Which of Zappa's Albums Come Closest to Hot Rats?

I'm a huge fan of Hot Rats but have yet to find any other Zappa or Mothers album that I think comes close musically (i.e. a similar style and sound of Hot Rats).

Have I just not looked long enough? What would you recommend?

 

If I remember right, I think Burnt Weeny Sandwich would work as a next stop.

 

For some reason, One Size Fits All comes to mind...

 

I would recommend Waka/Jawaka and Sleep Dirt (originally titled "Hot Rats III" - "II" must have been W/J). SD should be the vinyl version to get the full Rats-like effect.

Chunga's Revenge also has several tunes which were recorded during the Hot Rats sessions.

 

Jean-Luc Ponty's 'King Kong.' (no kidding; it's composed and arranged by Zappa and everything)

 

None !

You could dip into Weasels Ripped My Flesh & Bongo Fury for Hot Rats 2.

 

Waka/Jawaka and Grand Wazoo.

 

I second Waka and Weeny.

That's, Waka...Weeny

WakaWeenyWakaWeenyWakaWeenyWakaWeeny...

Wanna-wanna-wannanenema...

 

One Size Fits All . . . which is also the BEST Zappa album. Perhaps.

 

None, except for a selected couple of tracks from Weasels Ripped My Flesh and Chunga's Revenge. FWIW I hope you're referring to the original vinyl of Hot Rats. The cd remix is a travesty. IN MY OPINION.

 

It certainly is one of his best four or five albums. And IMO, his last truly "great" album.

 

-

 

Thanks for the cover shot of WAKA. I had it on 8-track in the early '80's, before I'd heard HOT RATS, and thought it WAS the latter, because of the names on the handles. Long after I'd lost the 8-track, I came to realize the two were different albums. I don't remember much about WAKA other than I had a hard time sitting through it. I think this review from All Music explains why (I don't care for Zappa's jazz noodlings):

When Frank Zappa found himself stuck in a wheelchair for most of the year 1972 (after a "fan" pushed him off the stage on December 10 of the previous year), he relieved his then-current band (including singers Flo & Eddie) of its duties and turned to studio work. One of the first things he tried was to write jazz fusion music scored for wider instrumentation than an average rock band. Waka/Jawaka was conceived in parallel to The Grand Wazoo, but with fewer players. The album, released in July 1972, is comprised of two extended instrumental pieces and two shorter songs. "Big Swifty," a theme-and-solos showcase, would become a live favorite, but the highlight came in the form of the orgiastic title track, recorded with ex-Mothers of Invention keyboardist Don Preston, trumpeter Sal Marquez, trombonists Bill Byers and Ken Shroyer, saxophonist Mike Altschul, bassist Erroneous, and drummer Aynsley Dunbar. The songs, never performed live, feel like filler material. Waka/Jawaka was Zappa's second solo album and is occasionally referred to as "Hot Rats II" (the handles of the faucets on the cover artwork show the words "hot" and "rats" instead of "hot" and "cold"). His writing and recording technique had matured a lot in very little time. The dirty blues jamming of the 1970 LP was replaced by clean, crisp jazz improvisations — no need to say this was also an abrupt change in style from the Mothers' 1969-1971 incarnation. But this album was only transitional: Zappa's big-band stylings would really flourish in The Grand Wazoo a few months later.

JcS

 

There are some wise suggestions up there. However, if the OP looked into the Zappa canon already deeply, trying to find something that really sounds like HOT RATS, he/she might have an insoluble problem... in a way. HR >is< a special and unique sounding thing, even by Zappa's standards. If I would have personnaly bought WAKA/JAWAKA expecting the sound of HR "#1", I would probably have been disappointed (even though I adore W/J!).

So my recommendation for this is try to find a few of the offically released outtakes from HR: TWENTY SMALL CIGARS (from 'Chunga''s Revenge' - vinyl version; word is that the CD version is horrendous), SHARLEENA (from 'The Lost Sessions' cd; a very different take of the other known versions, quite stretched and featuring Sugarcane Harris let loose on the bow) and LIL' CLANTON SHUFFLE (also from 'The Lost Sessions' - a blues instrumental with an even looser and more fantastic Sugarcane!!).

Other than that I second the recommendation of Ponty's KING KONG, from the exact same era. It smokes, and even features bits of otherwise unavailable Zappa material!

