Steely Dan performing a special setlist show including a complete performance of Aja (11/10) and The Royal Scam (11/11)  

November 10, 2009

Tuesday 7:30pm

Detail:

Less a band than a concept, Steely Dan was one of the most advanced, successful, and mysterious pop units of the '70s. Combining pop hooks with jazz harmonies, complicated time changes and cryptic, often highly ironic lyrics, the band sounded like no one else. Because of the perfectionism of founders Donald Fagen and Walter Becker, the outfit rarely toured, and toward the end, was composed almost entirely of session musicians, while Becker and Fagen began to play less and less on their own albums. Producer Gary Katz became Steely Dan's "third member," as much because of Becker and Fagen's insistence on pristine sound quality as for Katz's role in forming the band. With Becker and Fagen fronting a version of Steely Dan that toured to great success in 1993, they proved that their long-lived cult was very much alive. And the 2000 release of Two Against Nature resurrected the band as a viable recording unit, and also won Steely Dan several Grammy Awards.