Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Donald Fagen at the Filmore
Steely Dan keyboardist and the Nightflyers perform tonight.
Steely Dan keyboardist and composer Donald Fagen is a lone wolf when it comes to hunting down inspiration — “All I need is a room and a piano and a Marlboro cigarette” — but touring with a group of guys whose average age is two decades younger than “Can’t Buy a Thrill” has him excited.
“I’d love to go into the studio with these guys. … I’m hoping to show the guys some of the new stuff I’ve been writing, and it will be fun developing that with a band,” Fagen said recently. “Generally speaking, in recent years, the way I worked is just alone, and doing arrangements by myself and so on, or with Walter. So it will be fun, actually having a band to try this stuff out on. I don’t think I’ve done that since the early ’70s probably.”
Today, Donald Fagen and the Nightflyers — a nod to his first solo album, 1982’s “The Nightfly” — will perform their first show outside of his home state of New York, an 8 p.m. performance at the Fillmore Miami Beach. The band includes guitarist Connor Kennedy, keyboardist Will Bryant, drummer Lee Falco, bass player Brandon Morrison and multi-instrumentalist Zach Djanikian, musicians Fagen met while they worked along New York’s Hudson River Valley near his home in Woodstock.
“They seemed to be a cut above some of the other local musicians. They had a really good feel,” Fagen said. “All the guys were accomplished, and Connor, as the soloist, is really special, I think. He’s got a lot of juice, you know, and he did some really interesting things aside from the excitement of his style of playing.”
Fagen said he’s eager to try out some of his solo work in a live setting, and sets so far have included “Green Flower Street,” “The New Frontier” and “The Nightfly.”