John Hancotte's Bass Desires: Break Out the Hats and Hooters: Josie's Come Home to Smith's Olde Bar

Photo by Alma Cabel Dytoc
Reelin' In The Dan - the debut performance at Smith's Olde Bar, December 26, 2013
L-R: Reese Boyd, George Price, Adrian Ash, Lefty Williams, John Hancotte, Featuring Trenton Sicola, Mac Isseks, William Hollifield, Jason Passmore, Jeff Fritz (behind the horns), Tom Olsen (arrived for the 2nd set).

Lo and behold, the Steely Dan jam that took place in late November has morphed into a gigging entity. After much discussion, the moniker Reelin' In The Dan was born. The band has a web presence on facebook here: Reelin' In The Dan. The lineup is loose and the playing is tight, out of necessity.

The players (debut performance):
lead vocals: Featuring Trenton Sicola
guitars: Jason "Lefty" Williams, Reese Boyd, George "Santa" Price
keyboards: Jeff Fritz, Tom Olsen
horns: Jason Passmore, William Hollifield, Mac Isseks
drums: Adrian Ash
bass: Walter Becker (ha, just seeing who's paying attention here)

The post-Thanksgiving jam worked extremely well, as there were a large number of participants and the repertoire was well represented. Everybody was assigned tunes and many of these players ended up doing their homework to learn a few tunes solely for this gig. For this band, well, the workload is daunting. This gig came about with very little heads up, and the day after Christmas to boot. Not exactly the easiest time of year to set aside hours to prep the material, individually or as a group. As it stood, we knew what we knew and not a lick extra. Good and bad in that mindset. Good to leave the crowd wanting more. Bad in that the show was (imho) a bit skimpy. We got through it, but the parts were not exact studio replications.

So yes, it's a lot of work to be done, especially for the horns. Those parts need to be transcribed. I made my share of charts, many as simple chord charts, but I do seek out bass transcriptions on occasion. I have a good one for Kid Charlemagne, which to me is the toughest one on bass. Chuck Rainey made a beast of a bass groove on that track, full of ghost notes, syncopated 16-note fingerstyle funk plus slapped passages, double-stop neck-length slides, and all over a typical Becker/Fagen chord construction with a zany guitar solo section that is completely left of center. How Larry Carlton played what he did over those changes makes that solo even more iconic. I will spend much time with that chart. It represents a transcendent performance that could be faked with a simple pseudo-funk groove, but digging into a chart like this one can really open up some fresh vistas for future creativity. Okay, my words may have left you wanting to check it out. Here it is, with much thanks to the transcribers at www.thebassment.info:

We had a good turnout that was very enthusiastic. Hey, even if the performance would have ultimately made Mr. Fagen sneer at our vocal harmonies and Mr. Becker listen with disdain to our trashcan endings, it still felt good to get up there and have a whack at the fabled songbook. Highlights included a great opening of Josie, a fun 'n bluesy romp through Show Biz Kids, the effervescent magic that is Black Cow, and a fine extended coda on FM. The encores only highlighted the fact that we need to bring more of the goods for next time. A lot of my personal preferences were not on the list. Still, nice to be a part of a fun and apparently rather desirable project. Also a chilled-out chance to play at the storied Smith's Olde Bar in Midtown/Morningside once again. That area goes back to my salad days of blues at Fat Matt's Rib Shack and hanging with my wife Binnie at the old apartment before dogs, kids, and houses. We had time to have fun and be a part of the scene. Smith's still has that youthful vibe about it, after all of these years. It still has that daunting load-in and out with that equivalent of 2 flights of stairs in 1 pass. I don't think I'll ever forget Lefty managing to hoist my 410 cabinet (85 or 90 lbs) up the fire escape steps without even wincing. I feel like I'm in good shape, but I still dread and sweat it more than I should. He made it look easy, somehow...

So here are some pics,most taken before we started up - there are some green things in the "green room" you just don't wanna touch! We had a tub of beers on ice, and to Lefty's credit, they were upgraded sometime during the early evening from Miller Lite to the likes of Sweetwater and Amstell. It should be noted that to Jeff's credit, we see him quaffing a bottled water in the shot below. He was rumored to be a bit parched prior to the hit. Now, there were 11 of us up there by the 2nd set on this semi-circular stage. It's no wonder that one of us was rumored to have fallen off the edge (literally) at one point! William S. Burroughs and his Naked Lunch just might have approved!