The Nightfly

The Nightfly
Studio album by Donald Fagen
Released	October 29, 1982
Recorded	1982 Soundworks Digital Audio/Video Recording Studios, N.Y., Village Recorders, L.A. and Automated Sound, N.Y
Genre	Jazz, pop
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. 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. 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."

Background

The Nightfly was recorded shortly after Steely Dan's final album before their extended hiatus, 1980's Gaucho. It was Donald Fagen's debut solo album, and also the first music project of his adult life not to include longtime musical compadre and co-conspirator, Walter Becker.

Production

Composition

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."

Recording sessions

The Nightfly was recorded in 1982 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.

Artwork

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 44DX). 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."

Reception

Professional ratings
Review scores
Source	Rating
Allmusic
Robert Christgau	(A)
Rolling Stone
Uncut

Reviews

The Nightfly was met with almost universally positive reviews. Rolling Stone, The Village Voice and Uncut 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."

In February 2010, Vatican City's L'Osservatore Romano appointed The Nightfly to its official Top 10 Albums list. 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.

Sales charts

The Nightfly reached the #11 position on the US Billboard Charts, and the #24 position on the US Billboard R&B charts. 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

Legacy in the digital music community

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." 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.

Notable cover versions

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.

Track listing (Original LP Release)

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

Personnel

• Donald Fagen - organ, synthesizer, harmonica, horn, keyboards, electric piano, vocals, background vocals, synthesizer harp
• Dave Bargeron - trombone, euphonium, horn, background vocals
• Michael Brecker - tenor saxophone
• Randy Brecker - trumpet, flugelhorn
• Larry Carlton - guitar
• Ronnie Cuber - horn, baritone saxophone
• Rick Derringer - guitar
• Frank "Harmonica Frank" Floyd - background vocals
• James Gadson - drums
• Ed Greene - drums
• Gordon Grody - vocals, background vocals
• Anthony Jackson - bass
• Steve Jordan - drums
• Steve Khan - acoustic guitar
• Abraham Laboriel - bass
• Daniel Lazerus - background vocals
• Will Lee - bass
• Hugh McCracken - guitar, harmonica
• Leslie Miller - vocals, background vocals
• Marcus Miller - bass
• Rob Mounsey - synthesizer, horn, keyboards
• Roger Nichols - percussion, special effects
• Michael Omartian - piano, keyboards, electric piano
• Dean Parks - guitar
• Greg Phillinganes - synthesizer, piano, keyboards, electric piano, clavinet, synthesizer bass
• Jeff Porcaro - drums
• Chuck Rainey - bass
• Zachary Sanders - vocals, background vocals
• Valerie Simpson - vocals, background vocals
• David Tofani - horn, alto saxophone
• Starz Vanderlocket - percussion, background vocals
• Paul Shaffer - organ

Production

• 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

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.

The DualDisc has the CD version of the album on the first side, and the DVD-Audio version on the opposite side. 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

Album

Year	Chart	Position
1982	Black Albums	24
1982	Pop Albums	11

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

External links

• Complete lyrics
• Gioia, Ted. "The Nightfly Revisited". Jazz.com. http://www.jazz.com/jazz-blog/2008/2/17/the-nightfly-revisited.