THE ZAPPA HOUSE CONCERT

COMING JANUARY 16, 2026

In 1990, Meridian friend Michael Bernstein gave trumpeter Jon Nelson a cassette of Frank Zappa’s 1988 band, forever altering the trajectory of the MAE. It became immediately apparent that Zappa’s music would work well for MAE, so Jon created arrangements of Big Swifty, T’Mershi Duween, Dupree’s Paradise, Harry You’re a Beast, and The Orange County Lumber Truck. After sending multiple packets to the Zappa office with no response, Jon mentioned this effort to composer Milton Babbitt, with whom the MAE was in discussion regarding a new brass quintet. Exactly three weeks later, on New Year’s Day of 1992, Frank called Jon (we suspect Milton had reached out to Frank). Frank wanted to know how the group was faring in the music business, and told Jon, “You probably want to slit your wrists when you get home from tour.” Frank liked that we played his music in the context of other composers, and he suggested other pieces of his for us to play. Jon invited Frank to our next concert in LA. Frank declined. Frank invited us to his house. We accepted.

On that first visit in the spring of 1993, we played our set of Zappa pieces for him in the Utilit Muffin Research Kitchen, his home studio (this set can be heard on our album Smart Went Crazy). He commented on our performance and made suggestions. Frank was a demanding coach, wanting everything perfect: not just pitch and rhythm, but attitude and style (he asked us to be goofy with his music). Frank played us a Synclavier piece he’d just completed called Goat Polo. After one listen, Ray said “I could listen to that again.” Frank told the engineer (Todd Yvega) to roll it back and we listened to it a second time. It was an amazing day for us: to have a composer share his recent work, to play for the composer, and to receive his blessing to continue interpreting his music. Frank had been diagnosed with cancer, but still maintained a full work schedule at this time. We were very aware how valuable his time was, and we appreciated him sharing himself with us.

In November of 1993, we were performing in Sacramento. Jon called Frank’s wife Gail, knowing that Frank’s health was fragile. Gail said, “Come over, Frank wants to see you guys.” We got on the first flight to LA, knowing time was of the essence (we by coincidence met George Clinton at the Sacramento airport, and told him we were going to see Frank. George used Frank’s “I Am the Slime” as entrance music for his Parliament Funkadelic shows, and as we discovered later, George was a big Zappa fan). We got to the house, set up around Frank’s bed and let rip our new set of Peaches en Regalia, Let’s Make the Water Turn Black, Echidna’s Arf, Oh No, Igor’s Boogie, and Eat That Question (this set can be heard on our album Prime Meridian). We were focused on executing the music as well as we could, not thinking of the other aspects of that visit. We were delivering music to the composer on his death bed. It was heavy.

After Frank’s death, we visited the Zappa house in 1995 to record a version of Sofa that Dweezil Zappa was working on. We met Warren Cuccurullo that day; he was playing in Duran Duran at the time. Warren invited us to play with Duran Duran at their House of Blues show the following day. We also had a mini recording session in Frank’s studio of pieces from our repertoire, produced by Frank’s engineer Spencer Chrislu, using a neat phantom rig that recorded the reverb in the back of the studio. It was a very clever way to achieve natural reverb in a small space. Those recordings are being released as an online companion to this album, and can be heard on our website, meridianartsensemble.com.

When we were in LA in 1996, Jon called Gail Zappa. She invited us to the house to play a Friday Soiree, a tradition that began when Frank invited musicians over to play informally. There was a legendary such evening when the Chieftains and Tuvan Singers played together with Johnny Guitar Watson. This was a big deal for us. We played in the Utility Muffin Research Kitchen for the Zappa family and their friends. Just as Frank liked it, we played a wide variety of repertoire, with Frank’s music comprising about twenty percent of the program. Frank’s longtime engineer Greg “Marqueson” Coy (we knew his name since Frank’s piece Marqueson’s Chicken was in our repertoire, and we played it at the concert) set up a single microphone in front of us and recorded the concert. That recording is what you hear on this disc.

This recording best represents the MAE as we were approaching the 10-year mark. We were true road dogs, playing 70 concerts that year, with epic overnight drives, couch surfing, questionable eating, not making any real money, lots of laughs, and grand artistic disagreements. We were true believers, doing whatever it took to get the music on stage, a guerrilla warfare version of chamber music. We made the rules up as we went along, always in service to the music. This program contains classical music, original compositions by group members, an NYC salsa arrangement from Jon and Ben’s past, and faithful transcriptions of pieces by King Crimson and Frank (we are all big King Crimson fans in Meridian: we sent them a cassette and got to meet them in 1996). Taking a page from Frank’s fondness for archival material, this disc is unedited and recorded with one mic and no mixing. The mastering process consisted solely of removing extraneous noise, balancing the left and right channels, and an extremely light EQ. What you hear is pure music in Frank’s studio as he would have heard it.

At the time of the house concert, Meridian consisted of:

Jon Nelson and Joe Burgstaller, trumpets

Daniel Grabois, horn

Ben Herrington, trombone

Raymond Stewart, tuba

John Ferrari, drums

Frank Zappa generated mountains of music. His bands were always populated by great musicians, and they played not just impeccably but with tremendous style and fun. Zappa concerts were entertaining, enlightening, and inspiring. His musicianship was a major inspiration to us, and his work ethic, joy in music, desire to engage with all kinds of music, and connection to his audience affected everything we have done since meeting him.

Thanks for listening and sharing this pivotal moment with us.

Meridian Arts Ensemble