THE MYSTERY DISC: MOVIE SCORES

The first opportunity for having his music performed presented itself in the shape of movie scores. In 1959 he reached an agreement with Don Cerveris, his English teacher on high school. Cerveris had written a script for a cowboy movie and Zappa would write the scores for the soundtrack. Because the film couldn't get sufficiently financed, this idea got postponed. In 1961 a second chance came up for writing the score for a low budget movie called "The world's greatest sinner", a Timothy Carey project. In 1962 the recordings of the orchestral parts took place under poor recording conditions. No tracks from these recordings have appeared on CD, but the title track - a rockband blues song - was released as a single in 1963. The movie was also presented that year, but only reached some cult status (see www.imdb.com/title/tt0056703 and www.absolutefilms.net/videosale.html for information about this movie).

The world's greatest sinner (midi file)

The world's greatest sinner (transcription)

Image to the right: head of an article in a Pomona newspaper about the recording
of the music for "The world's greatest sinner". Source: "The mystery disc" booklet.

Things were coming off in 1963. Several singles were released (see also the next section) and Zappa could return to the cowboy motion picture, called "Run Home Slow", that now had reached an adequate budget. Mercedes McCambridge would be the protagonist (see www.imdb.com/title/tt0059663 for this movie).
For the same year Zappa had organized a one time performance of some of his modern music pieces at the Mount St Mary's College, that was broadcasted on a local radio station: "Mount St. Mary's was the first time I had a concert of my music. As with most other concerts of my [modern] music, I had to pay for it... That was 1962. That was a bargain, though, because it was only $300. It was a student orchestra. There were problably about fifty people in the audiance, and - for some strange reason - KPFK taped it, and I got a copy... There was one thing called "Opus 5", and there were aleatoric compositions that involved a certain amount of improvisation, and there were some written sections that you actually had to play. Some of the things were graphic, and there was a tape of some electronic music that was being played in the background with orchestra, and I had some 8mm films that were being projected" (Zappa!, page 55). The event seems to have durated 70 minutes and an excerpt of 2:28 minutes has appeared on in the postumely released CD "The Lost Episodes" (1995).
This last CD and "The mystery disc" (1998) also contain sections from "Run home slow", while "You can't do that on stage anymore, vol. V" has a 1969 performance of "The little march" from "Run home slow" included. The melody of the "Running Home Slow Theme" and it's variation, played in the second half, are given beneath. Played against a steady rhythmic figure in 3/4 the melody itself has a irregular rhythm, giving it a jazzy, quasi-improvised character. The rhythm includes several syncopes and two polyrhythmic bars with two played over three.

Run home slow, melody (midi file)
Run home slow, variation (midi file)

Run home slow, melody, variation and accompanying figures (transcription)

The opening melody is played along a pentatonic scale, that uses, beginning with the lowest note, the row A, B, C sharp, E, F sharp. Melodies along a such a scale have a smooth consonant progression, because there are no minor seconds in the scale. Zappa opposes this smoothness in the second half of the piece by giving a dissonant variation on the theme along a self-created scale with many minor seconds in it. This scale is A sharp, B, C, E, F, G flat, A flat with four minor second intervals in it. Contrary to the opening melody, the accompanying figure now doesn't fit in the same scale.

Run home slow cues #3 (midi file)
The little march, opening (midi file)

Run home slow cues #3 (transcription/sketch)
The little march, opening (transcription)

Apart from the theme two other small excerpts are included on "The lost episodes", called "Run home cues #2" and "#3", while "The mystery disc" includes the original "Duke of prunes" theme from the movie, that would later appear on "Absolutely free" and "Orchestral favorites" (see the corresponding section). YCDTOSA V has the theme played life and "The little march". The "Run home cues #3" is a clear reference to Strawinsky's "Rite of the spring", starting with the uptight beating of a dissonant chord in a varying rhythm. The music than evolves into some relaxing bars with the chords Cmaj7 and D.
"The little march" is more remindful of Strawinsky's friendly melodic side. Zappa included a rock band execution of the "Royal march" from Strawinsky's "A soldier's tale" on "Make a jazz noise here". Almost thirty years after the "Little march" recording, Zappa presented another less short march to the Ensemble Modern, called "This is a test", orginally called "Strawinsky" (see the Yellow shark section).

Zappa did several references to Strawinsky in his career. In "Status back baby" from Absolutely free (1967) he's quoting some bars from Petroushka. A small section of this ballet was also performed live, as presented on the "'Tis the season to be jelly" bootleg from the same year.
In 1977 Strawinsky became part of Zappa's on stage comedy acts. During "Titties and beer" the devil, in his conversation with Zappa the biker, attempts to verify his main interest:
FZ: I'm only interested in two things. Let me see if you can guess what they are.
Devil: Well uh...uh, maybe Strawinsky.
FZ: I'm only interested in two things: titties and beer, titties and beer, titties and beer.
Devil: Wrahhh. I think I've come to the wrong guy.