Steely Dan: "Steely Dan's name has been popping up as a hip musical crush. Remember, this glossy bop-pop was the indifferent aristocracy to punk rock's stone-throwing in the late 70's. People fought

Second terminally there was a mistake, but a funny one

Daniel otm

i think it's worth challenging the assumption entirely that music had always been for dancing and then some intellectual, hipster shit went down and ruined it

A large portion of music (or at least Western, professionalized music) was at least nominally religious for quite a while. Lots of Renaissance and Baroque and classical works were church-sponsored and not meant for dancing per se. There are, of course, many traditions of religious dancing. But
the ecclesiastical works of, e.g., Bach and Handel were not, I suspect, destined to get sick acid-house club remixes.

Folk music, otoh, has probably been associated with dancing forever.

for starters, i think as with so many things in anglo-american culture, white hipsters were parroting a development that had already happened 15 years earlier in black art, namely bebop and the social architecture of standing around and listening because enthusiasm was perceived to be square.

This true as far as the white parroting is concerned, but the main reason dancing wasn't allowed at bebop performances initially (e.g., "No Lindy Hopping" signs at venues) was because the clubs were too small for dancing. It wasn't that bebop fundamentally couldn't or shouldn't be danced to -- or, as dancers at the time said, "Well, maybe YOU can't dance to it..."

the wider context ('pop music' == social dancing music) in which even the musicians who played bebop had to make rent

totally! my point was less that beboppers were the first to outlaw dancing and more that there's always been a process through which dance music becomes folk music becomes art music. the boundaries are porous and context-dependent. so i wasn't trying to introduce a new rockist narrative about the supremacy of bebop, but just introducing it as one among many examples to counter a larger annoying narrative about white rock in the '60s emerging itt

Now thinking of Monk dancing. Thelonious, my old friend.

the discussion was centred around when the division between "dancing music" and "listening music" began

this is what i was responding to

Yeah ok, should've added "within Rock & Roll", didn't think to because I'd assumed that was the context we were having the discussion in but can see how it could come across diff, my bad.

it's all good, i mean the discussion was interesting and i just was trying to push it to become more interesting by including more data, which Tarfumes did.

just put a hold on the Wald book at my library.

good posts

Daniel-

Just a lot of racket you know, not something you can sit down and listen to like Peggy Lee singing something from the Great American Songbook.

you're right that this part eluded me, i'm 100% on the same page about the rest.

having said that, i think it's worth challenging the assumption entirely that music had always been for dancing and then some intellectual, hipster shit went down and ruined it.

this isn't really my stance at all idk. i think pop needs more party poopers.

Folk music, otoh, has probably been associated with dancing forever.

Mostly but thinking of a strain of Irish (and other probably) trad music that’s very story based and would have mandated close listening to follow the words.

Good point; when we think of how bards memorized Homeric poetry or the Mahabharata or Gilgamesh or whatever, the feats of memory must have been music-adjacent.

I am a 52-year-old white collar knowledge worker / office drone and I have to alphabetize things surprisingly often. I cannot alphabetize things without singing the song in my head.

There are hundreds of folk ballads, not designed for dancing, from England, Scotland, Ireland.

Yes and also hundreds of pieces that are - jigs, reels, morris-adjacent material, plus polkas and waltzes and gavottes and square-fance material and quite a lot of fiddle music and line dances and and and

I don't think I said that there isn't non-dance music, nor did anyone say that there isn't dance music. There is plenty of both, and lots in between. Not sure why this is even being presented as a conflict or argument

I think because we were talking about a shift in the 60s, which was when Greenwich Village folk was more of a sit and listen thing than a dance-a-jig thing

Another example of a dance form becoming art music for seated enjoyment: in 1924 you had Paul Whiteman commissioning George Gershwin to write “Rhapsody in Blue” which was billed as “An Experiment in Modern Music” and performed in a classical music venue.

Another example of a dance form becoming art music for seated enjoyment: in 1924 you had Paul Whiteman commissioning George Gershwin to write “Rhapsody in Blue” which was billed as “An Experiment in Modern Music” and performed in a classical music venue.

Who gives a shit

Can we get back to talking about bad sneakers

what is the danciest steely dan track, and is it the fez

"Peg" is pretty dancey.

"King of the World" is one of my favorite deep cuts - that would get me dancing

Are there any Steely Dan songs with extended segments (not just a couple of measures) in non-standard time signatures like 5, 7 or 9? For that matter, I'm having trouble thinking of any in 3 or 6 (except parts of "Aja").

When I think of the Dan I don't really think of time-signature wankery. Close harmony, yes. 5s and 7s and 9s, not really. They're not Dream Theater.

I think "Two Against Nature" is said to be 6, which is really just 3 if you squint right, but I have never had to count it in a performance setting and I hope I never have to.

Closest I can think of is "Babylon Sisters" & "Home At Last" which both employ Bernard Purdie's shuffle, essentially (quarter note) triplets over half-time.

https://francisdrummer.files.wordpress.com/2023/05/steely-dan-babylon-sisters-drum-sheet-music.png

...all of this is in the radical 4/4 time obviously, but the polyrhythms at play (esp the ghost notes) is where it gets "fun".

Sure, they subdivide beats into triplets all the time, it's the basis of swing.

A half-time shuffle does not (to me) read as odd. If I have think about it (which I mostly don't), I regard it as a two-bar phrase.

It really is 4/4 at heart. Instead of having the main snare accent snare on 2 and 4, you just put it on the 3. But in actual practice, most people aren't really counting - once you have the feel internalized, you don't need to count.

I can really get down to night by night (dance wise)

https://i.ibb.co/48fdtc3/Screenshot-20230630-140854.png

xpost to Songs You Sing to Your Cat

Are there any Steely Dan songs with extended segments (not just a couple of measures) in non-standard time signatures like 5, 7 or 9? For that matter, I'm having trouble thinking of any in 3 or 6 (except parts of "Aja").

"Gaucho" is in 4/4 but I think there are a couple measures of 6 in the verses (or 2, depending on how you break it down) that give it a rhythmically off-kilter feel.

The intro to "Your Gold Teeth II" seems to have some bars in 6 or 7 as well as 4, and the whole song is in 6 as well.

...and I guess you could say some parts of the guitar solo are in 9.

My cats only like modal jazz in odd times

This is their favorite video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_8iD5xS1hI

That would be a jazz cat (ducks)

And Your Cat Can Swing

https://www.b98.tv/video/katnip-kollege/

Chatting on a msgbrd about the Purdie shuffle is admittedly rather precious in AD2023 but can I just say it is also it is really not "just 4/4"... I/you(?) can count it with internal 12/8 and 12/4 with 16th trips.

my SD dance jam is probably Time Outta Mind, esp the hi-hat closes.

You CAN count a Purdie shuffle as 12s but there is no pressing need to do so. Triplets are all over contemporary music, true, but they generally sit fine inside music that is overwhelmingly 4/4 in overall structure.

The club was so small there wasn't enough room for a cat to swing

i bop hard to “Kid Charlemagne”

I’ll take “Black Friday”

"Peg"

Will throw shapes to "Bodhisattva"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsawrH9bnFI

All time banger. One of my entry points into getting into Steely Dan.

Gaddtastic!

might as well drop this here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tg17hJq7H0Q