Steely LICKS

if Walter becker’s passing has had you yearning to add some of steely Dan’s style to your playing, these lead and rhythm parts will help you pay tribute

While Walter Becker was an excellent player, part of Steely Dan’s charm was of the large revolving roster guitarists contributed to the band’s catalogue. Many different guitarists were often tried out for the same track, with the most suitable performances being selected to make the final mix. Big names were regulars such as Elliot Randall, Larry Carlton, Dean Parks, Jay Graydon, Jon Herington and, to a lesser extent, David Williams, Steve Khan and Lee Ritenour. The following are lead and rhythm ideas that highlight various Steely Dan esque ideas. These are in the style of the session guitarist that were on the original recordings, and should prove a useful guide for your own part writing . There are also two jam tracks: the first in a Major key in style of players Denny Dias and Jeff ‘Skunk’

Jeff 'Skunk' Baxter, a second track in a Minor key and more redolent of Walter Becker.

A popular way of expressing more complex harmony in modern jazz and fusion is the ‘slash chord’. The slash chord is a clever way of generating interesting sounding, complex chords in an easy-to-read format.

The first letter in the slash chord is the name of the triad to be used and the second letter (after slash) is the bass note. Therefore C/F would a C Major triad (C-E-G in any combination) with an F bass note. The sound this chord produces is that of F Major 9 (no 3rd). As you can see it is far easier to name the chord C/F as opposed to Fmajor9 (no 3rd).

Some of the pieces also use the Altered Dominant (7#9). Many of you will recognise this sound as the Jimi Hendrix (Purple Haze) sound. Using this chord provides an opportunity to make the most of more interesting scales in the soloing lines.

For the audio we have recorded the tracks in full for your reference and then muted the transcribed guitar performances so that you can play along with the backing tracks.