No Rikki, But still Reelin’ & Rockin’: Steely Dan @ The Palace

Posted: August 18th, 2011 | Filed under: Music, Ruminations | 4 Comments »

The blown up black and white photo on the front of Donald Fagen’s keyboard told the story.

Sir Duke Ellington and his band.

It was a booming, brassy, big band-ish incarnation of Fagen and Walter Becker’s group — 11 strong + the 2 — that landed at the Palace, during this, their “Shuffle Diplomacy” tour. It was a good thing.

Frankly, it was not what I expected. Much to my delight.

Plus, the performance gave insight why the band took almost a score of years off from touring.

The thin, almost clipped arrangements and recorded versions of their songs — the ones we all identify as being uniquely Steely Dan — are but outlines for the duo’s final vision, penciled sketches for a later masterwork in oil, skeletons without flesh and sinew and muscle. With the addition of horns, added guitar and keyboard and crack back up singers, the songs have evolved as they were meant to. They are fleshed out, fuller, more complete, mature.

It is stunning really.

I was expecting spare, precise. Instead, the intricate arrangements swung. They breathed and strutted.

Becker — like the mostly quiet uncle who comes to Thanksgiving dinner, says little until he tells a few slightly off color jokes over dessert –  stayed in the background, playing a nuanced guitar, stepping forward to the mic only a couple of times for some sardonic verbal expositions that some might call rap.

It was quirky Fagen, who was front and center; the creator, immersing himself as just one player in the performances of his creations, his head tilted, eyes to the balcony, voice reaching for those odd notes. Arms flailing, he swam in the tide of his songs. He appeared to be having a great time doing so. All the while, in gray, somewhat grizzled and worn, hands tucked in coat pockets between tunes, he looked like an Uncle Sol, your mom’s brother who made it big in scrap metal, but was “a great dancer back in the day.”

There wasn’t a tune that didn’t work, all were lush and textured.

These were pros, master musicians and creators, working their craft. I thoroughly enjoyed the show.

So did most I talked with after. The first two I chatted up mentioned the same omission. Here’s a live version of one of Steely Dan’s biggest songs, one you didn’t miss if you weren’t at the show. They didn’t play it last night. It may have been the show’s singular flaw.

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