Author: Peter Podbrežnik
Artist: Zappa, Frank
Label: Rykodisc Records
Released: 1970
Rating: 4.5/5
“Burnt Weeny Sandwich” was the first of two posthumous albums released after the breakup of Frank’s original backing band The Mothers Of Invention (the other was “Weasels Ripped My Flesh”, which also came out that same year). The maestro always had a sea of ideas, and plenty of the ones he actually managed to pull off often sat on the shelf in the studio, only to be released long after they’d been recorded. The unusual title (well, for Frank’s traditionally absurd-burlesque brain-farts it’s not all that unusual) refers to Frank’s favorite snack, a one-of-a-kind treat for a one-of-a-kind builder of avant-garde rock architecture – the Hebrew version of a hot dog in a bun, drowned in mustard. But it could just as well refer to the album’s sonic content, since all the experimental instrumental pieces are squeezed between two burlesque doo-wop covers (which are, incidentally, just two of the extremely rare covers in Frank’s rich creative career).
A lot of space on “Burnt Weeny Sandwich” goes to the instrumental contributions of multi-instrumentalist Ian Underwood, Frank’s longtime favorite and, along with Don “Sugarcane” Harris, who plays violin on this album, the only member of this lineup of The Mothers Of Invention that Frank kept around for his future projects. The late guitarist Lowell George (Little Feat) also appears on the album. He was a member of Frank’s band for only a few months, reportedly getting kicked out because he’d written, and wanted them to play together, the song “Willin'”, whose lyrics were about drug use. None of the pieces on this album had previously appeared on any other Frank release, so it’s a completely self-contained, proper studio record, and in many ways it points to Frank’s turn toward jazz fusion, away from his earlier avant-garde psychedelic absurd pyrotechnics with heaps of political and social satire. Not only because of the absence of satirical lyrics but also because of the compositional nature of certain instrumental sections, this album has a lot less of that trademark Frank absurd humor than you’d usually find on most of his records. Some of the pieces, especially both of the longer ones on the album, are played with almost no burlesque elements at all, which for Frank is a real surprise. For the most part it’s instrumentals that rule, based on a vivid, abstract blend of experimental rock and a unique synthesis of classical music and jazz, if I leave out the two aforementioned witty doo-wop covers at the start and end of the album. Most of the instrumentals flow from one into the next, so that apart from the opening and closing burlesques, “Burnt Weeny Sandwich” comes across as a concept album even though it officially isn’t one. That tends to happen when listening to most of Frank’s records, which weren’t conceived as such but still have some kind of conceptual backbone. So on “Burnt Weeny Sandwich”, each listener can, through their own listening experience, build an imaginary story out of the interconnected instrumental pieces, about Igor’s strange holiday in Berlin and the little house he once lived in.
The opening “WPLJ” is a burlesque parody of a popular pop song by the doo-wop group The Four Duces, with an outrageously silly lyric about “lemon juice”, tailor-made for Frank’s mockery of the clichés of popular 50s music, which peaked on the album “Cruising With Ruben And The Jets” (1968). It contains pretty much every doo-wop cliché he loved to poke fun at: hand claps, a monotonous dance beat, unison woodwinds, and grotesquely goofy female backing vocals with those typical, pathetic “doo-wop” refrains. At the end, the band’s drummer and “Indian” Jimmy Carl Black chimes in, and in his usual style starts “threshing empty straw” in Spanish. The goofy, under-a-minute instrumental “Igor’s Boogie, Phase One”, dedicated to one of Frank’s central influences, the classical composer Igor Stravinsky, is an avant-garde mix of jazz and classical that flows straight into “Overture To a Holiday In Berlin”, another short instrumental burlesque, where the laughs come from deliberately scattered woodwinds, out-of-tune keyboards, and a thoroughly scrambled rhythm with a string of unpredictable percussion. “Theme From Burnt Weeny Sandwich” is another interesting mix of jazz, classical, and avant-garde rock, with what’s practically free jamming between the individual players. Besides the small sea of assorted percussion, it’s Frank’s juicy guitar passages that really impress, giving a nice glimpse of what a good guitarist he already was early in his career.
“Igor’s Boogie, Phase Two” is the under-a-minute continuation of Igor’s “boogie”, and with its absurd, quacking woodwinds it would fit right into some psychedelic cartoon. “Holiday in Berlin, Full-Blown” is the first of the album’s two main instrumental peaks, where Frank and his band finally shine for real as excellent improvisers and weavers of unpredictability. The piece is full of burlesque yet melodic passages on woodwinds and guitar that are much closer to an avant-garde hybrid of jazz and classical music than to rock. Besides the tasteful woodwind arrangements, Frank’s witty guitar noodling is especially impressive, played with incredible feeling and soul, something his present-day guitar disciples, or rather imitators, will always be missing. And with the breadth of percussion and the variety of rhythm lines used in this track, plenty of experimentally minded jazz musicians of the day would have envied Frank. Next up is “Aybe Sea”, featuring strikingly beautiful, melodic symphonic passages on keyboards (organ especially) and guitar, which even conjure up a slightly mystical atmosphere, pretty untypical for Frank’s work.
