The jazz albums Donald Fagen wanted to avoid: “I was so snobby”
There are a number of different ways that artists can learn from jazz musicians, and the lessons taken from the likes of Patti Smith and Steely Dan are a testament to the genre.
Smith has previously confessed that she’s a huge fan of the attitude a lot of jazz artists have when it comes to performing live. They don’t treat songs like something set in stone; everything is movable, everything can be built upon or broken down, depending on the night that the song is being played.
If you want to use one of your songs as the foundation that you can build a live set on, that’s fine, but you shouldn’t be too strict with how you perform. Audiences don’t want to see the same version of the track wheeled out time and time again, and musicians don’t want to play that same song over and over either. By allowing small moments of improvisation based on the events in the world, the atmosphere in that room, or something entirely introspective, a new layer is added to the song. This mindset stems from jazz, but can now be heard during the shows of rock artists like Patti Smith.
“Our band never does the same set list twice. Much of what happens through the night depends on the people, the atmosphere, the venue, the city, and the political situation,” Smith said when talking about how she approaches live music. “We draw from a multitude of energies. Each performance is unique, so I never get bored. I experience all kinds of emotions from frustration to elation. But never boredom.”
Of course, those lessons in live performance don’t always resonate with lovers of jazz music. For instance, Steely Dan were big fans of jazz, but they didn’t incorporate the genre too much into their live shows, given that they opted to stop playing live after a while. Their intention was to focus on just writing songs and becoming a studio band, a move which some members weren’t happy with.
“I left Steely Dan because Mr Becker and Mr Fagen had decided they didn’t want to tour anymore,” said Jeff ‘Skunk’ Baxter when discussing his time with Steely Dan, “And I really enjoyed playing live. It’s a dichotomy: being a session rat and being a live performer.”
Of course, while Walter Becker and Donald Fagen might have opted to stop playing live, that doesn’t mean that the influences of jazz automatically left their sound. Jazz artists were masters at injecting studio recordings with energy, not to mention their knowledge of music as a whole was unrivalled. As such, even once Steely Dan stopped playing live, you can hear those jazz artists continuing to influence their sound.
It’s a real testament to the genre just how broadly it applies to different artists, regardless of what their intention with their music is. However, people can also fall into the trap of being too inspired by something like jazz. The genre can become complicated fast, and this was something that Fagen was always aware of. While he loved a lot of jazz and laced the music he made with it, he also didn’t want it to rest too heavily on what he recorded, at risk of making his sound inaccessible. There were a number of artists he had previously named who he liked but stayed away from when writing his own music at risk of making it too snobbish.
“I took some piano lessons but I trained myself by ear. I did it the way jazz musicians used to learn—by slowing down jazz records and playing along until you figured out what they were doing,” he said. “At first I used to imitate Red Garland. Of course, I never achieved that level. Then I listened to Bud Powell and Bill Evans. I liked Horace Silver but not a lot. I was so snobby in high school. I didn’t like funky jazz that much. I never bought Blue Note records. I thought Alfred Lion had too much influence over the music that was being played and recorded. Now, of course, I like those albums.”
