The Nightfly

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The Nightfly
Studio album by Donald Fagen
Released October 29, 1982
Recorded 1981-82
Soundworks Digital Audio/Video Recording Studios, N.Y., Village Recorders, L.A. and Automated Sound, N.Y
Genre Rock, jazz rock
Length 38:46
Label Warner Bros.
Producer Gary Katz
Donald Fagen chronology
The Nightfly
(1982)		 Kamakiriad
(1993)

The Nightfly is the first solo album by Steely Dan co-founder Donald Fagen, released in 1982. It was one of the first fully digital recordings of popular music.[1][dead link] Although The Nightfly includes a number of production staff and musicians who had played on Steely Dan records, it is notably Fagen's first release without longtime collaborator Walter Becker.

Unlike the majority of Fagen's work before this point, The Nightfly is almost blatantly autobiographical.[2] Many of the songs relate to the cautiously optimistic mood of his suburban childhood in the late 1950s and early 1960s, and include such lyrical topics as late night jazz deejays, bomb shelters, and tropical vacations.

The Nightfly was certified Platinum in both the US and UK, and produced two popular hits with "I.G.Y. (What a Beautiful World)" and "New Frontier". It also received several 1983 Grammy Award nominations. This relatively low-key but long-lived popularity led the Wall Street Journal in 2007 to dub the album, "one of pop music's sneakiest masterpieces."[2]

Contents

Production [edit]

Composition [edit]

A message in the liner notes of The Nightfly reads: "Note: The songs on this album represent certain fantasies that might have been entertained by a young man growing up in the remote suburbs of a northeastern city during the late fifties and early sixties, i.e., one of my general height, weight and build. - D.F."[2]

Recording sessions [edit]

The Nightfly was recorded in 1981-82 at Soundworks Digital Audio/Video Recording Studios and Automated Sound in New York City, and at Village Recorders in Los Angeles. Production was done by Gary Katz and the album was engineered by Roger Nichols; both men had worked on every single Steely Dan record up to that point. Many of the musicians had also played on Steely Dan records, including Jeff Porcaro, Rick Derringer and Larry Carlton. Similar to the Aja and Gaucho albums, a large number of studio musicians were employed, with the liner notes crediting 31 musicians as having played on the record.[3]

Artwork [edit]

The album's cover artwork features a photo of Donald Fagen as a deejay wearing a collared shirt and tie, speaking into a microphone (an RCA 77DX). Before him lies a turntable (16 inch '50s model, with a Para-Flux A-16 tonearm), an ashtray, and a pack of Chesterfield King cigarettes. Visible on the table with the record player, is the cover of the 1958 jazz album Sonny Rollins and the Contemporary Leaders (also credited in the liner notes). On the wall behind Fagen is a large clock, indicating that the time is 4:09.

Gale Sasson and Vern Yenor are credited with the cover's set design. George Delmerico acted as art director, and the picture was taken by noted art photographer James Hamilton. The Wall Street Journal writes, "The cover adds another layer of autobiography. On the front, we see Mr. Fagen as a crew-cut deejay on the graveyard shift. On the back is his audience, a single lighted window in a row of tract homes -- or maybe the artist as a young man, drinking in inspiration."[2]

Reception [edit]

Professional ratings
Review scores
Source Rating
Allmusic 4.5/5 stars[3]
Robert Christgau (A)[4]
Rolling Stone 4/5 stars[5]
Sputnikmusic 4.5/5 stars[6]
Uncut 9/10 stars[7]
Virgin Encyclopedia of Popular Music 4/5 stars[8]

Reviews [edit]

The Nightfly was met with almost universally positive reviews. Rolling Stone,[9] The Village Voice[10] and Uncut[11] all gave the album high marks. Jason Akeny of AllMusic rated The Nightfly at 4 and 1/2 out of a possible 5 stars, calling it "lush and shimmering, produced with cinematic flair by Gary Katz; romanticized but never sentimental... crafted with impeccable style and sophistication."[3]

In February 2010, Vatican City's L'Osservatore Romano appointed The Nightfly to its official Top 10 Albums list.[12] EQ Magazine rated The Nightfly as among the Top 10 Best Recorded Albums of All Time, alongside The Beatles's Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and The Beach Boys' Pet Sounds.[1]

Sales charts [edit]

The Nightfly reached the #11 position on the US Billboard Charts, and the #24 position on the US Billboard R&B charts.[3] In the UK, the album was certified Platinum in 2004, despite only reaching #44 on the charts following its release. It has also gone Platinum in America.

Legacy [edit]

Legacy in the digital music community [edit]

Paul White, editor-in-chief of Sound On Sound magazine, said The Nightfly "is always a good reference for checking out monitoring systems and shows what good results could be obtained from those early digital recording systems in the right hands."[13] But the music isn't limited to recording studio tests, Clive Young of Pro Sound News called Fagen's I.G.Y. the "Freebird" of Pro Audio, citing that almost every live sound engineer uses the song to test the front of house system's sound response.[14]

Cover versions [edit]

A number of prominent artists have covered songs from The Nightfly. Howard Jones covered "I.G.Y." in 1992, while Mel Tormé included "The Goodbye Look" on his 1988 album Mel Tormé and the Marty Paich Dektette – Reunion, as well as recording "Walk Between the Raindrops" on another album. Tormé also reportedly covered "Maxine" at some of his live shows in the 1980s.[15] John Pizzarelli covered both "Raindrops" and Fagen's arrangement of Dion's "Ruby Baby" on his 2012 album Double Exposure.