The centerpiece of the album, the more than 18-minute jazz rock fusion composition “The Little House I Used To Live In”, I can safely call one of Frank’s greatest progressive rock instrumental masterpieces from the early part of his career, one that should appeal to fans of jazz fusion and symphonic prog rock alike. This complex sonic collage is made up of different sections that were recorded separately and later stitched together, and it also features a rather unusual 11/8 time signature (Frank used odd time signatures a lot throughout most of his career). The opening section has Underwood’s artful jazz piano solo, followed by an energetic transition with a flood of percussion, guitar improvisations, and scattered woodwinds, all backed by a seriously wound-up rhythm. What wins me over most in this piece is the dreamy, extended violin solo (the violin has an almost guitar-like tone) from Don “Sugarcane” Harris, which is truly finger-lickin’ good. That’s followed by a section with an interesting piano solo from Don Preston. The closing organ solo was played by none other than Frank himself, who, despite being a multi-instrumentalist, rarely found himself in the role of keyboardist. This closing section, packed with perfect jazz fusion “pyrotechnics”, was obviously recorded live, since at the end you can hear the audience applauding and Frank’s jokey remark before the performance of his beloved “Brown Shoes Don’t Make It” (Absolutely Free, 1967) that “everyone in this hall is wearing a uniform, so don’t pretend otherwise”. When someone then wants to undress at those words, Frank tells them to “please not hurt their clothes”. Then comes the closing “Valarie”, a cover of a syrupy doo-wop ballad by Jackie and the Starlites, where Frank and his comrades treat themselves to one more hefty burlesque at the expense of saccharine doo-wop clichés. Frank’s sarcastic vocals and the deliberately out-of-tune, deliberately pathetic, tearful harmonies make sure the burlesque lands again. The biggest irony of all these doo-wop and pop rock parodies was always that under anyone’s leadership but Frank’s, The Mothers Of Invention could, in my opinion, have been a pretty successful pop rock band.
“Burnt Weeny Sandwich” is a supremely tasty, thoroughly stirred-up dessert with plenty of different fillings, an essential after-dinner treat for all devotees of Frank’s early years and the original The Mothers Of Invention, as well as his later jazz fusion period, since it gives a more than obvious glimpse of the next musical phase of Frank’s career. Both longer compositions are without a doubt among the highlights of his days with the original lineup of his backing group. Apart from the doo-wop “bread ends” at the start and finish of this loaded “burnt phallic sandwich” of experimental rock specialties, this is one of Frank’s more homogeneous albums, where you feel the compositional cohesion of most of the pieces, which lack the numerous avant-garde detours and social satire that used to be so typical, and as such it should appeal to most fans of eclectic progressive rock. Its chronological partner “Weasels Ripped My Flesh” was a whole other tune, much more to the liking of everyone who missed the absurd sounds and social satire on “Burnt Weeny Sandwich”. As if it had been recorded by a completely different band, with a different composer behind it. And it’s precisely this incredible stylistic variety, where you never know what kind of “bonbon” you’re going to get, that is one of the main charms of Frank’s rich legacy, which still thrills all lovers of boundless musical horizons so many years later, from a time when the vast majority of music was still made with heart.
Lineup
Frank Zappa – guitar, vocals, organ, keyboards
Ian Underwood – piano, keyboards, woodwinds, guitar
Don Preston – bass guitar, piano, keyboards
Roy Estrada – bass guitar, vocals
Jimmy Carl Black – drums, percussion
Lowell George – guitar
Bunk Gardner – horn, woodwinds
Don “Sugarcane” Harris – violin, vocals
Jim Sherwood – guitar, woodwinds, vocals
Art Tripp – drums
Gabby Furggy – vocals
Production
Frank Zappa
Track list
1. WPLJ (2:52)
2. Igor’s Boogie, Phase One (0:36)
3. Overture to a Holiday in Berlin (1:27)
4. Theme from Burnt Weeny Sandwich (4:32)
5. Igor’s Boogie, Phase Two (0:36)
6. Holiday in Berlin, Full Blown (6:24)
7. Aybe Sea (2:46)
8. Little House I Used to Live In (18:41)
9. Valarie (3:15)
Running time: 41:09
