sound effects to emulate Zappa's '70s-type sounds."

They all seem to get along well together, celebrating bassist Pasut's 51st birthday with funny hats and a cake before rehearsal Monday night. In Olson's cozy studio, lined with Zappa posters and memorabilia, the band made a dazzling run through this weekend's program, one tightly honed arrangement after another. Going from Son of Orange County to Hotplate Heaven at the Green Hotel, played virtually without pause, the almost two-hour-long set was like a continuous work of Zappa.

Outlaw thinks the key to the band's success is its idealism about Zappa's music.

"We had no ulterior motive other than the proliferation of art that we genuinely loved," he said. "We didn't give a damn if we ever got paid a dime to do it. We were going to do it because we loved it. That intent going into it is what made it blossom into such a beautiful thing."

At a glance:

Bogus Pomp and the Persuasions perform music of Frank Zappa at 8 p.m. Saturday at Mahaffey Theater in St. Petersburg. Tickets are $17.50-$22.50. Call (727) 892-5767.

Persuasions tip hat to Zappa

[Publicity photo] The Persuasions have recorded some 20 albums.

Frank Zappa signed the Persuasions to their first record deal in 1969. But the a cappella group from Brooklyn, N.Y., didn't actually meet Zappa until two years later when it opened for his band, the Mothers of Invention, at Carnegie Hall and in Virginia Beach, Va.

"When we opened for Frank, we were the first black group to play Virginia Beach," said Jerry Lawson, lead singer of the Persuasions, recalling the show at a venue called the Dome on the white part of the segregated beach. "It was a tense situation, but we were very well accepted."

The Persuasions, who never saw Zappa again, went on to record some 20 albums, including a cappella classics such as Street Corner Symphony and Chirpin'. Their latest is Frankly A Cappella: The Persuasions Sing Zappa (Earthbeat), a selection ranging from the gospel-styled The Meek Shall Inherit Nothing to the sweetly melodic Any Way the Wind Blows to the jazz riffing of Lumpy Gravy. They'll perform them Saturday night in concert with Bogus Pomp at Mahaffey Theater.

The Persuasions will make an in-store appearance from 1 to 2:30 p.m. Saturday at the Record Exchange, 6172 Central Ave., St. Petersburg.

Lawson, who grew up in Apopka, did the vocal arrangements for the album and came away with a fresh appreciation for Zappa.

"Beethoven was ahead of his time, and Frank was ahead of his time," Lawson said. "I really sat down and listened to Frank's music. A lot of people say he wasn't much of a singer. But from one singer to another singer, I'm not so sure about that. I learned a lot from his phrasing and how he organized his singers. Frank had some deep harmonies."

The Persuasions next take on more music rooted in the '60s. In October, they release a CD of Grateful Dead songs.

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