By Joe Williams
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
ST. LOUIS — If it weren’t for Steely Dan, the term “jazz rock” would be as oxymoronic as “country funk” or “folk rap.” More than 45 years ago, Bard College classmates Donald Fagen and Walter Becker found the fabled key to connecting jazzy solos with rock rhythms.
After a long hiatus, the two studio perfectionists have spent much of the past two decades turning that key at concert halls and amphitheaters. On Monday, when the latest incarnation of their band stopped at the Peabody Opera House on the Mood Swings Tour, Steely Dan swung mostly in a jazz direction, with just enough late-forming rock to roll a handful of dancers into the aisles.
Keyboardist-singer Fagen and guitarist Becker were backed by an octet called the Bipolar Allstars, featuring four horn players. Three miniskirted backup singers called the Borderline Brats added soul.
The relatively small venue and big-investment tickets ensured that this was a sit-down affair, befitting a band whose peerless body of work is best appreciated with headphones. In an attempt at improvised, midsong humor, Becker acknowledged that this was a pricey special occasion for an audience whose average age was far north of 19, yet with his schlubby black T-shirt, he was hardly dressed to impress.
Notwithstanding Fagen’s distinctive croon and his detail-specific lyrics, Steely Dan is not a personality-driven band. The songs on this tour seemed chosen to spread around the solos and to showcase the band’s versatility.
After an instrumental opener of bopster Gerry Mulligan’s “Blueport,” the set list included such thematic pairings as “Black Friday” followed by “Black Cow,” and “Josie” followed by “Peg.” “Aja” was a particularly good group effort.
Performing in street clothes on a bare stage, the ace musicians were mostly restrained, evoking Cuervo-golden oldies and Chinese music in the banyan trees. But Jon Herington did a worthy if careful impression of original guitarist Denny Dias on the hard-rocking finale of “My Old School” and “Reelin’ in the Years,” and drummer Keith Carlock added some much-needed muscle. Then a stingy encore comprised “Kid Charlemagne” and a Bipolars-only rendition of the “Untouchables” theme before class was dismissed.
Chicago’s Deep Blue Organ Trio opened the show with a short-but-sweet set of instrumental blues that strode the line between Booker T. and Ray Charles.
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