Steely Dan - Donald Fagen

The songs on this album represent certain fantasies that might have been entertained by a young man growing up in the remote suburbs of a north-eastern city during the late fifties and early sixties, i.e., one of my general height, weight and build.

(Donald Fagen – Liner notes from the original 1982 Lp)

Some records are born exactly like this, perfect down to the smallest detail. Take that cover, simply impeccable in portraying a frowning DJ in an old-time radio studio at an impossible hour (4:10 a.m.). Take that sound, polished and crafted to the point of obsession. Or that recording — the first fully digital one for a pop album — so pristine it would even be used to test hi-fi systems. Or again, those melodies, so "classic" they could have been written in another era just as easily as the day before yesterday.

Normal, one might say, when Donald Jay Fagen is involved, a man who had already made a religion out of perfectionism during his ten years alongside Walter Becker in the glorious Steely Dan outfit. A man used to scouting session players only in the upper echelons, and this time is no exception: Jeff Porcaro of Toto on drums, Michael and Randy Brecker on horns, Marcus Miller on bass, Larry Carlton on guitar, Michael Omartian and Greg Phillinganes on keyboards, Valerie Simpson (Ashford & Simpson) on backing vocals. On top of that, the sacred hand of Gary Katz, already at the production helm for every Steely Dan record, lending the whole thing a "cinematic" sweep.

And yet, in one of those odd paradoxes that music criticism thrives on, such perfection will even manage to irritate some people: the purists of raw sound and so-called "authenticity", with their ready-made adjectives on hand — slick, overproduced, sterile, and so on. For those who couldn't care less about such contortions, a single line will suffice instead — "Tonight the night is mine late line till the sun comes through the skyline" — to be swept away on this nocturnal flight under jazz's stars, between highways and skyscrapers, ear forever glued to the radio. Because Lester The Nightfly is on the air, the elusive dee-jay through whom Fagen fully commits himself. Memories, dreams and fantasies. All in one night. Microphone in hand and a Chesterfield to be slowly smoked, in front of an old turntable.

"The Nightfly" is the portrait of the artist as a young man. The mirror of the fantasies of a suburban kid growing up in the America caught between the 50s and 60s, as Fagen describes himself in the liner notes. Colliding sensations: jazz's yearning for freedom against the dullness of suburban life, the naive optimism for a technological future (the "brave new world" of "I.G.Y.", the Kennedy-era new frontier), but also the creeping anxiety of the Cold War (the fallout shelter of "New Frontier", the Cuban bogeyman of "The Goodbye Look"). And then the gaze widening, from the personal to the social, the irony sharpening, until it sketches a caustic snapshot of baby-boomer America ("What a beautiful world this will be/ What a glorious time to be free").

The Steely Dan legacy is unmistakable — the signature cocktail of jazz, pop, blues, funk and soul, the sophisticated touch of the arrangements, the persistent dialogue between lead vocal and backup vocals — but it evolves toward a leaner song form, trimming back the instrumental passages. What results is a velvety jazz-pop, yet one capable of striking straight to the heart. Fagen confirms himself a master at handling "cultured" music with an exquisitely popular attitude, but escapes the trap of banally adapting to the trends of the moment: indeed, there is no trace of the clichés of the era (we're in the thick of the 80s epic). That's why "The Nightfly" doesn't sound like "an 80s record" today, nor can it be measured against works from the same period or later. It's pop's Dorian Gray: it never ages and has never lost an ounce of its beauty.

Every track surprises with its alternation of linear melodies and jazzy detours. Starting with the soul-reggae uptempo of the opening "I.G.Y. (International Geophysical Year)", with its retro flavors of sax and trumpet, a synthetic harmonica solo, and the driving flow of backing vocals over lush blankets of synth and Rhodes piano. And on an accelerated cadence, poised between Latin swing and electric blues, "New Frontier" also takes off, the record's other standout, complete with its legendary video, once in rotation on the sorely missed "Mr. Fantasy". A party in a fallout shelter is already a comic premise in itself, and Fagen adds his own sardonic humor, telling of an awkward teenager dealing with a blonde bombshell ("Introduce me to that big blonde, she's got a touch of Tuesday Weld") and his attempt to drag her into his unusual "den" ("It's just a dugout that my dad built, in case the Reds decide to push the button down… We've got provisions and lots of beer…"). The rhythm is a dizzying whirl, with piano and synth trading off smoothly, and in the finale a comical harmonica solo pops up too, sealing a track with an irresistible groove.

Dance moves turn more nervous and syncopated on "Green Flower Street", funk filtered through Steely Dan's retro flavor in an interracial soap opera, with frantic piano-guitar interplay, galloping keyboards and sumptuous backing vocals (though the homage is to the jazz standard "On Green Dolphin Street"). Funk steeped in Caribbean scents on "The Goodbye Look": a Hammond organ pushes through a riot of xylophones, marimba, congas and maracas, for a peculiar cocktail party in Castro's Cuba (the title, instead, is borrowed from a Ross MacDonald spy story).

But there's also the lounge-crooner Fagen, the one who smooths out his rough edges to ham it up with the backing singers on the shuffle-salsa cover of "Ruby Baby" (a Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller classic), or who melts into the gorgeous serenade to "Maxine", a supremely sensual "señorita in jeans and pearls", with whom to travel through real places and places of the soul (Manhattan, Mexico City) over the piano's languid cadences, amid a sax just sly enough, a jazzy guitar and Manhattan Transfer-style vocal interplay. 50s vocal harmonies return on "Walk Between Raindrops", another top-class number, deliciously swung and delightfully demodé.

The title track condenses the record's entire nostalgic spirit into the autobiography of a dandy. Namely, Lester The Nightfly, radio entertainer by trade, "with jazz and conversation", broadcasting from the studios of independent station WJAZ. Muted guitars, call and response, piano flourishes and seductive melodies for a sketch of gentle lightness.

A lightness that's never superficial, a romanticism that never drowns in syrup, a refinement that shuns preciousness: "The Nightfly" is a gamble played entirely on a razor's edge of balance. Fagen would hand it down to posterity with the awareness of having crowned a mission, of having established himself as the Duke Ellington of pop, anticipating, among other things, various trends to come, from new cool to acid jazz. Eleven years would pass before another record of his ("Kamakiriad", 1993) and about twenty before he'd be found again in Steely Dan ("Two Against Nature", 2000). But "The Nightfly" will remain the ideal companion for every sleepless night. Until a ray of sunlight finally breaks over the skyline.

Ride the wave of great music

Add OndaRock to your favorite sources on Google Discover. Don't miss our reviews, milestones and latest news straight in your feed.

Follow on Google

16/11/2007