And Now For Something Completely Different...

Last week was an orgy of post-punk, so today (and with apologies to Monty Python for the post title) I give you... Donald Fagen.

I had the great pleasure of seeing the Steely Dan singer/keyboardist/songwriter in concert on Sunday night - my lovely wife gave me the tickets for Valentine's day. (aaaawww...) Now, you have to understand that I'm a lifelong Dan fan - one of the very first records I ever bought with my own money was Aja. I am also a fan of the Fagen solo LPs to varying degrees, with his first, The Nightfly, ranking up there with some of my all time favorite records ever. I have always enjoyed the music. It is rock that sounds conventional at first, but is kind of subversive, both in lyrical content and due to the quirks of the duo's music. I have often thought to myself that I shouldn't be indulging in such slickness, but I can't resist. The melodicism is so good and the playing is always impeccable. In the early years, they rocked. There were elements of jazz - the horns, the orchestration, some of the soloing. Over the years the rock edge became dulled, the music slicker, and I still couldn't resist. Donald's third solo LP in 25 years, Morph The Cat, came out last week. It is an instant hit for me, warmer and more inviting than '93's Kamakiriad. It feels like classic Dan to me. The production is slick as always, but it's thicker and fuller sounding than even the last (admittedly not-so-great) Dan album. It's also a lot more guitar oriented than I expected - a very pleasant surprise. In concert the band is 10 strong and tight - Donald, two guitarists, a drummer, bassist Freddie Jackson (the funk meister), keyboardist, a sax player and a trumpeter, and two lovely backing vocalists. They came out and played three in a row from The Nightfly. I got a bit verklempt, because it sounded so good to hear these songs played live for the first time. They played more solo stuff, several Dan tunes (Home At Last, Pretzel Logic), a few covers (Chuck Berry's Viva Viva Rock & Roll), and "poof!", two hours were gone. And it was great. The band is smoking, capable of both precision and loose jamming. I told my wife "best Valentine's day ever." Enjoy the title track from the new album, Morph The Cat. According to D, "a vast, ghostly cat-thing descends on NYC, bestowing on it's citizens a kind of rapture." To my ears the intro sounds like something Dr.Dre would do - low key, funky and slightly menacing. It's got a killer bass groove and some tasty piano vamping and a blazing guitar solo. It's classic Fagen, and oh-so-good...