 

This is a good review, but I disagree about the "clean & crisp" improvisations being a characteristic of WAKA/JAWAKA. On the long BIG SWIFTY, Tony Duran's (slide guitar) and Zappa's (non-slide guitar) interventions are much more of the rough-and-tumble variety, and these happen to colour the whole piece in a special way (recalling more Miles Davis' BITCHES BREW, perhaps). Also, on the title piece, Zappa sounds ferocious (as opposed to cleanly disciplined) and Ainsley Dunbar's drum solo is also "imperfect/passionate"...

...And I also hugely disagree about the two songs being "filler material"! IT JUST MIGHT BE A ONE SHOT DEAL is elaborate (writing and arrangement) and is great fun! Sneaky Pete Kleinow >is< clean & crisp here... but what a terrific solo!!

 

I have yet to find an album that comes even close to hot rats. Although one album I would recommend is Apostrophe(') Its not really a jazz oriented album but still quite good. Also is his most commercially sucessful album if im not mistaken...

 

It was his highest charting album in the U.S. FZ said near the end of his life that Sheik Yerbouti was his highest-selling album.

 

Yeah, but...closest to Rats? Beg to differ; the presence of Duke alone puts this one in a whole 'nother category, IMO.

Such a sweeping generalization puts me in a lather...

 

There's no other Hot Rats, although there's individual tracks here and there on other albums that are reminiscent, as others have pointed out before me...

I just have to say that a review of Waka Jawaka that speaks of filler is waaaaay off the mark... I completely agree with you, Parlofax...

 

As other posters have noted, none of his others have quite the balance of guitar rock, extended composition, and grit that typify Hot Rats. For me bits of Burnt Weeny Sandwich, Grand Wazoo, and Weasels Ripped My Flesh come closest.

Second the recommendation for Jean Luc Ponty's King Kong -- totally has the feel of a late '60's/early '70's Zappa album (hell, it's all the same musicians and all but one tune is an FZ composition).

 

That peculiar combination of it being an FZ/Ian Underwood duo with Joni Mitchell's rhythm section (or Tom Scott's, depending on how you look at it) and guest spots by Ponty, Sugarcane Harris, and Captain Beefheart makes it absolutely unique in the FZ catalog. Although I agree that parts of Chunga's Revenge and Weasels Ripped My Flesh come close, nothing else is Hot Rats. I'm not much for the faux jazz big band stuff like Waka Jawaka or Grand Wazoo. The Burnt Weenie Sandwich doesn't rock hard enough. Maybe parts of Lather or Shut Up and Play Your Guitar, perhaps even Live at the Roxy and Elsewhere. Then again, nah. If it's Hot Rats you want, there's only Hot Rats IMO. If Bongo Fury had been a better record, that would have had a chance.

 

I made up a mix tape of all the Sugarcane/Zappa songs. Good recommendations. I also vote for Burnt Weeny and the Ponty effort.

 

The Panda: >I made up a mix tape of all the Sugarcane/Zappa songs. Good recommendations. I also vote for Burnt Weeny and the Ponty effort.<

The context of the Sugarcane collaboration and/or dubbing on Weeny (THE LITTLE HOUSE I USED TO LIVE IN) has always been a mystery to me! He sounds sort of live - you can hear his amp buzzing... Yet I have never found any reference to a '68 or '69 vintage Mothers - which is obviously what this line-up is: Don, Ian and the particular duo drumming style of Jim Black and Art Tripp - show that had actually featured Harris as a guest performer. I imagine this as being a typical Zappa-conducted overdubbed improvisation session, where, say, an improvising horn had thus been replaced in the mix by that violin. But I may be wrong...

 

Thanks for all of the posts and I have already started by delving into One Size Fits All this morning. It definitely has its moments and I hear bits and pieces of HR in there from time to time.

This may be sacrilege to you guys but the thing that has put me off a lot of Zappa/Mothers stuff is the lyrical style. This is one of the reasons that I love Hot Rats is the fantastic music without having to endure that lyrical style.

I will try Waka Jawaka next and I will certainly track down the Ponty's King Kong and some of the Sugarcane Harris tracks. I became a big Sugarcane fan after Hot Rats picking up the Mayall album and the Pure Food and Drug act.

In a way it's kind of heartening to know that Hot Rats is unique. Given that I picked up Hot Rats when it first came out and I was 16 years old I'd hate to think that I missed out on 40 odd years if there was a Hot Rats II....

 

Having listened to the Ponty album today for the first time in a very long time, I have to come down on the side of ParloFax in his suggestion to just seek out tracks like Sharleena from The Lost Episodes, etc. If you were asking for something that sounds like Grand Wazoo or Waka/Jawaka or parts of In New York/Lather, then the Ponty album would fit the bill, but it doesn't sound anything like Hot Rats to me!