The jazz musicians who shaped Walter Becker and infused Steely Dan
Steely Dan was never a band concerned with sounding authentic to rock and roll. Throughout their time together in the 1970s, Walter Becker and Donald Fagen built the foundations of their musical outfit around making whatever style suited the song, whether that meant taking sounds into different sonic spaces or employing session musicians to get the job done. Then again, Becker did find time to talk about the musicians that brought him to where he is.
Throughout the beginnings of ‘The Dan’, Becker was traditionally thought of as the rhythm guitar player, often hanging in the back and focusing on the arrangements of the songs rather than the proper verse/chorus structure. When listening back to their music, something was going on outside of the realm of traditional rock and roll harmony.
Since most of the band had been known to feature an ever-evolving cast of characters, Becker’s taste would often fluctuate towards genres to fit any artist. Although some styles worked better than others, Becker always had a friend in listening to his favourite jazz records.
Then again, listening to any Steely Dan song will tell you that jazz was a part of the group’s DNA. Throughout albums like Can’t Buy a Thrill, Becker and Fagen were already becoming massive jazz fans, featuring different instrumental breaks that may as well be traditional jazz tunes.
When discussing some of his favourite jazz artists of all time, Becker cited Miles Davis as a prime inspiration. Considering Davis’s massive contributions to the jazz-fusion genre, it’s no surprise to see him heralded as one of Becker’s heroes, especially considering the tasty licks that coat songs like ‘Aja’.
Then again, artists like Charles Mingus and John Coltrane have also had a dramatic impact on how Becker thought about the band’s songs. More arrangers than musicians, both Mingus and Coltrane have been able to showcase their instrumental chops as well as their knack for working in a band arrangement on albums like A Love Supreme.
Since Mingus is also known as one of the greatest bass players in jazz, it’s no surprise that much of the low-end in Steely Dan was interested in his music. Compared to the slap sounds on a song like ‘Peg’, bassist Chuck Raney seemed to approach his instrument like a sonic tool, trying to find out the songs hidden in the cracks of ‘The Dan’s most remarkable work.
That same love of jazz extended to other instrumentalists like Sonny Rollins, whose brilliant use of saxophone may as well have been a preview for what Becker and Fagen would sculpt out for the bridge section of ‘Aja’. Despite his love for other artists like Eric Dolphy and Gene Ammons, each jazz musician helped shape Becker into the musician that he was.
While the music may have been some of the greatest musical exercises of the modern age, the greatest lesson that the duo learned from their favourite jazz cats was about how to approach the song from the proper perspective. Many rock musicians have been known to toy with what makes the genre so interesting, but Becker’s love of the sounds of smooth harmony is critical to making every single song feel like a living entity.
That philosophy also explains why Becker was never interested in virtuosity for its own sake. Much like his jazz heroes, technical ability was only valuable when it served the emotional centre of a piece. Every chord extension, every subtle rhythmic shift, and every unexpected melodic turn was placed with intention. The influence of jazz was not about complexity, but about patience, restraint, and knowing when to let a song breathe rather than forcing it toward a climax.
In that sense, Becker’s relationship with jazz feels less like fandom and more like apprenticeship. He absorbed its lessons quietly, applying them in ways that never demanded attention yet rewarded close listening. Steely Dan’s music endures because it operates on multiple levels, satisfying casual listeners while offering deeper discoveries to those willing to lean in. At the heart of it all is Becker’s jazz-informed understanding that the best songs do not show off, they reveal themselves over time.
Walter Becker’s favourite jazz artists
- Miles Davis
- Charles Mingus
- John Coltrane
- Eric Dolphy
- Gene Ammons
- Sonny Rollins
