Ok, what's so great about... Steely Dan?

[Trane]

Too strong for who?

How can someone I perceive to be pretty discerning not "get" SD? (Walks away mumbling)

ouch!!!



Sorry for my weak lungs, feeble brains and poor musical tastes

Michael McDonald is a common denominator. He sang "Minute by Minute" and his voice is featured on support vocals on the "Aja" album.
I think Steely Dan operated outside of what was the box in the 70's. Unique song crafters.

from Stampede onwards you forget Jeff Skunk Baxter even before MMcD was in there

Those two alone destroyed the Doobie's excellent rock sound, IMHO... By the times of MBM and Aja, it was rather hard to make the difference with my then-puny musical culture.

As for the "smooth jazz" label often tossed at these guys, i think it's important to distinguish intent from the sound of it. I had a most hilarious experience in a restaurant where some fine genuine smooth jazz was being played (on satellite radio, presumably). I have no problem with well executed smooth jazz, other than, say, the Kenny G variety. I can enjoy it on its own terms, you know. In this case it was a Bob James tune, a Hubert Laws tune and then... "What A Shame About Me", which if you're not familiar with this, is the most horrifyingly sad and darkly true song in the world - very much NOT a soft jazz topic (but supremely jazz). I almost died laughing, it was so perfect. Deep snark and sarcasm then followed by some Grover Washington. It was hilarious and so cool.

Indeed that CTI JR/F was the forerunner of the 80's smooth jazz - to which I'd link more Steely Dan that the CTI artistes.(that first Bob James album is fantastic too)

although not a genre (yet), I put Steely Dan in the "Yacht Rock" category where some bands have more blues/country in their Yuppie Rock sound (Firefall, etc) while others are more RnB/Jazz influenced ( Steely Dan), and a bunch of Yuppie/Yacht bands dotted in between those two points at various degrees ( Pablo Cruise, Doobie's MBM, Boz Scaggs, Starbuck, England Dan & John Ford Coley, etc)

TBH, if Yacht Rock was a musical style, more than some stupid journalist invention (like corporate rock), I'd put SD and later 70's Doobies sonics as the prime exhibit A as evidence

[Svetonio]

My three (definitive) favourite songs by the best vocal progressive fusion band in the history.

[Score2112]

Aja, Can't buy a thrill, Gaucho, the list goes on....


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[Jubal]

Seriously, though, for everything before Everything Must Go (which was very disappointing IMO), look for a used copy of the Citizen Dan box set. It's 4 CDs, but it has all of the material up until that album.
If you are a "album only" person, you can rip the tracks for each album and place them in a file with the album title.
I found my copy of Citizen Dan at a local CD Warehouse. I'm pretty sure I paid close to 20.00 for it. Typically, the 6 albums it contained would cost about 55.00. Also, it includes a few tracks not found on the albums, most notably "FM (No Static At All)"

Here's the Wiki notes on it:
itizen Steely Dan is a four-CD box set compilation album by Steely Dan, released in 1993. The set is a collection of all of Steely Dan's albums (up to 1980) in chronological order, and also contains a non-album single ("FM (No Static at All)"), a non-album B-side ("Bodhisattva (Live)"), a rare compilation track recorded during the sessions for The Royal Scam but released only on the 1978 Greatest Hits ("Here at the Western World"), and a previously unreleased demo of "Everyone's Gone to the Movies" (a song from their 1975 album Katy Lied).

The set is not, however, a complete compilation of every track released by Steely Dan up to 1993. Missing are both sides of the band's 1972 debut single ("Dallas" b/w "Sail the Waterway"), neither of which has ever been re-issued on CD. This is due to the band's dislike of the songs and refusal to allow them to be reissued.

Until 1998, this was the only place to find the remastered versions of the Steely Dan albums. However, because the albums were split up irregularly amongst the discs (in some cases with the track order changed), the remastered studio albums were issued in 1998, albeit without bonus tracks.

The first pressing features "Rikki Don't Lose That Number" using the single edit of the song. This version omits the percussive opening for the song. The second pressing of the boxed set features the version from the album although it was reissued without any information noting the change.

Glen Meadows remastered the CD set from the digital masters archived by Donald Fagen, Gary Katz and Roger Nichols in 1982. These digital tapes were prepared because the original analog tapes were in very poor shape. The earliest CD mastering for all the Steely Dan albums in 1985 used these digital tapes but MCA inexplicably used deteriorating analog masters for all later CD pressings until the 1998 remasters. This information was discovered by Roger Nichols in 1991 when he was asked his opinion of the Mobile Fidelity Gold reissues of Aja and Gaucho. Nichols discovered that the "Gaucho CD was even a different speed, about a quarter tone sharper" when compared to the original CD that he was involved in.[2]

The 1993 boxed set remaster was the first time since the originally issued CDs that the albums used the correct source tape.

