My Guitar Wants to Kill Your Mama

The Mothers of Invention: Frank Zappa (vocals, lead electric guitar), Lowell George (vocals, rhythm electric guitar), Don “Sugarcane” Harris (vocals, electric violin), Ray Collins (vocals), Ian Underwood (alto sax), Bunk Gardner (tenor sax), Jim “Motorhead” Sherwood (baritone sax), Buzz Gardner (trumpet, fugelhorn), Don Preston (organ, RMI Electra Piano), Roy Estrada (vocals, electric bass) and Art Tripp (drums). From the album Weasels Ripped My Flesh (1970).

Bunk Gardner is an American musician who plays tenor saxophone and woodwind instruments, known for his performances and recordings with Frank Zappa’s group Mothers of Invention. He began playing the piano at age seven, received a scholarship to study the bassoon at the Cleveland Institute of Music and then was incorporated to the Cleveland Philharmonic Orchestra. When he wasn’t participating in concerts he played the tenor saxophone and the flute in jazz gigs with his brother, trumpeter Buzz Gardner, who afterwards also belonged to the Mother of Invention.

In 1959 he appeared on the Bud Wattles & his Orchestra album Themes From the Hip and in 1960 the two brothers moved to Los Angeles, where they met Don Preston playing jam sessions. In 1962 he was a member of the Joanna & the Playboys. In 1966, Bunk Gardner joined the Mothers of Invention playing tenor sax and woodwind instruments, and Buzz also did so in 1968, but in 1969 Zappa dissolved the band. Later Gardner founded Menage A Trois with his brother and John Balkin, and also recorded and toured with Tim Buckley, Little Richard, the Montage Trio, Van Morrison, Geronimo Black and Eartha Kitt.

In 1980 he met with other members of the Mothers of Invention to create the Grandmothers and recorded three albums, and in 1995 he also collaborated in its refounding and continued with them until 2003, although he was also on their 2014 tours. In addition, he has played chamber music, dixieland, jazz, jazz fusion and avant-garde, and in 2007 released It’s All Bunk! with recordings of his solo career from 1959 to 1981. In 2010 he launched his autobiography The Bunk Gardner Story in audiobook format. During the last years he has toured with Don Preston performing as the Don & Bunk Show, and now they are doing it in a trio adding Chris Garcia as The Grandmothers Of Invention.