The problem with liberals is they spend all of their time thinking politics.  It makes you obsessive and nourishes the seed of stupid.  Let’s take a musical break.

I look for music that provides no visual distraction, but that narrows the field.  For goodness sake, close your eyes and purposefully open your ears; it makes you a better listener.

The last “rock” concert I attended was Steely Dan a year or so before Walter Becker died.  The tickets were a gift from well-meaning friends of a distinctly non-musical nature.  The audience arrived with a grass section that took me by surprise because they were sturdily of my age.  Steely Dan, however, brought a more typical brass ensemble along with a few girls to sing parts so they more than fulfilled their end of the bargain. Having worked a long time ago at this particular outside theatre I knew to bring earplugs.  The jackals running the sound system just crank it up to ten and leave ‘er there; the distortion is birthed at the huge bank of unavoidable speakers.  The band was great.

They still talk about the mixes of Steely Dan albums in terms of Industry Standard, and a lot of stuff the sweethearts listen to today falls strictly within those parameters.  This song was released in 1972, so it is forbear to the flawless sound they would arrive at with Aja, 1977, and Gaucho three years later.  The band was a little heavy with guitarists early on so this recording is slightly overstuffed.  Donald Fagan and Becker would later trim things and arrive at a higher aural altitude.  This Industry Standard stuff is not really a good thing, because modern producers just dial up the Dan mix as if from a day old racing form.  It allows them to dress up dull songs that momentarily shimmer at the starting gate with a thin patina of fool’s gold.  The suckers will bet on Lady Godiva every time.

Steely Dan strikes me as distinctly of a New York tradition, tracing from perhaps Gershwin and Loesser.  It grows more chromatic as it reaches maturity.  The recordings may be of West Coast origin, but the compositions are of East Coast sensibility; that’s where “Deacon Blues” slinks.

I decided upon “Only a Fool Would Say That” because the text seems conservative in tone and I thought you might like that: A “world become one, of salads and sun, only a fool would say that.”  As in keeping with that horrid story concerning the band’s name, their best known songs are of what could gently be termed a sensual nature.  As the composers grew musically mature they continued to reside in a world of dissolute saxophones and 19-year-old Babylons eager to shake it.  They wrote what they knew.

Somebody will probably tell me exactly who is playing Wes Montgomery octaves on the lead guitar fills; a second electric guitar of similar timbre kind of gets in the way. Later, as they established their best sound, the piano takes on a more prominent role.  The percussion section also receives a feathered trim in an effort to create more space.

If you have a long moment to spare I suggest the title track to Aja as enrichment. 

Michael James has been a professional guitarist and Public School music educator for over forty years