Literate Jazz-Pop TS: Steely Dan vs. Joni Mitchell 1974-1980

It is kinda interesting that there were so few songwriters that both had the ability and ear to go into this area between jazz, pop and rock. There was plenty of instrumentalists that in the same period threaded this needle, but it says something that you get past Joni Mitchell, Steely Dan and later on Sting...that's kinda it. You got Tom Waits, but really he never did 'rock' or a partial permutation of it until he went all junkyard sounding. I suppose you could add someone like George Duke or maybe a jazz musician that had pop hits going the other way like perhaps George Benson, but it's a small list at least off the top of the head. You could even expand and add maybe some pop singers whose background is more in jazz like Al Jarreau or maybe something like Grover Washington Jr.'s collaborations but the jazz/pop/rock area was a horizon few threaded.

― earlnash, Saturday, February 11, 2017 3:08 AM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Well Rickie Lee Jones on Pirates was quite specifically channelling both Joni and Steely Dan. Not a huge amount of "rock" in the strong sense but about as much as for Joni.

Emily's D+Evolution definitely hit this spot for me last year.