ON the Beat | Reelin’ in Dan-ishness
Gone, but Never Gone
Within a week, we lost two Great American outsiders who worked their way deep inside culture. In cinema, David Lynch brought his own dream-fueled notions of how to make films and get under our skin, while summoning a wild imagination on a diet of Bob’s Big Boy fare. In music, the now late, great and enigmatic Garth Hudson — mostly known as the keyboardist magician with the Band.I don’t believe the two ever collaborated, but they would be birds of a particular feather. I know both left a massive impression and guidance tips on my own aesthetic senses, and even my approach to life.
I riffed on a Lynch memorial recently (here), but let us now praise the piano/organ man from outer space, by way of Canada and various rootsy soils. It’s a ripe time for a deep dive into the world of Hudson, the multi-instrumentalist who had a special flair for making his Lowry organ bend and flex (he liked to tweak organs, like Bach). Start with his tour de force organ work on “Chest Fever” — quoting Bach and surfing genres freely — and proceed through the entire catalog of the band. It’s also illuminating to check out his rootsy offbeat solo album The Sea to the North (2001) and head over to the big pink-ish splendor of Dylan’s Basement Tapes.
And as heard on a recent Hudson tribute on the wondrous and woodsy KCSB show “Candy Mountain Mixtape,” there are audio and video clips going around of Hudson speaking about his musical adventure and unleashing his improvisational, multi-genre-tapping flair. Scenes of Hudson in his retirement show him looking like a grizzled and sage wizard, and once his fingers and brain meet the keys, playing like a true and instinctual musical wizard. The wizard has left the building, but he’s still lurking in the background, quietly but boldly.
Really Dan-ish
There is a raging controversy in America, tearing apart households and friendship and leaving stains on the collective consciousness. A burning question haunts our public squares and socials: is Steely Dan a “Yacht Rock” band? Of course, the answer is no: they were/are far too sophisticated, lyrically, harmonically, and conceptually, while maintaining a sneaky subversive ability to deliver infectious hooks and dance beats you can’t beat.
To confirm my long-held high opinion of the Dan brand, I swung up to SOhO on Sunday to catch one of the prized Steely Dan tribute bands in the land, Dr. Wu. This is a tribute project even the tribute project-wary among us has to love (assuming we are rabid Dan fans).
The tight 12-piece group outta Los Angeles has done its homework, dutifully capturing the Dan’s ingenious meshing of sometimes tricky horn and vocal harmonies, giving the floor to guitar players of no small brains/talent (in this case, the nimble-fingered 335- player Guillermo Ayan) and dishing up both hits and treasured deep cuts from the Dan book. Lead singer Anthony Egan nails his/Fagen’s parts, and the “Malibu Horns” and rhythm section do likewise. The all-important female chorus — Angela Michael, Melanie Taylor, and current Santa Barbaran Leigh Vance — shake it beautifully.
Santa Barbara has had the pleasure of hearing the Dan live, at the Bowl and Chumash Casino, but after the demise of Walter Becker in 2017, who knows if they’ll pass this way again, and the chance to hear this body of music played tight, live and soulful can be transformative — as it was at SOhO.
High points included the uniquely simmering pop masterpiece “Babylon Sisters,” although a bit of a chill arrived with the line “here come those Santa Ana winds again.” In a thematic medley, the band segued from “Hey Nineteen” — a mid-life crisis tale with deceptively breezy charm — into “Time Out of Mind,” a hypnotically catchy song about casual heroin dabbling.
Nerds and purists could always quibble over details, for example, why not more material from the band’s wonderful and overlooked albums from the ‘00s, Two Against Nature and the fine finale Everything Must Go? They did do up “Jack of Speed”— and sharply, as usual — but we wanted more. “Gaslighting Abbie,” “West of Hollywood,” “Everything Must Go,” and “Things I Miss the Most,” for instance.
But Dr. Wu (who did a spot-on version of that “theme song,” by the way, along with the shoulda-been-a-hit “Bad Sneakers”) did so many things right, quibbles seem petty. They had us enthralled for two sets on Sunday, opening with “Deacon Blue” and closing with “Bodhisattva.” They paid special attention to the menu from the Royal Scam album — “Kid Charlemagne,” of course, but also “Don’t Take Me Alive,” “Haitian Divorce,” and “Sign in Stranger.”
Closing the first set, they offered up a fresh arrangement on “Reelin’ in the Years,” deviating from the general mandate to “play it like the record.” It almost seemed like a treatment of an early Dan hit as reimagined through the filter of a later Dan attitude.
The Steely Dan discography has left an indelible mark on a certain sector — or sectors — of pop consciousness, Yacht Rock spotlight aside. And their pristine yet soulful, studio-crafted music comes alive onstage in a particular way, appealing to head and heart in ways most pop can’t get to. But the musicians have to be invested and gifted enough to make the Dan sound pop. Dr. Wu does it right: it’s almost like being there.
TO-DOINGS:
Classical music has burst upon the live musical calendar, after notable encounters last week with the Santa Barbara Symphony, Julia Bullock and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, and Russian wunderkind pianist Alexander Malofeev’s local debut at Hahn Hall (pianist Garrick Ohlsson postponed). The classical flow continues apace this weekend, with the world-renowned Danish String Quartet at Campbell Hall on Friday, January 31 (see story here) and the Imani Winds and Boston Brass meet-up at Hahn Hall on Sunday afternoon, February 2. Eminent and smart-tongued pianist Jeremy Denk gives a special solo piano performance at Music Academy of the West late on Saturday afternoon.
Wait, there’s more: the still-young Santa Barbara Chamber Players presents its winter concert at the First Methodist Church on Saturday, with maestro Emmanuel Fratiani leading a program of Schubert’s “Unfinished Symphony” and works featuring soprano April Amante.
In alternative orchestra news, the Adam Phillips-directed and always lovable Folk Orchestra of Santa Barbara returns this weekend with its loosely-defined “Winter Concert” program, including such varied treats as Bob Dylan tunes, Sibelius’ Finlandia, and Chinese folk songs. Check them out, in Los Olivos’ St. Mark’s-in-the-Valley on Friday, Live Oak Universalist Church in Goleta on Saturday, and Trinity Episcopal Church on Sunday.
Tonight, January 30, the French jazz guitar master Stephane Wrembel — best known as one of the finer pickers in the post-Django Reinhardt mode — plays at Ventura Music Club. He’ll be joined by noted French pianist Jean-Michel Pilc and band. It’s worth a drive, from Santa Barbara or wherever jazz-hungry readers may dwell.
It’s always the right time to catch Rickie Lee Jones on the rare occasions when she shows up in the 805 (for the record, she did live in Ojai for some years back when). Here she comes again, playing the Lobero Theater on Saturday, February 1. Her latest addition to a long and diverse discography was 2023’s Pieces of Treasure, showcasing her special and reinventive way with standards — as she did on 1991’s Pop Pop, the tour which brought her to the Arlington Theatre. She shows up at the Lobero just in time to coax some calm in a chaotic world.
Among the goods over at SOhO this week is a visit from the veteran blues-rock band Canned Heat, on Wednesday, February 5. Suddenly, “Goin’ Up the Country” has ear-wormed its way into my noggin.
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