Steely Dan: Deacon Blues

Reprinted from http://jazzwax.com

Among the most arch and enigmatic composers of the post-Vietnam War era are Donald Fagen and Walter Becker. Together, they are Steely Dan, and their songs depict hard-luck stories of eccentrics, weirdos and outcasts. What makes their characters and predicaments sympathetic is the jazz-influenced music that lends sophistication and drama to the tales. It's a mood thing that somehow unites the musical approaches of Ray Charles and Horace Silver. [Photo above of Donald Fagen, left, and Walter Becker]

For this Friday's Wall Street Journal (up online now here), I had the pleasure of interviewing Donald and Walter together on the writing of one of my favorite Steely Dan songs—Deacon Blues. The song has hypnotic powers. It takes you on a glorious journey but also insists you take the trip over and over again. I also interviewed guitarist Larry Carlton, saxophonist Tom Scott and sax soloist Pete Christlieb about their involvement.

Interviewing Donald and Walter together yields fascinating insights. For one, they like to playfully gaslight the interviewer until they feel comfortable with the person's intent and intellect. Once you pass the test, they kick back and answer questions while feeding off each other's imagery. The results come from the desire to top each other. What makes Becker-Fagen special as songwriters is that they both write the words and music to songs. They aren't separate departments but part of the same creative thrust on both sides of the fence.

Like many readers of my generation, I was in college when Aja came out in 1977. I had been dragging my milk crates of jazz albums back and forth to Boston while everyone I knew was doing the same with different genres. In the process, you wound up being exposed to all of your friends' favorites in jazz, rock, soul, funk and disco.

When Aja came out, it sounded like all of those genres sifted together. The complexity was astonishing. The songs' words could be understood if not fully comprehended, the music was dramatic and the stories were like soundtracks to underground comics. Best of all, jazz was at its core. I never grew tired of Aja; there was always something going on that caught my ear. The best part is you could listen to the album if you were up or down. When down, it made you think things through. It was a collection of hipster saloon songs. When you were up, the music made you feel like you owned the world.

So this fall, like every fall in the past, I'll be at a Steely Dan concert in New York—not reliving my college years but listening for something I haven't heard before, that little twisted note on Walter's guitar, that acidic touch on a horn solo or a snarled lyric sung by Donald. The thinking behind the music still captivates.

JazzWax track: Here's Donald Fagen and the rest of the band performing Deacon Blues...

And here's a mini-documentary on the making of Deacon Blues...

Used with permission by Marc Myers