Frank Zappa devotees at the University of North Texas have Joseph Klein’s mischevious boyhood to thank for a decidedly unique summer school session.

Klein, an associate professor of music and the chairman of the division of composition studies, happened upon an image of Zappa, a composer, guitarist and cultural muckraker, when he and his friends were commandeering a toy train through some burning paper. On one of the discarded papers was a mug shot of Zappa.

“There he was, this strange looking guy with a big nose, small eyes and great big hair,” Klein said. The picture earned a special spot in Klein’s space.

“That picture became this sort of icon,” he said.

Klein grew up, but he didn’t outgrow Zappa. The late American composer is revered by serious musicians and music lovers and reviled by people who prefer entertainment — and all media — be solidly rated PG. Zappa’s lyrics lashed out at religious fanaticism, the benumbed consumer looking for simple goods and an American work ethic that prizes production over inspiration.

Klein has taught a five-week summer course about Zappa for six years now. He didn’t have to pitch the idea to anyone, he said. As the chairman of the composition studies program, he determines the division curricula. He was able to launch the Zappa course as a composition studies class without any resistance.

“I think the good thing about being here at UNT, is the fact that they were building a jazz program when people didn’t consider jazz a serious field for study,” he said “I feel that in a certain way, that liberates you to go off the beaten path.”

The class has grown in popularity — Klein first envisioned it as an intimate graduate seminar-style class, where students and teacher would explore Zappa in depth as a serious composer. Last Monday, about 20 students — mostly men — crammed into a conference room to listen in on a telephone interview with Arthur Barrow, a UNT College of Music graduate and a bassist in Zappa’s band.

Klein said he gained an appreciation of Zappa’s music as he listened to him. He said he owes his first exposures to Zappa’s work when he did a stint at Warehouse Records. Two colleagues were “huge Zappa fans,” Klein said. “That’s how it happens for a lot of people. You meet these fans. They all love what they love about Zappa. For some people, it’s the composition. For other people it’s his skill with the guitar, and some people like the political stuff and the funny stuff he did.”

He met more Zappa disciples in graduate school, and began consuming his music in earnest.

“I remember Frank Zappa orchestral work. It was actually very progressive,” Klein said. “Even from his earlier days, he wanted to compose orchestral work. Rock was a means to an end.”

Zappa recorded 60 albums in his lifetime. He died in 1993 of cancer, and Klein said the composer’s prestige continues to grow. Ten recordings have been released since the star’s death.

Klein gives the students a list of Zappa recordings that reflect the composer’s style and idiosyncrasies. Seven of the recordings are required listening. He gives them a second list of what he calls “vernacular recordings,” including everything from Muddy Waters to Bob Dylan, The Knack and “archetypal American music icons, like the theme to the Twilight Zone.” Zappa would often slip those “icons” into his recordings. A third list includes orchestral compositions of mostly 20th Century composers, such as Bartok and Stravinsky. Students keep a journal and then prepare a paper to present to the class. Some students are studying music at the university, and others aren’t. By the time they finish the class, the students will see how Zappa challenged musical conventions. They’ll also see how Zappa became an influence on today’s musicians. Students in the class watch videos of Zappa’s concert performances and his appearances on  Saturday Night Live. They’ve studied his lyrics, read books and articles on his work, and his autobiography, The Real Frank Zappa Book.

Students also get a closer look at how Zappa worked. During the telephone interview, Barrow had the class spellbound, recounting Zappa’s obsessive rehearsal demands and “Zappa University,” a loving reference to the technical and artistic growth Zappa’s band members experienced just responding their leader’s demands.

“He would push you so much further than you ever thought you could go,” Barrow said, recollecting his days as the number one transcriber of Zappa’s music. “He’d give you this weird, hard lick and say: ‘O.K., now do that an octave higher. O.K., now do that an octave higher and double time. O.K., now do it that way and dance around while you do it.’ It was incredible. Man, you just, well, you went so far past anything you thought you could do.”

When Barrow told a student that some of the long, virtuosic interludes on Zappa’s recordings were done start to finish and in “one take,” several students gasped and shook their heads.

This year’s class coincides with the 40th anniversary of the release of Zappa’s first album, <ITAL> Freak Out. But only in the last 10 years have composers been giving Zappa’s work more serious consideration, Klein said. Ensemble Moderne, a 26-piece outfit, landed a Grammy for <ITAL> The Yellow Shark, a respectful orchestral performance of Zappa’s pieces that are considered impossible for humans to play. The group even covered “G-Spot Tornado,” a kinetic piece Zappa wrote for the album <ITAL> Jazz from Hell. It was written for the Synclavier, a machine. Ensemble Moderne rips into it and flays the score, unearths a little Copland, a dash of Stravinsky and — could it be? — a touch Wagner wound around Zappa’s sneaky theme. Klein has also heard a baroque ensemble cover Zappa’s “Idiot Bastard Son” to good effect.

Zappa might feel like a lark of a class, but Klein insists there is more than enough for serious students to find in five short weeks.

“I think Zappa’s classical stuff will have a hard time standing up to scrutiny, but it’s probably a good thing he came along when he did, and was looking at all this different stuff. He did classical, he did jazz, he did rock,” Klein said. “There’s a treasure trove of stuff there. I think he’s going to create some problems for music historians to solve.”

LUCINDA BREEDING can be reached at 940-566-6877. Her e-mail address is cbreeding@dentonrc.com .