Frank Zappa & The Mothers of Invention - Burnt Weeny Sandwich

Released in 1970 after the Mothers of Invention had been disbanded for a while, Burnt Weeny Sandwich is an under-rated Frank Zappa masterpiece that offers us a couple very Cruising With Ruben and the Jets like arrangements on a couple of Fifties Doo-wop numbers, but that's not the main point of it. There are also instrumentals which easily rival the work on Hot Rats, composition wise, even if the Mothers weren't such great musicians as Frank's subsequent back up bands. We hear evocative childish jazz played by some out of tune instruments ("Overture to Holiday In Berlin"), prime dissonance a la Stravinsky ("Igor's Boogie", esp. Phase One), occasional guitar workouts (the title track and the expanded version of "Holiday In Berlin"), pseudo-classical quirky duet of Zappa (guitar) and Ian Underwood (piano, harpsichord) on "Aybe Sea", plus proto-prog masterpiece "Little House I used to Live in" which runs through different sections all of which showcase either solos by Zappa or violinist Sugarcane Harris or brilliantly arranged sections, like the chamber music bit at 13:35, easily one of the most evocative chunks of music from the composer. Overall, it's arguably the most ambitious composition Frank Zappa managed to spit out during the early Mothers. Burnt Weeny Sandwich is one of Frank Zappa's most beautiful albums.