Some of Frank Zappa's music on the 1974 TV concert special, "A Token of his Extreme" (out on DVD), picks up on Miles Davis' Bitches Brew jazz-rock fusion breakthrough. Except: Davis knew about rock and Zappa knew how to rock. Looked at another way: at his peak years in the '70s, Zappa was a composer-arranger with the ambition of Duke Ellington and a comedian with the ear of Spike Jon...

Dweezil Zappa has been playing guitar for much of his life, but of his many, scattered musical projects, he’s found the most success with Zappa Plays Zappa, a rotating tribute band he fronts paying homage to his legendary father, Frank Zappa. Their shows tend to focus on the more rock-oriented...