Donald Fagen
Morph The Cat

THE REVIEW

Reviewing an album by Donald Fagen is always a little challenge, and the latest one, "Morph The Cat", is no exception. Unfortunately, you can indulge in it very rarely, given that the works published in over two decades are only three: a true killer's pace in the so-called music market. I like to think that he, daily, without worrying about the pressures of many, especially those from record producers, agents, and promoters, with an anachronistic slowness and care, mixing the right doses of laziness, selfishness, respect for fans, and love for music, is there, in that monastic room that appears on the cover, perfecting, retouching songs that are already born with that typical structure; songs that could, if we weren't in the presence of a freak of his stature, alien to any anxiety or greed, certainly see the light in much less than a decade.
But Donald is not an artist for half measures. The times are what they are: take it or leave it. A position made unassailable both by the real "faith" of which he is the object from his many admirers and by the royalties of the long-sellers of Steely Dan, which ensure him the classic "piece of bread" and also a good filling.
A little challenge, as we said, because finding unsullied adjectives and original readings of these pieces is quite difficult. As always, they have the innate gift of classicism, expressing a remarkable balance between pulsating life, unrestrainable passions, feline asociality (The Cat), and formal composure, a true distillation of sounds; one might almost be tempted to say, with apologies to the philosopher, a perfect fusion of "Dionysian" and "Apollonian". The boiling matter of the lyrics, sometimes cryptic and allusive, other times ironic if not caustic, cools down and blends with that unmistakable mix of jazz, pop, blues, which is magnificently developed and refined, of "class", without ever giving the idea of affectation, of excessive formalism.

At first listen to the eight tracks of "Morph The Cat", one is tempted to file everything away with a "good, but very similar to the other two." And the judgment wouldn't be fundamentally wrong, nor could it represent criticism, on the contrary. Some great artists, even in pop, generally modify and rewrite the same work; we are talking, in this case, of those "knights without blemish" who are devoted to the quest for the "Holy Grail" of the perfect-pop-song. Unlike others engaged in the same endless pursuit, Donald is perhaps the one who plays with the cards most on the table, doing the least to disguise it, even avoiding giving the hard-won new tracks a veneer of "originality," good for some newness-stricken fool.
Only upon a closer examination, however, after hearing it several times at different times of the day and night, do they reveal their personality not as mere imitators, all their delicate nuances, those incredible aromas that only ours can render with a mastery and elegance matched only by parsimony. From the sinuous progression of the title track, yet another hymn to wandering and lawless life, with a creamy bass as protagonist leading you with soft steps into the bowels of NYC, to the most "Fagen-esque" of all, "H Gang", an evolution, in the sense that this term assumes for our hero, of more "pop" tracks like "New Frontier"; from the touching imaginary dialogue with The Genius (What I Do / I say "Ray, why do girls treat you nice that way?" / He said it's not what I know / What I think or say...), with a harmonica doubling the track that seems to give voice to the great bluesman, to the mocking jazzy conversation with death in "Brite Nitegown", with a chorus that "pierces" your mind, repeated like a mantra ("You can't fight with the fella / In the Brite Nitegown...").
In "Great Pagoda Of Funn", one of the year's best titles, he makes no qualms about calling upon all his craft to give free rein to his "architectural" ego, a ballad, a musical construction of over 7 minutes, with a "sharp" trumpet and a memorable guitar solo, which should evoke the unconditional admiration of all those who chew music. The unsettling presences of "Mary Shut The Garden Door", perhaps for its groove and lightness, the peak of the album, confirm the artist's ability to make dreamlike visions coexist, in this case almost horror, with sunny and seemingly carefree music.

A work that, as Fagen himself stated, represents the third panel of a triptych, youth - "Nightfly", maturity - "Kamakiriad", the unavoidable confrontation with "the fella in the brite nitegown", or rather, for us Europeans, with the one who plays chess in Bergman's "The Seventh Seal" in "Morph". This has strengthened my idea that Fagen, for realistic attitude, attention to forms, dedication to detail could be compared to a Flemish painter. And if this parallel of mine has a minimum of substance, how is it possible to miss the last "panel" of such a great work, with intense and bright colors, with magnificent chiaroscuros? My advice is not to forgo looking at this triptych in its entirety: the artist deserves it.