Steely Dan’s wit and sarcasm was often veiled by shiny shroud of ear candy in the ’70s. Delicious jazzy major 7ths and add2/add9 mu chords sweetened the pot. The subversion continued in elevators, malls, and grocery stores of the 1980s and beyond as barely perceptible perfection wafted down from tinny speakers, soulful grooves executed by an expanding set of crack LA and NYC studio musicians … while Donald Fagen, after completing 1982’s The Nightfly, and Walter Becker separately sought peace from the world they had created.
Slowly, a new Steely Dan emerged as largely a live ensemble, again of the best musicians. For the 1993 and 1994 tours, Peter Erskine, Chris Potter and Warren Bernhardt enthusiastically explored the discography with Fagen and Becker as documented in 1995’s Alive in America. For example, the arrangement for “Reelin’ in the Years” was dramatically reimagined including “all saxophones, ladies and gentlemen” replacing the iconic guitar riffs.
Donald Fagen and WalterBecker wanted some new tunes to play on the road and began recording new songs in the mid- to late-1990s … and two albums emerged in the 21st Century: 2000’s four-time Grammy winning Two Against Nature and the “through with buzz,” analog live-tracked follow-up Everything Must Go with uber stickman Keith Carlock and deft chameleon guitarist Jon Herrington holding down the fort.
Both albums were back heavy, with the stronger material being revealed as the albums progressed: complex, layered, intricate and laced by a bit more sour to go with the sweet. Despite the duo’s initial intentions, material from 21st Century Dan and their follow-up solo material (Morph the Cat, the criminally overlooked Circus Money, Sunken Condos) became as rare on tour, yet as conspicuous as a George Harrison song on a Beatles album. The Steely Dan touring band of crack musicians settled into a setlist groove, occasionally shuffled with an album or rarities night.
The arrangements on 2021’s Northeast Corridor, unfortunately recorded after Becker’s passing, are more nuanced than anything on Alive In America, but impeccably recorded and mixed by Michael Conner and Patrick Dillett. There isn’t the youthful reinvention found on the earlier Nightflyers tour. A lineup featuring Herington, Carlock, Jim Beard, Walt Weiskopf, Michael Leonhart, Connor Kennedy, Ready Freddie Washington, Ari Ambrose and the Choir (Carolyn Leonhart, Catherine Russell and Jamie Leonhart) plays flawlessly yet organically throughout – including this odd-man-out performance of “Things I Miss the Most,” the lone representative of 21st Century Dan.
They open with a novel, extended introduction, a bluesy passage which features more minor 7ths, minor 6ths and suspended chords than the group’s standard fare. A muted trumpet drifts sorrowfully above the altered blues chord progression with Beard on piano and Fagen on Rhodes … then onto a tongue-in-cheek look at divorce colored by superficial ex-yuppies and Becker’s own 1997 splitsville.
I think “Things I Miss the Most” is an accurate reflection of 21st Century Dan and new millennium life in general. The live track effectively finds wry humor and irony along with an effervescent groove, providing salve for the tragedies of divorce, terrorism, pandemics, economic collapses, the weather extremes of climate change, and ever-creeping loneliness. Becker’s missing ’54 Strat, comfy Eames chair, meditation, the balsa-wood Andrea Doria model, and a house on the Gulf coast are foils for matrimonial wreckage. During the bridge a birdie soars above and there’s light and hope for a second … then it’s dark again.
I actually prefer this version of “Things I Miss the Most” considerably more than the studio recording on Everything Must Go. Carlock is looser live, slightly more back-in-the-groove pocket. His fills are never more nuanced nor more spot on. Fagen’s voice is in very good form, and the harmonies are even more delicious.
The band, as an organic entity, bubbles happily along through the straits of Greek tragedy that envelops the 21st Century. Because of the continuity of Northeast Corridor, it now appears clear that “Things I Miss the Most” stands as tall as the iconic ’70s classics. You have a friend.
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