The Art of Steely Dan - Page 2

He admits one reason why he got info jazz was to be hip. But when he started buying good jazz records he realized the music was for him. Fagen and Becker met at Bard College."Walter was the only person I knew who used to listen to the same jazz stations-New York jazz stations which are now defunct...so's jazz, as a matter of fact."

He whines his story in a definitive New York accent. Dressed in T-shirt, jeans and white sneakers with a red flash and wearing heavy-framed glasses, still looking like a college academic.

"We more or less thought along the same lines and we both had a rather bizarre sense of lyrics," he says.

The songwriting-partnership is a real one, although Fagen says he usually comes up with most of the source idea and then they take it from there, each one adding a line here, a line there.

Becker and Fagen eventually ended up as staff-writers for ABC Dunhill across the country in Los Angeles. That lasted only six months, during which time they wrote songs for, among others, Barbara Streisand.

Says Fagen: "We weren't doing so good 'cause we're sort of funny. When you're writing for other artists it's difficult to get them to do songs if the lyrics aren't absolutely banal."

And that's really why Steely Dan was formed.The Art of Steely Dan, a new book by David Pearl, is largely sheet music, but rather than the usual transcriptions of songs, it contains snippets of the riffs, chord changes, intros, solos and grooves that made Steely Dan such a interesting part of 1970s music. There are also extensive analyses of the Dan's lyrics, their inspirations, and how they chose their often unusual instrumentation. In addition to all this, there's also a discography and a resources section to provide lots of other info about the band.

For the songwriter looking to add more than a few twists to his compositions, or the arranger looking to add jazz flourishes to otherwise straightforward pop tunes, this certainly could be a fun book to consider. It's the most musical inspiration you'll get from any group named after a dildo in a William Borroughs novel.

Article Author: Ed Driscoll

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