Walter Becker - Circus Money (2008)

by Pico

Steely Dan albums don't come around that often. Donald Fagen records appear even less frequently. Walter Becker CD's are rarer still: he gave us 11 Tracks Of Whack back in 1994, a delightfully campy glimpse into facets of himself he didn't often show as co-founder of Steely Dan. So far, that's been the entire catalog of Walter Becker, solo artist.

Until today, with the official unfurling of Circus Money.

While Whack was more of a calling card for the Fagan-less Becker (funny to say that, since Fagan did produce his debut album), Circus Money is themed around the Jamaican music of the sixties and seventies: ska, pre-drum machine reggae and dub. Becker has long been interested in this type of music, and it's a fascination that goes back at least to the reggae sounds found in a couple of tracks of Royal Scam. Thusly, this new project is not exactly a huge leap into the unknown for Becker.

Walt didn't do this record by himself, though. He enlisted a lot of help from Larry Klein.

Klein started out as a jazz bassist sideman and ended up marrying Joni Mitchell and producing several of her records, as well as appearing on records by Peter Gabriel, Wayne Shorter, Don Henley and Neil Diamond. He's also co-written tunes with Joni, Warren Zevon and Rodney Crowell. Oh, and did I mention that he produced last year's Album Of The Year Grammy winner, Herbie Hancock's River: The Joni Letters?

A jazz-inclined bassist, producer and songwriter, eh? Sounds a lot like Walter Becker himself.

Becker did more than just put Larry behind the sound board. He wrote most of these tunes with him, possibly the first time he composed with anyone else than Fagen. Klein even takes over on bass for one track.

In typical Dan fashion, the record took two or three years to record but, atypically, Becker sticks with the same core musicians throughout the whole album: Ted Baker or Jim Beard on keys, Keith Carlock on drums, Jon Herington on guitar, and Becker himself on bass with an occasional guitar solo. Chris Potter chipped in whenever a sax solo was called for.

This is all to say, the windup and the pitch is nearly flawless. Yet, the album managed to land just high and outside of the strike zone. What happened?

Our One Track Mind on the opening track "Door Number Two" turned out to be a harbinger for much of the album, that's what.

You can't fault Becker's understanding of Jamaican music; the grooves laid down here are rock steady and tight. Perhaps one of the most underrated electric bassists in all of rock, Becker's low lines are precise, clear and tastefully melodic. The problem comes in when he marries the island music with his own quirky-but-appealing style.

Becker's trademark wit and irreverence are there, but most of the time it's watered down. Before, a typical lament was "where the hell am I?"; now we get the more predictable "where did our love go?"

The sophisticated, jazzy chord progressions aren't there as much as one would expect, even given the stated island theme.

On a few cuts, there's little of Becker's imprint to be found at all, just light Jamaican grooves that run together with barely perceptible lead vocals and a female chorus that nearly dominates the main vocal. Given Becker's limited singing abilities, which still sound better elsewhere than on the first track, that's probably not such a bad move.

Even most of those songs aren't bad; they suffer more from expectations he set from prior works more than anything. The breezy, lazy "Upside Looking Down" doesn't even sound anything remotely like Becker, except perhaps his early Steely Dan days. I forget, though, that there is another guy with whom he's writing this material.

There's only about two or three standout cuts from this CD, although these are easily good enough to hang on any 21st Century S.D. album. "Paging Audrey" is a detour from the Jamaican motif toward a more straight Dan jazzy shuffle. Becker's nimble bass dances around Carlock's precise beat and that warm electric piano bleating out urbane chords is just the kind of quietly potent stuff people expect from Becker's old band.

Elsewhere, Becker excels where ska coincides with his more snarky accounts of debased partying with a little actual soloing thrown in, as in "Somebody's Saturday Night" and "Darkling Down." For a change, the lyrics cause more grins than grimaces ("Lemme show you where the good thing happens/It's a barbershop in Inglewood/Too bad we won't get to party with the bouncer/Sadly I've been banned for good"). In both cases, Becker lays downs a few tasty blues licks to liven things up a tad more -- a too-rare occurrence on this album.

Too bad he's content to simply ride the riddims the rest of the way through.

If forced to put Circus Money in either a "good" column or "bad" column, I'd put it in the former. I'd more likely ask for a "disappointed" column, though. I don't regret purchasing the CD at all, but that's because I'm unabashedly a big Dan fan. Whether you are or not should help you decide whether it's worth your own investment.