The Nightfly

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The Nightfly
Studio album by Donald Fagen

Publication
(s)

October 1982

admission

1982

Label (s) Warner Bros Records

Format (s)

LP, CD

Genre (s)

skirt

Title (number)

8th

running time

38:46

occupation
  • Percussion, sound effects - Roger Nichols, Starz Vanderlocket
  • Harmonica - Hugh McCracken, Donald Fagen
  • Alto saxophone - Dave Tofani
  • Backing vocals - Dave Bargeron, Donald Fagen, Frank Floyd, Gordon Grody, Daniel Lazerus, Leslie Miller, Zachary Sanders, Valerie Simpson , Starz Vanderlocket

production

Studio (s)

  • Soundworks Digital Audio / Video Recording Studios (New York)
  • Automated Sound (New York)
  • Village Recorders (Los Angeles)
chronology
- The Nightfly Kamakiriad (1993)

The Nightfly is the first solo album by Steely-Dan co- founder Donald Fagen . It was recorded entirely digitally in New York and Los Angeles . The album produced by Gary Katz was released in 1982 and reached number 11 in the US charts.

The album

The concept album is a portrait of the artist as a young man. All eight songs on the album deal with actual or fictional events from a youth that preoccupied a young man in the late 1950s and early 1960s, as well as the zeitgeist of that time.

The album cover shows a full-format black and white photo of Fagens in the role of a Chesterfield- King cigarette-smoking radio host . This DJ , dressed in a light shirt with a dark tie, is sitting at a table in a broadcasting studio. In front of him are a large record player and a large-diaphragm microphone with a tripod, which is typical for recording studios . The cover of the Sonny Rollins' album Sonny Rollins and the Contemporary Leaders from 1958 lying on the table - apparently the record just played on the radio show - refers to the fictional time of the recording in the late 1950s and to the musical preferences of the moderator. The hands of the large-format clock on the wall next to the DJ point ten past four - an indication of the (nightly) broadcast time.

The pieces of music on the album (selection)

The Nightfly

In the role of the night DJ for a fictional radio station called WJAZ in Baton Rouge , who takes strange calls from the listener and mourns a past love, Fagen also appears on the album's title track.

IGY

The record also contains the song IGY about the International Geophysical Year 1957/58, which was played a lot in the 1980s , and which Fagen chooses as a symbol in order to depict , in a half nostalgic , half parodistic way , what he saw as the naive optimism and the technological belief of that time ; the title reached number 26 in the American singles charts .

New Frontier

The more than six-minute-long New Frontier, whose title is a phrase coined by John F. Kennedy , also became popular. Kennedy was referring to the frontier of the 19th and early 20th centuries - the North American West, the " Wild West " of that time with its promise of chances and opportunities that should still allow a man to seek his happiness in the Confrontation only with the original nature. The disturbing natives of North America with their obviously older claims were not included in this dream, the old myth of life in nature, which was essentially imagined as freely available. A lack of realism in the concept of the old "border" was repeated in the concept of the new border. The "New Frontier" that Kennedy recommended to the US public in need was inadequate to meet the desires and demands of those left disappointed by the promises of the commercialized world. Nor could it bring about a reconciliation of the deep gaps in the social profile and in the racial differences. These shortcomings were supposed to be covered up, among other things, by NASA and its sometimes spectacular efforts on the new “frontier” in space. The boom years of World War II and the post-war era came to an end, and the world beyond, to which this record was dedicated, began to emerge. The song suggests the scene of an alcoholic party in a private nuclear shelter of the time and ironically ironizes the behavior and views of teenagers at the time:

“It's [the bunker] is just a cave in the ground that my father built in case the Russians decide to push the [red] button. [...] I can't wait to move to the [big] city until I finally decide to study design overseas. "

The goodbye look

In The Goodbye Look , Fagen ironically sketches a military coup on a Caribbean island as it happened repeatedly in South and Central America during the 1950s and 1960s. The clarified first-person narrator (“I know what happens, I read the book”) is one of the last Americans who remained on the “quiet island in the bay” and reports on local “talk” and “recently some evening action behind the big casino on the beach ”.

Ruby baby

With the cover version of the piece Ruby Baby of the Drifters , a song is included on the album that comes from the themed time (1956). Members of the studio ensemble for this album included Greg Phillinganes ( electric piano ), Jeff Porcaro ( drums ) and the brothers Randy ( trumpet ) and Michael Brecker ( tenor saxophone ).

Music genre

Donald Fagen uses musical motifs from 1950s jazz on The Nightfly - in the New Frontier text, for example, the protagonist feigns admiration for the pianist Dave Brubeck because he wants to impress a girl (quote: “He [Dave Brubeck] is an artist, a pioneer - we need music on the «New Frontier» ”). Fagen transforms the material from the music of the time into contemporary pop music of the 1980s. Fagen's music sounds similar to that of Steely Dan, he works solo but more with electronic means and makes extensive use of the complex brass arrangements known from Steely Dan .

reception

The album was largely positively received. Robert Christgau gave it the top grade in his Consumer Guide column , allmusic got four and a half stars out of five and Jason Ankeny describes it as romanticizing but never sentimental .

Paul White, Editor-in-Chief of Sound On Sound magazine, says The Nightfly… shows what good results you could get with these early digital recorders in the right hands.

For the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano , The Nightfly is one of the ten perfect shots for someone stranded on a desert island.

Track list

Text and music by Donald Fagen, unless otherwise stated.

  1. IGY - 6:05
  2. Green Flower Street - 3:40
  3. Ruby Baby ( Jerry Leiber, Mike Stoller ), arranged by Donald Fagen - 5:38
  4. Maxine - 3:50
  5. New Frontier - 6:23
  6. The Nightfly - 5:45
  7. The Goodbye Look - 4:47
  8. Walk Between Raindrops - 2:38

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Information on the inner sleeve of the album
  2. a b Interview with Paul White
  3. a b The Nightfly in the US charts on Allmusic (English)
  4. a b The Nightfly on Allmusic (English)
  5. Donald Fagen on the inner sleeve of the album
  6. Source for all information on the song lyrics of the album: The Nightfly - Booklet of the German audio CD first edition of the album from 1982, Warner Bros Records Inc. 7599-23696-2
  7. Donald Fagen: The Nightfly - Booklet of the CD edition of the 1982 album
  8. “It's just a dugout that my dad built, in case the reds decide to push the button down. [...] Well I can't wait till I move to the city. Till I finally make up my mind to learn design and study overseas. " - Donald Fagen, quoted from the lyrics of New Frontier, audio CD edition, Warner Bros Records Inc., 1982
  9. "There's been talk and lately a bit of action after dark, behind the big casino on the beach." - Translated into German after Donald Fagen - The Goodbye Look, lyrics in the booklet of a CD edition of the album The Nightfly
  10. About Ruby Baby
  11. ^ The Nightfly with Robert Christgau
  12. On the list of L'Osservatore Romano