THE MYSTERY DISC #1: MOVIE SCORES

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). To the left a poster, copyright Joshua productions/Emerson film enterprises. Vaguely legible is "music by Frank Zappa".
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 broadcast 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 probably about fifty people in the audience, 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 had a duration of 70 minutes and an excerpt of 2:28 minutes has appeared on in the posthumously 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 its variation, played in the second half, are given beneath. Played against a steady rhythmic figure in 3/4 the melody itself has an 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 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 cues #2 (midi file).
Run home cues #3 (midi file).
The little march, opening (midi file).

Run home cues #2 (transcription).
Run home cues #3 (transcription/sketch).
The little march, opening (transcription).

Apart from the theme, two other small excerpts are included in "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 live and "The little march". "Run home cues #2" is a gentle little adagio outtake that varies a chord progression, C-Gm7-"G", rhythmically and harmonically. The third chord turns up in two different forms and holds a somewhat ambiguous position. First as Gsus2 in bar 3, next as a triad in bar 6. In bar 6 the B turns up as natural, so now it gets to sound as evading from the initial G Dorian scale. "Run home cues #3" is a clear reference to Stravinsky's "Rite of the spring", starting with the uptight beating of a dissonant chord in a varying rhythm. The timpani is ticking eighth notes steadily, but the dissonant chord appears in different positions. This figure lasts 10/4 in total. Probably Zappa's original score has this figure subdivided into two or more bars, but straight from CD it's getting arbitrary to say how. Next the music evolves into some relaxing bars in D Mixolydian with a Cmaj7 chord moving over to a D chord. It's not the standard resolving chord (C), but it does resolve the dissonance of the Cmaj7 chord in a way. Again I can't get to a proper meter notation, this time due to the rubato manner it's being played with.
"The little march" is more remindful of Stravinsky's friendly melodic side. Zappa included a rock band execution of the "Royal march" from Stravinsky'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", originally called "Stravinsky" (see the Yellow shark section). These two pieces have in common that the scales keep changing and that key notes are mostly absent, so they are marches with a modern flavour.

Zappa did several references to Stravinsky 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 Stravinsky 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 Stravinsky.
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.

The "Run home, slow" movie itself is an almost forgotten cowboy movie, cheap in various senses, though not as bad as it is mostly reported to be. It starts with villagers capturing and hanging a local villain Hagen. His three adult children, Nell, Ritt and a hunch-back retard Kirby seek revenge. First they rob the local bank. This would require some action and only gets spoken of, just to indicate how low the budget was. Next they come after the man they hold responsible for organizing the hanging and a little shoot out follows. Ritt gets wounded and they lose their horses. Trying to escape from a posse chasing them, they have to continue on foot through the desert, accompanied by Ritt's frivolous wife Julianne. The group finds haven in a deserted farm house, where things are going from bad to worse. The film has some thirty minutes accompanied by music by Zappa, including repetitions and a sung motif. The soundtrack contains various variations upon material from "Duke of prunes" and "The little march", as well as longer parts of background music for movie sceneries.


Run home, slow, soundtrack excerpt #1 (midi file).
Run home, slow, soundtrack excerpt #2/Right there riff (1963) (midi file).
Run home, slow, soundtrack excerpt #3 (midi file).
Run home, slow, soundtrack excerpt #4 (midi file).

Run home, slow, soundtrack excerpts (transcriptions).

Above are four excerpts from the soundtrack that haven't been released on CD, at least not in this form. The first sample is played a couple of times during the movie. It's build over two large 11th chords in E Dorian. They are played as arpeggios and keep alternating. Over these two chords a short melancholic melody is played, depicting the depressing tone of the movie. It's related to "The original duke of prunes" in the sense that the latter is also a slow melody played over two alternating arpeggio chords (see the Orchestral favorites section for more). The second example is a merry little march of two short themes, each of one bar. Both themes exist in two variants, slightly different from each other. In a faster version it's known as the riff from "Right there" ("You can't do that on stage anymore, vol. V"). It's also present in both a slow and fast tempo during "Skweezit skweezit skweezit" on "The mystery disc", a different performance of "Right there", also recorded life in 1969. Bars 1-2 of this riff have a chromatic element in it with the descant downwards movement D-C#-C natural-B. Bars 3-4 stay in one scale except for the F going to an F# at the end. A key note can't be identified. The third excerpt is functional music for a movie scene, rendering an atmosphere of isolation when the Hagen family is passing through the desert on foot (image above, Joshua productions). It's accomplished by atonal modern ensemble music in a slow hocketing style. The last example is a larger three-part melody in strict 3/4, dealing with refined harmonies. The bass line is a direct part of the harmony, being in the same rhythm. Sometimes it does this via a direct parallel movement, sometimes by following a counterpoint line and sometimes by building an arpeggio chord. The oboe is playing long held soft notes over the other two parts, becoming louder towards the end. In bar 1 this miniature starts off quite normal with a sequence of 5th chords in E Dorian; bar 2 is also made up of 5th chords. From bar 3 onwards things are gradually becoming more volatile. 7th and larger chords enter the picture, or chords with passing-through notes, depending on how you would like define things. Notes become natural and sharp again. The melody sometimes jumps, for larger parts it moves as a wave.
Both above soundtracks are uneasy to obtain. Apart from the "Run home, slow" examples on his own CDs, most Zappa fans only know of the existence of these scores. As for most of his projects, each one brings out new aspects of his musical horizon, and this also applies to these two early ones. I only got to know these works better in 2008, being a sort of revelation.