Steely Dan: Heavyweight Ensemble
Jul 28 '00
Steely Dan are an enigma. Somehow they managed a long, successful music career while avoiding the "album-tour" rut that so many other bands find themselves in. Their history was more along the lines of "album, tour, fire band, stop touring, hide away in studio endlessly crafting jazz-rock with (the most expensive) rented talent, stop recording". Donald Fagen and Walter Becker skipped the horrible drudgery of touring for about 7 years because they were too busy turning out masterpieces like "Pretzel Logic", "Aja" and "Gaucho". Then they went a step further, and got out of the horrible drudgery of making albums... Their fans endured a long dry spell from 1980 until 1994, when Becker and Fagen decided to resume touring after a twenty year hiatus.
Steely Dan's recent Toronto appearance gave the band a chance to get out of the studio and bring some of their finely-honed compositions to life. Since the band's output has required a lot of studio time and much help from the best session musicians around, Becker and Fagen would obviously have to find some extraordinarily talented musicians to help realize the band's diverse catalog onstage. And that's just what they did. The two studio whiz kids brought a crack team of ace musicians with them, including Cornelius Bumpus and Bob Sheppard on sax, John Herington on guitar, Tom Barney on bass and ace R&B drummer Ricky Lawson. Fagen spent most of the evening singing from behind his electric piano, while Becker happily noodled on guitar. The focus was on the entire ensemble, and Becker seemed amazed to be on stage with such a talented crew. Latter-day Dan has been heavily salted with jazz influences, and the show that was definitely not about serving up carbon copies of their greatest hits. Instead, players were encouraged to stretch out on the tunes and ordered not to play the solos as they were originally recorded. The audience enthusiastically greeted the show's openers, "The Boston Rag" and "Bodhisattva", despite the fact that Donald Fagen's vocals were drowned out by the band and the backup ringers, er, singers. A total of four selections from the band's latest release, Two Against Nature, were warmly received by the audience. "West of Hollywood", a brooding new track with a self-proclaimed "gnarly downside", closed the first set. The second set included most of the hits or almost-hits, starting with a lush version of "Deacon Blues". from Aja. "Dirty Work", sung back in 1972 by David Palmer, showcased the backup singers' considerable talent, with the girls each taking alternate verses. Impeccably tasteful versions of "Peg", "Kid Charlemagne" and "Don't Take Me Alive" closed the set. The encore started with a thumping, singalong version of "My Old School", and closed with "FM". Instead of hogging the spotlight and playing showy solos, Becker and Fagen seemed more interested in finding out what a talented ensemble could do with their tunes. The show was richly diverse and thoughtful, and Steely Dan's founders can be justifiably proud of their trip out of the studio.
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