Track listing (original LP) [edit]

All songs by Donald Fagen, except where noted

  1. "I.G.Y." – 6:03
  2. "Green Flower Street" – 3:42
  3. "Ruby Baby" (Jerry Leiber, Mike Stoller), Arranged by Donald Fagen – 5:39
  4. "Maxine" – 3:49
  5. "New Frontier" – 6:21
  6. "The Nightfly" – 5:47
  7. "The Goodbye Look" – 4:50
  8. "Walk Between Raindrops" – 2:38

Bonus tracks, from The Nightfly Trilogy MVI Boxed Set [edit]

  1. "True Companion" – 5:09
  2. "Green Flower Street (Live)" – 4:24
  3. "Century's End" – 5:31

Personnel [edit]

Production [edit]

  • Producer: Gary Katz
  • Engineers: Daniel Lazerus, Roger Nichols, Elliot Scheiner
  • Assistant engineers: Robin Lane, Mike Morongell, Cheryl Smith, Wayne Yurgelun
  • Mixing: Elliot Scheiner
  • Mastering: Bob Ludwig
  • Digital editing assistant: Mike Morongell, Wayne Yurgelun
  • Project assistant: Ginger Dettman, Steve Pokorny, Steve Woolard
  • Tracking: Elliot Scheiner
  • Authoring: David Dieckmann, George Lydecker
  • Sequencing: Roger Nichols
  • Overdub engineer: Daniel Lazerus
  • Horn arrangements: Donald Fagen, Rob Mounsey
  • Arranger: Donald Fagen
  • Design: Greg Allen
  • Art direction: Greg Allen, George Delmerico
  • Liner notes: Donald Fagen
  • Editorial supervision: Cory Frye
  • Photography: James Hamilton
  • Screen design: Andrew Thomas

Reissues [edit]

The Nightfly was reissued on various disc formats four times in recent years, each time with a multichannel mix: on DVD-Audio in 2002, on DualDisc in 2004, on MVI in 2007 and on hybrid multichannel SACD in The Warner Premium Sound series by Warner Japan in 2011.[16][17]

The DualDisc has the CD version of the album on the first side, and the DVD-Audio version on the opposite side.[16] This edition is rare—it was among a group of 15 DualDisc releases that were test-marketed in just two cities, Boston and Seattle, and was never reissued after the very limited test market run.

Charts [edit]

Album

Year Chart Position
1982 Black Albums 24
1982 Pop Albums 11
1982 UK Album Chart 44

Singles

Year Single Chart Position
1982 "I.G.Y." Adult Contemporary 8
1982 "I.G.Y." Black Singles 54
1982 "I.G.Y." Mainstream Rock 17
1982 "I.G.Y." Pop Singles 26
1983 "New Frontier" Adult Contemporary 34
1983 "New Frontier" Pop Singles 70

References [edit]

  1. ^ a b Bad Monkey X article: "Donald Fagen: The Nightfly."
  2. ^ a b c d Wall Street Journal article: ""'The Nightfly' Still Lives at 25" by Robert J. Toth].
  3. ^ a b c d The Nightfly at Allmusic
  4. ^ Robert Christgau review
  5. ^ Rolling Stone review
  6. ^ Sputnikmusic review
  7. ^ Uncut, "How to buy Donald Fagen", Jaan Uhelszki, December 2012
  8. ^ Donald Fagen: The Nightfly
  9. ^ "Rolling Stone Music | Album Reviews". Rollingstone.com. 2012-02-28. Retrieved 2012-03-03. 
  10. ^ "Consumer Guide Nov. 2, 1982". Robert Christgau. Retrieved 2012-03-03. 
  11. ^ "Music Reviews". Uncut.co.uk. 2012-02-28. Retrieved 2012-03-03. 
  12. ^ Squires, Nick (2010-02-14). "Vatican picks the Beatles and Oasis among its top ten albums". The Daily Telegraph (London). Retrieved 2010-05-25. 
  13. ^ BBC: Big George's Business of Sound - Industry Interview: Paul White
  14. ^ "Prosoundnetwork Blogs - The "Freebird" of Pro Audio". Prosoundnetwork.com. Retrieved 2012-03-03. 
  15. ^ Steely Dan Interviews: "Interviews - Ben Sidran On Record, interview with Donald Fagen, Part 2. WHA Madison, WI.
  16. ^ a b DVD-A.net: "Donald Fagen - The Nightfly re-releases"
  17. ^ PS3SACD.com: "More Warner albums coming to SACD 5.1"

External links [edit]

Donald Fagen
Studio albums
Singles
Compilations
  • Nightfly Trilogy
Related articles
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