[bigbassdrum]

As a drummer, SD seemed to get the hot hands (no pun intended) . Want to know what 'in the pocket' means? Queue up the music ....

And the drummers? Jim Hodder; Jim Gordon, Jeff Porcaro, Hal Blaine, Bernard “Pretty” Purdie, Steve Gadd, Paul Humphrey, Rick Marotta, Jim Keltner, Ed Greene-some of the most influential drummers of the last twenty-five years. Songs like ‘Peg’ with Marotta or ‘Aja’ with Gadd are etched into the collective consciousness of millions of drummers.

[Jubal]

As a drummer, SD seemed to get the hot hands (no pun intended) . Want to know what 'in the pocket' means? Queue up the music ....

And the drummers? Jim Hodder; Jim Gordon, Jeff Porcaro, Hal Blaine, Bernard “Pretty” Purdie, Steve Gadd, Paul Humphrey, Rick Marotta, Jim Keltner, Ed Greene-some of the most influential drummers of the last twenty-five years. Songs like ‘Peg’ with Marotta or ‘Aja’ with Gadd are etched into the collective consciousness of millions of drummers.

For the most part, they were just as picky with all of their studio hands. I remember watching a "Behind The Music" feature on SD and one of the drummers (on the Aja album, I believe talked about how they had recorded one track and he was the fifth drummer they tried. He seemed to imply that he spent hours and hours working on the first 8 measures to get the groove EXACTLY the way they wanted it.

I'm familiar with many of the guitarists they have used. Larry Carlton was the one I suspected would get the most tracks with them, and perhaps he was, but they used numerous others to get their tone exactly the way they wanted it on each track. Larry was very good at tweaking his tone, but there were numerous tracks where I believe Walter Becker thought it was too sweet.

He played on the entire Nightfly album though. In fact, he was the band leader on that one.

Slick, yeah The Dan has been as slick as any band out there. Good or bad, that was what they were aiming for. For that reason alone, I would say they were a very successful recording act.

[klothos]

They're in a completely different league - on so many levels - from any of those guys.

I think its oppositte: its possible you are underestimating some of those other bands in the imaginary Yacht Rock genre.....When was the last time you listened to a Pablo Cruise record? I'm not saying they are in the same league as Steely Dan (who is?), but there is a lot of RnB and Jazz-ish approaches in their arrangements (if not jazz, certainly lounge) that a typical layman cover band would have a hard time performing.....They are contemporaries

As a drummer, SD seemed to get the hot hands (no pun intended) . Want to know what 'in the pocket' means? Queue up the music ....

And the drummers? Jim Hodder; Jim Gordon, Jeff Porcaro, Hal Blaine, Bernard “Pretty” Purdie, Steve Gadd, Paul Humphrey, Rick Marotta, Jim Keltner, Ed Greene-some of the most influential drummers of the last twenty-five years. Songs like ‘Peg’ with Marotta or ‘Aja’ with Gadd are etched into the collective consciousness of millions of drummers.

no mention of Vinnie Colaiuta? for shame..........................

[JJ88]

Steely Dan are far too lyrically jagged and sardonic to be 'yacht rock'.

[arturs]

Given so many of you all love Dan, I thought you might enjoy this. My childhood neighbor and friend leads this Steely Dan tribute act in Nashville. They are damn slick... And I mean that in a good way. I haven't seen my friend since high school, probably 30+ years ago, but I would love to get the chance to visit Nashville and check this out live.

[progeezer]

Since we're posting friend's tribute bands......

Madison, WI is in Dane County. This is Steely Dane, our local SD tribute band. Four of them are guys I've played with in the past.

This is a 90 minute outdoor festival gig from last summer that I went to with Dale (dalegtr), who drove up from Chicago. Sound is not bad at all.

https://youtu.be/If8m87pa1A0

[Vic2012]

Just dropped 2 bits in the jukebox. NP: Pretzel Logic, the song.

[Jerjo]

Pretzel Logic with some dude named Steve sitting in on organ and vocals. He's not too shabby

[Trane]

Steely Dan are far too lyrically jagged and sardonic to be 'yacht rock'.

let alone be understood by someone outside of the pier club

[Vic2012]

Right now my brain feels like a pretzel......

[Polypet]

I think its opposite: its possible you are underestimating some of those other bands in the imaginary Yacht Rock genre.....When was the last time you listened to a Pablo Cruise record? I'm not saying they are in the same league as Steely Dan (who is?), but there is a lot of RnB and Jazz-ish approaches in their arrangements (if not jazz, certainly lounge) that a typical layman cover band would have a hard time performing.....

