Here is the ever thoughtful Ed Feser on the death of Walter Becker. Ed is one of those commentators with a knack of being able to excavate and articulate ideas without going off on overly obscure or whimsical tangents. [T]he typical Steely Dan song represents some character type, usually hapless, disreputable, or marginal . .…
Report in The Telegraph. Just yesterday, yet again and before this news, I happened to watch the making of Aja, one of the greatest albums of the 70s and beyond. I always thought Steely had class and intelligence (in an OCD way) but boy could they funk out as pure entertainment. For serious commentary on…
This documentary gets taken down/blocked from time to time (at least to me) so it’s worth checking out this Japanese subtitled version. Fascinating seeing these meticulous and obsessive musicians work with equally obsessive session musicians (and other amazing performers such as Wayne Shorter), without it ever becoming bloodless — infused with gospel, blues and some superb…
Ed Feser has another terrific earlier posting on Steely Dan (I recently brought attention to this one). Ed engages with Roger Scruton’s analysis of “popular” music. In older musical traditions, the focus was on the music itself, which had only a contingent relationship to the performer even when the performer was the one who composed it .…
manwithoutqualities 