This was the ninth album produced by Frank Zappa, sandwiched between Hot Rats and Weasels Ripped My Flesh, and covering the same stage of development of Zappa's musical arsenal. The album's name reflects Zappa's penchant for eating quickly and settling for any available morsel so that he could quickly return to his studio. The album is also structured like a sandwich, with two doo-wop inspired numbers serving as the slices of breads on either end of the album. In between the two, we discover an amazing assortment of meaty items from the deli, suitably garnished with colorful condiments. The meat vs. vegetable theme was a recurrent one for Zappa, with vegetables symbolizing passive, unthinking people or shallow norms in our society and meats representing people or artistic works of genuine substance. This album is a thoroughly integrated whole, with each track not only standing on its own but contributing to the culinary appeal of the entire sandwich. Listeners can readily empathize with Ian Underwood's thought that appears as a balloon superimposed on his picture on the album's rear cover, if not his circumstances (he's biting into an old shoe): "God! This is a tasty little sucker!" What we're given to chew on in this album is delicious indeed!

Zappa's original band, The Mothers of Invention, had just recently been disbanded, so Zappa turned his attention to sifting through and mining already recorded material. Much of the content of the present album was taken from live concerts, but material was added from studio sessions to provide integrating links and further elaborations. Only the first and last tracks include vocals, so the emphasis here is on instrumentals. The personnel for this album include Zappa (vocals, guitar and organ), Sugar Cane Harris (electric violin), Ian Underwood (various winds, brass, and keyboards), Don Preston (piano, organ and harpsichord), and Art Tripp (drums and xylophone).

The nine tracks of this album are as follows:

1. WPLJ 3:02
2. Igor's Boogie, Phase One 0:40
3. Overture to a Holiday in Berlin 1:29
4. Theme from Burnt Weeny Sandwich 4:35
5. Igor's Boogie, Phase Two 0:35
6. Holiday in Berlin, Full-Blown 6:27
7. Aybe Sea 2:45
8. The Little Houe I Used to Live In 21:52
9. Valarie 3:15

The two doo-wop inspired tracks, WPLJ and especially Valarie, are a good deal more effective than the similarly styled material released on Cruising With Ruben & the Jets. Although "Valerie" is superficially in the style of the fifties, the background harmonics are exceedingly complex and interesting. The main tracks for these two pieces were likely recorded during the same session as the music for the Ruben album, at the Apostolic studio in New York. The letters of the title for the first piece stand for "Wife Pour the Lemon Juice." The vocals for "WPLJ" are provided by Zappa and Lowell George, with some falsetto interjections by Roy Estrada. "WPLJ" is the weakest track on the album, but is still pretty good.

The second track, Igor's Boogie, Phase One, is brief but engaging. In the free-jazz style of portions of Weasels Ripped My Flesh and Hot Rats, it opens with a catchy rhythm in the woodwinds before giving way to some free-floating sounds from a harpsichord. The eponymous "Igor" might refer equally well to Stravinsky or Frankenstein's assistant. Next, Overture to a Holiday in Berlin bursts forward, carried primarily by the horns, harpsichord, and xylophone. Played slightly out-of-key, this piece is suggestive of a marching band providing a welcoming to Berlin. Zappa and his band had indeed made a trip to Berlin in October of 1969, but had encountered a tense situation when they refused to support the demands of a group of demonstrators and were pelted with tomatoes (thus, the off-key quality of the piece). Underwood provided the muted and slippery sax sound for this track by facing the wall with his back to the recording equipment.

The Theme from Burnt Weeny Sandwich quickly follows. This is a more traditional rock number, featuring a fine improvisation by Zappa on the electric guitar and punctuated by humorous brass sounds. The name of this piece derives from a film short made by Zappa about the band's trip to Germany, which he screened at San Fernando Valley State College. This track winds up with a percussive conclusion.

Holiday in Berlin, Full-Blown follows next and is my favorite individual track on this album, although it's difficult to single out one track from this integrated package. This is free-floating, polytonal music, again, with some wonderfully abrasive harmonies. There's an incessant rhythm to this piece that ebbs and flows in speed and intensity. The middle section of the piece is highlighted by Zappa's improvisation on the guitar. Zappa liked this piece of music enough to use it from time to time in live concerts or by self-referential allusions in later recorded pieces.

Aybe Sea, the title of which is a play on the first three letters of the alphabet, features a superb piano solo by Ian Underwood along with some stellar accompaniment from Zappa on the guitar and Preston or Underwood on the harpsichord. It's a pleasing theme suggestive of seafaring and is recalled, a bit, in the succeeding track.

Little House I Used to Live In is the meat of the Burnt Weeny Sandwich, being only 56 seconds shorter than all of the other tracks combined. It's a prime example of a Zappa composition designed as a framework for improvisation, having just enough composed structure to give some commonality and continuity to the creative impulses of the respective musicians. Zappa was pleased enough with this rock-style piece to use it repeatedly in concert, although it was often listed under names that included the words "Hunchback Duke." This extended jam session includes piano riffs by Ian Underwood, Sugar Cane Harris wailing on the electric guitar, a piano solo by Don Preston, and an organ solo by Zappa. Harris's bluesy material ebbs and flows as other soloists rise to the fore or ease into the background. At the end of the piece, Zappa bids goodnight to an appreciative audience, leaving us to imagine that the final track is performed as an encore, though it was actually recorded in a studio.

This is a very entertaining album, with no weak spots of appreciable duration and lots of energy and variety over its course. Stylistic influences range from jazz, swing and rock to blues and doo-wop. I highly recommend this album to Zappa fans as well as those looking to join the festivities.

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You can quickly link to my other Zappa CD reviews at:

A Frank Zappa Categorical Discography & Top Choice Lists

You can check out my reviews of Zappa-related books at:

The Real Frank Zappa Book
Ben Watson: Frank Zappa – the Complete Guide to his Music
Barry Miles: Zappa – A Biography

Recommended: Yes

Great Music to Play While: Listening