Like i said, i love quite a bit of the music of some of those bands. I'm not saying there weren't good bands in the (as you point out rightly) "imaginary" Yacht Rock genre. I knew some of the people making that music, actually - a couple of the Ambrosia guys, for example, as i was living in L.A. and working in the industry. That said, as you also point out, all i'm saying is that they're not at all in the same league. I don't mean that in the sense of them not being as talented or as good, either. Fabulous, some of them, sure. And often making very cool music. But they're NOT Steely Dan. Not really. Some of the musicians on those records played with the Dan (being as tons of that stuff shared studio cats). But there is nobody out there quite like the Dan, even today. They've got a unique mix of musical intelligence, lyrical wit and worldly snark (again IMHO YMMV YADA SQUONK)

[Jerjo]

SQUONK

Have you ever seen a squonk's tears well look at mine?

[Trane]

Klothos: Pablo Cruise have at least two prog-related tracks (usually instrumentals), so they're almost too good for Yacht Rock









Competent enough musos, but too bad they couldn't shut the fuck up and let their instruments do the talking :grrr

[Trane]

.... Aaaaaand I suspect that they (PC) took on an even more flashy/fusion form since the regrouped in 04 (that's news to me)

[Kavus Torabi]

I love all the albums from the first run but Guacho and The Royal Scam are my favourites.
The title track, Guacho, is just the most extraordinary bit of writing. I'm not too keen on the Cagney and Lacey-ish intro but once the main tune starts it's absolutely mind blowing.
What I love about it is that it has the same kind of complexity as something like Univers Zero but is so subtle that you hardly even notice it at first.
Unlike UZ on, say, Ceux De Dehors, where the music seems impenetrable at first and requires repeated listens to fully 'unpack' it, The Dan present you with this fairly easy on the ear tune. It is on repeat listens you really start to hear the syncopation and the crazy pattern that the top line is doing. It's as if it works in reverse. The complexity reveals itself on repeated listens.

As for the slick argument, yeah...they're slick as hell. That's what they do. that's Steely Dan. If you're not in the mood for slick, listen to The Stooges (who I would never describe as 'too raw')
I don't get this *too* problem. It's like calling The Ramones too simple or Henry Cow too complex or Neu! too repetitive. It's what they do. Isn't that the terrific thing about rock music? Everything is allowed.

[Baribrotzer]

The title track, "Gaucho", is just the most extraordinary bit of writing. I'm not too keen on the Cagney and Lacey-ish intro but once the main tune starts it's absolutely mind blowing.

It's funny, because that intro - and the groove in general - is the part they notoriously borrowed/stole from Keith Jarrett, and were sued over. The real meat of the tune - the melody and the changes - is all Becker/Fagen.

[Kavus Torabi]

^Yeah. I knew that. Apparently Jarrett is now listed as a co-writer.
I wish it didn't have that intro though, it would have saved them and me a whole lotta bother.

[Conti]

I love all the albums from the first run but Guacho and The Royal Scam are my favourites.
The title track, Guacho, is just the most extraordinary bit of writing. I'm not too keen on the Cagney and Lacey-ish intro but once the main tune starts it's absolutely mind blowing.
What I love about it is that it has the same kind of complexity as something like Univers Zero but is so subtle that you hardly even notice it at first.
Unlike UZ on, say, Ceux De Dehors, where the music seems impenetrable at first and requires repeated listens to fully 'unpack' it, The Dan present you with this fairly easy on the ear tune. It is on repeat listens you really start to hear the syncopation and the crazy pattern that the top line is doing. It's as if it works in reverse. The complexity reveals itself on repeated listens.

As for the slick argument, yeah...they're slick as hell. That's what they do. that's Steely Dan. If you're not in the mood for slick, listen to The Stooges (who I would never describe as 'too raw')
I don't get this *too* problem. It's like calling The Ramones too simple or Henry Cow too complex or Neu! too repetitive. It's what they do. Isn't that the terrific thing about rock music? Everything is allowed.

I couldn't agree more. Steely Dan is just great beyond belief. There is so much going on but in such a subtle way one couldn't even believe it.

[SteveSly]

Michael McDonald is a common denominator. He sang "Minute by Minute" and his voice is featured on support vocals on the "Aja" album.
I think Steely Dan operated outside of what was the box in the 70's. Unique song crafters.

Jeff "Skunk" Baxter was also a member of both bands.

[SteveSly]

Klothos: Pablo Cruise have at least two prog-related tracks (usually instrumentals), so they're almost too good for Yacht Rock

ol

Another Pablo Cruise fan here. They were very very under rated by those who just heard their hits. The "Worlds Away" album is still one of my favorites from that era.

[JKL2000]

"Ok, what's so great about... Steely Dan?"

The Extreme Vibrate setting.