Pop fans may be hearing more jazz than they realise. James Brown’s 1967 single ‘Cold Sweat’ is indebted to Miles Davis’ ‘So What’, the opening track on Kind of Blue (1959) – which came full circle when Davis was inspired by Brown’s funky sounds for On the Corner (1972). Van Morrison (who recently became an “antifascist” because he didn’t want to wear a mask) based ‘Moondance’ (1970) on Kenny Burrell’s jazz guitar classic ‘Midnight Blue’ (1963). And the intro of Horace Silver’s ‘Song For My Father’ is lifted verbatim by Steely Dan’s 1974 hit, ‘Rikki Don’t Lose That Number.’
One of the strangest and greatest acts in American music, Steely Dan was founded by a pair of chain-smoking shut-ins over a mutual love of jazz, drugs and Beat literature. Keyboardist and singer Donald Fagen and guitarist Walter Becker moved from New York to Los Angeles where they formed Steely Dan, named after a steam-powered dildo from William S. Burroughs’ 1959 novel Naked Lunch. Their first two albums, Can’t Buy a Thrill (1972) and Countdown to Ecstasy (1973), were instant successes that blended pop hooks with jazz structures and cynical, sarcastic lyrics.
At this point the pair’s dislike of touring and Fagen’s stage fright saw the duo retreat to the studio, an environment better suited to a couple of sonic perfectionists than the live circuit of “opening for heavy metal bands.” Stories abound of Becker and Fagen burning their way through studio musicians like packs of cigarettes and flying from coast to coast just to find the perfect guitar solo. In 1982, Fagen’s debut solo record The Nightfly became the world’s first fully digitally produced album and remains one of the most pristine musical statements ever recorded.
Pretzel Logic (1974) saw the Dan swap lengthy instrumental passages for shorter songs and augment their touring band with session players. They write in the liner notes: “Studio musician – to us, there were no grander words in the English language than these (“ripe breast,” “chiba-chiba” and “flavorstraw” were close runners-up).” The lineup includes guitarist Jeff “Skunk” Baxter (who’s played with everyone from Freddie Hubbard to Dolly Parton) and Plas Johnson, the saxophonist best known for the solo on Henry Mancini’s ‘The Pink Panther Theme’ (1963). Despite tailing off on side two, the record contains some of Steely Dan’s finest songs, including the lopsidedly funky ‘Night by Night’ and the deeply bluesy title track.
It also foregrounds the duo’s jazz influences, featuring a cover (their only cover) of Duke Ellington’s ‘East St Louis Toodle-Oo’, the Charlie Parker-inspired ‘Parker’s Band’ and of course ‘Rikki Don’t Lose That Number’, which opens the album on Silver’s famous bossa nova riff. Named after a girl Fagen fancied in college, the track became the band’s most successful single and prompted many to incorrectly assume it was about losing a joint. As the critic Stewart Mason puts it: “It says something about Steely Dan’s reputation as obscurantists that even a straightforward lost-love song like ‘Rikki Don’t Lose That Number’ could be so widely over-interpreted.”
As a coda, Derek Smalls from Spinal Tap recently quoted the song on his ode to erectile dysfunction, ‘Memo To Willie’ (2018), with its haunting refrain of “Willie don’t lose that lumber.” Smalls asked the surviving Steely Dan founder for permission, which Fagen granted on the condition that he gets to sing on it – and that’s Steely Dan in a nutshell.
Check out our ‘Yacht Rockin’ And City Poppin” playlist for more coke-addled jazz-rock.
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