Dweezil Zappa wants to be a good son. When your late father happens to have been one of the legendary musicians in rock, though, you have to go with your heart.

      Frank Zappa was claimed by cancer in 1993, cutting short one of the pioneering careers in contemporary music, one that explored not only rock, but also jazz, classical and other forms as well with innovative flair.

      Legacy was not one of the subjects on his mind, his musician son says. "He wasn't interested in anyone remembering him. If you had asked him, 'How do you want people to remember you?' he would have said, 'I don't.' That's a hard wish to respect for me. I'm so proud of what he has done. I feel it has to be seen and heard by as many people as possible. He is so unique. Nobody did anything like he has done. The music is 40 years old and it still sounds ahead of its time. You can't say that about hardly any music."

      And so the son is honoring his father in what he believes is one of the most appropriate ways possible: taking his music to the people. In a labor of love he has dubbed Zappa Plays Zappa (ZPZ), he is leading a band playing Frank's music live for what Dweezil says is the first time in its original form since the artist's death. It is not an attempt to re-create the experience of a Frank Zappa show, but to play the music as close to how Frank would have presented it as possible. Dates are booked well into 2007.

      He is proud of the band that he has put together. "They've done a lot of homework and have a lot of motivation to do it right," he says. There is a band unification and solidarity to "Let's do it the way Frank would have wanted it done," Zappa says. "They want to play what's supposed to be played and not try to change it."

      There is a lot of music to learn. "That itself is a tremendous undertaking," Dweezil says. "It's so much fun, but it also requires a lot of attention to detail and there is a lot of skill involved in being able to play it."

      Dweezil senses that most people became familiar with Frank Zappa's music through what small amount found its way onto radio, often songs that had a humorous, satiric bent like "Don't Eat the Yellow Snow" and "Valley Girl." "He was sort of known to some people almost as a Weird Al kind of guy who didn't take the music seriously. That is really the exact opposite.

      "For him to be able to put humor into music, and all the embellishments those kind of songs had, it was out of pure love of music and being able to do some things a little bit out of the ordinary. That humor is still minute in comparison to the rest of his material. This is a guy who was a serious composer. He had several classical CDs and his music is being played on a serious music circuit and being studied by up-and-coming conductors and musicians at universities. He is garnering more respect in that aspect and certainly should. In the world of rock music and on the popular level, people are not that familiar with what he really does."

      That's why this tour is a good thing, he says. It gives people a chance to hear his music played in an authentic fashion. Dweezil says audiences are able to hear a strong assortment that showcases Frank at his best: arranging a rock band in unique ways. "He treated rock bands as an ensemble. He would put them together like an orchestra. It was some incredibly difficult music, yet very beautiful and very energetic things. And there's some humor."

      He believes it is important to expose young listeners to his dad's music "because they are not used to hearing so much creative freedom" in today's music. "And he has so much to say musically, as well as political things. The way he writes, it's coming from a different place. With the amount of vacuous music readily available today, someone who wants some good repeat listening value for their hard-earned money would enjoy listening to Frank's music."

      Those coming to hear those arrangements at the Zappa Plays Zappa show can expect a long program. It's three hours, says Dweezil. It is not necessarily a chronological time machine, he adds. The repertoire includes early 1960s to later 1970s material. "It jumps around a lot in terms of where it is chronologically, but still focuses on that period," he explains. "People are enjoying it."

      Not the least of those is an eldest son honoring a father too soon taken from him—and the world.