Pete Christlieb, who played the sax solo on Steely Dan’s “Deacon Blues” (Aja, 1977), on the creative process:
“I went over to the studio one night after the Tonight Show finished taping at 6:30 p.m. When I listened on headphones to the track Tom [Scott] had arranged, there was just enough space for me to play a solo.
“As I listened, I realized Donald [Fagen] and Walter [Becker] were using jazz chord changes, not the block chords of rock. This gave me a solid base for improvisation. They just told me to play what I felt. Hey, I’m a jazz musician, that’s what I do. So I listened again and recorded my first solo. We listened back and they said it was great. I recorded a second take and that’s the one they used. I was gone in a half-hour. The next thing I know I’m hearing myself in every airport bathroom in the world.”
Read the whole story in this month’s “Anatomy of a Song” feature over at the Wall Street Journal.
