Re: IS STEELY DAN JAZZ?

Date: 14 Jul 2003 09:54:32 -0700
Newsgroups: alt.music.steely-dan
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email-address-deleted (Steve2000indeja ) wrote in message news:<email-address-deleted>...
> Are Duke Ellington's recordings jazz? Or jazzy..?
>
> Steely Dan aren't classic bebop (though they flavor some stuff with bop type
> changes). Nor are they what used to be called 'modern jazz' in the 60s.
>
> They are sophisticated pop songwriter/prodcucer/artists who's music is informed
> by jazz, r+b, (jazzy) blues and rock. You could say that their harmonic
> sophistication/cool chord changes make them sound jazzy at times. a lot of the
> time, thesedays.
>
> But loose (archetypical) jazz arrangements..? 'Play the head, see God, play the
> head, end it'.. Nah, they're stuff is tightly structured excellent pop...with a
> jazzy bent.
>
> Their sometimes jazzy changes/harmonies/voicings might get them airplay on some
> smooth jazz stations. But the station that's on in the background here now- the
> local hard-core jazz station I taped "Piano Jazz" off of and have never changed
> the dial since- would never play Steely Dan outside of what they did with
> Marion McPartland (which had them playing some of their songs in a small jazz
> group/improv way and covering jazzy blues tunes the same way).
>
> They are Steely Dan. To use a now cliche 'music-reviewer-describing-Steely Dan'
> term: musical alchemists.
>
> Is 'Blues Beach' jazz? Or funky, jazzy pop? Is 'Last Mall' jazz? etc..
>
> Steve
hmm, good response, Steve. The question vaguely reminds one of the old
controversy about Miles/Evans collaboration (Sketches of Spain, Birth
of the Cool).
To a large extent the answer relies on how one defines "Jazz".
Improvization is always included in the definition. Standard
definitions of Jazz also include its African American elements - the
blues scale with its flatted 7th and their later expansions into
11ths, 13th etc that came with Beebop. Some earlier Jazz is very close
to today's Dan - pop(ular) tunes carefully arranged with
improvization.
It might also be suggested that SD is closer to jazz/pop fusion -
connected to what Jazz musicians such as DiMeola, McLaughlin, Hancock
and Miles were doing in the 70s. Frank Zappa once opined "Jazz isn't
dead...it just smells funny."
But I think Steve's response is more to the point. SD grew out of the
rock idiom but were always "Jazz influenced". As they matured and as
Jazz become more "mainstream", they have been able to return to their
Jazz influences. But Steely Dan music remains music of the popular
idiom designed largely for those who also love Jazz.