Check out the liner notes on most McCartney, Joel or John albums and see who did the rhythm/string/horn arrangementsyou'll usually find names other than theirs listed. On most of their own albums they either worked in conjunction with other arrangers such as Tom Scott ( Aja and Gaucho) or Rob Mounsey ( Gaucho) or did it all by themselves ( Two Against Nature and Everything Must Go ) when writing the horn (brass and woodwind) parts. Even before they became known as Steely Dan, when they were working for Jay and The Americans, they wrote/orchestrated string and horn parts on the Capture the Moment album. They also understand, unlike most other "pop" music acts, how to write for/voice/orchestrate instruments other than their own. Both Donald Fagen and Walter Becker have a deep appreciation for and understanding of the language of different kinds of musical styles (especially the Impressionistic era and the Cool Jazz era ). But, and it's a big but, how many of the aforementioned people have kept their musical sound progressing, fresh, new, exciting, consistently musically top-flight and expend inordinate amounts of time and energy into the total compositional process?įirst of all we must acknowledge that Steely Dan is a very different animal indeed. It's pretty much accepted by the general populace how great the writing/performing talents of, say, Billy Joel, Elton John and Paul McCartney are. But we're talking cool chords (and their various permutations) here folks, not drugs. In the 1960s and most of the 1970s, adventurous and ambitious horn-adorned groups like Chicago and Blood, Sweat and Tears also experimented successfully with them too. Ok, so Miles Davis, Charles Mingus, Thelonious Monk and Dave Brubeck used them throughout the 1950s.
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