Steely Dan "Bodhisttahva" Isolated Bass And Drums

Steely Dan has always been known for their almost perfect tracks, even before the days that could easily be done via a DAW. Here's a great example of just how great those tracks could be with the isolated bass and drums from "Bodhisttahva" from the band's second album Countdown To Ecstasy.

This album still featured what amounted to the Steely Dan band before it became just Donald Fagen and Walter Becker, but you can still hear hints of the perfection that would come later with the studio bands they used for all their subsequent recordings. On this track, Jim Hodder was the drummer and Walter Becker played bass. Here are some things to listen for.

1. The drums are spot on and feel great. This has been a Becker-Fagen trademark in that they got drum machine-like time from their drummers well before such a machine existed.

2. There's a nice reverb on the snare. Elliot Scheiner, who mixed most of Steely Dan's records (although not this one) once told me that Becker and Fagen disliked reverb and he had to discretely sneak it in where he thought it was needed. That's not the case here, and it stands out and sounds most appropriate.

3. Becker's a great bass player. While the band used a studio bass player on most tracks on their subsequent albums and on tour, Becker plays the heck out of this difficult part. There are a couple of minor faults that would never be left in during later recordings at 0:41 and 3:07, but you never hear them in the track with the other mix elements.

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Steely Dan "Kid Charlemagne" Instrumental Track

Love them or hate them, Steely Dan songs are as state-of-the-art as you can get thanks to the relentless search for perfection by Donal Fagen and Walter Becker. The men have been known to cut a song many times over with different players until they get what they want performance-wise. The same can be said for the engineering, with the late Roger Nichols handling the tracking and Barney Perkins on the mix.

Here's a look inside the basic rhythm section of "Kid Charlemagne" (from their Royal Scam album) stripped of vocals, solos and sweetening. Some things to listen for include:

1. The precision of the playing is fantastic. There's enough room for the players to stretch out slightly (bass player Chuck Rainey stretches a lot), yet they're so tight on all the hits while not sounding quantized. Listen especially for the turnarounds between sections.

2. Listen to Larry Carlton's guitar on the left side. He's playing along with the Rhodes piano, yet the releases of both instruments are fairly loose.

3. Check out the clavinet on the right side. That's often buried in the mix, but it's quite apparent here. It meshes great with the other instruments without getting in the way, considering how busy the playing is.

4. Drummer Bernard Purdie is playing a version of his famous shuffle, but listen to the unusual pattern on the high hat.



If you liked this track, you also might like my Deconstructed Hits series of books that provide an inside look to hits from all different genres.

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Help support this blog. Any purchases made through our Amazon links help support this website with no cost to you.