The artist Donald Fagen said was “the most exciting”
The music Donald Fagen and Walter Becker put together with Steely Dan was never meant to be the most aggressive music possible.
Despite their credentials in almost any genre, rock and roll coolness seemed to allude them half the time, but if you asked any of them, chances are they couldn’t have given a shit either way. They were in it to make the most sophisticated music that anyone had ever heard, but that didn’t mean there weren’t a few exciting moments in between as well.
First of all, it should be noted that Fagen and Becker were sticklers for perfection. If they thought the subtlest drumbeat was slightly off, they would happily scrap the whole thing and start again, and it wasn’t out of the ordinary for them to play through a song with some of the greatest session musicians they could find and then scrap the whole thing to work with someone completely different because they didn’t have the right feel.
But “feel” is the one thing that no one can put their finger on in this industry. It’s not something that you can read about in a book or learn to build up over time. It’s how someone’s individual hear beats in time with the music whenever a song starts, and while that leads to the magic on most of ‘The Dan’s records, that doesn’t always make for the greatest dynamic in the studio, either.
When looking at the greatest artists of his youth, though, Fagen knew that the kings of feel all originated from the world of jazz. There were people that could put jazz elements into rock and roll when they wanted to, but there was a good chance that he was gravitating more towards tunes by the likes of Miles Davis and John Coltrane than any Elvis Presley record. But even by jazz standards, Charles Mingus belonged in a completely different class.
There was no way that anyone could match his feel and aside from the true legends of the bass playing community, and even if they did manage to play the notes right, there was no point in anyone trying to get anywhere close to Mingus when he was laying into a groove. A handful of Dan songs may have been able to inch close to what their idols have tried, but what impressed Fagen even more was hearing a legend like that cut loose in a live setting.
While Fagen decided to put live performances on the back burner for a while, he couldn’t deny the brilliance on display, hearing Mingus and Danny Richmond together, saying, “Charles Mingus and his demonic drummer Danny Richmond were the most exciting. I saw them a number of times, usually at the Vanguard (Max Gordon used to give me a coke and sit me near the bandstand).”
That world may have been all new to Fagen at the time, but that’s not how he saw Steely Dan operating. They valued getting the right performances whenever they played, and if they couldn’t capture that kind of perfection in front of an audience, they knew it was better to put all of their earnings into making the next record sound as pristine as possible.
It worked out for all the music nerds and audiophiles in their fanbase, but maybe their decision to go back on tour later in their career had something to do with seeing Mingus and Richmond work together. Because no matter how much fun it can be writing the perfect arrangement for their songs, it’s nowhere near the same type of high as locking in with the right musicians on a part.
