[Slow_Hand]

Zappa is a great example of deploying 20th century avant classical into compelling compositions that an audience can latch onto.

For me the best example is ‘The Bebop Tango’ from his Roxy and Elsewhere album. The core melodic theme is extremely atonal and angular, but his arrangement and his band lean into it with such conviction and panaché that it is just as compelling as any rock show.

He pokes fun at it too later on in the recording when he solicits members of the audience to get up on stage and do dance solos while George Duke directs them from his keyboard.

That album is the height of Zappa for me.