all rights for the music belong to Dan/ Walter Backer, Donald Fagen
all rights for the arrangement reserved by Dirk Radloff
Jimmy: vocals
Dirk: violins, viola, production
Instruments used:
Violin built by Anton Piegendorfer 1902
Violin silver bow built by L.Morizot
Viola built by Jean de la Feniere 1981 (played with the friendly permission of my sister Anja Radloff)
Viola silver bow built by Richard Grünke (played with the friendly permission of my sister Anja Radloff)
I grew up with the art of string-quartet. My father played cello and each sunday he invited friends for chamber-music. He knew many enthusiastic amateur and professional musicians and it became a fixed ritual at home, that musicians came in at sunday (always at 3pm). He organized different sections like Piano-trio, piano-quartet, Octet with brass and woodwinds, but the classic string-quartet together with three friends always remained the basic core.
When the musicians arrived my mother baked some fine cakes. My earliest remembrances are those sundays filled with music and the smell of cake and coffee. I started to play violin at the age of five and around the age of ten me and my little sister were allowed to join the circle and I made my first experiences playing classical music surrounded by tall men.
Later the friends of my father disappeared one by one, I came up through the ranks until I entered the seat of the first violin at home. More and more my own friends from school occupied the other seats at home, but the sunday's ritual still functioned, and my father played cello then surrounded by young boys and girls.
Raised up with chamber-music I became a big admirer of this kind of classical music. Chamber music is less known than the big operas and symphonies, but composers like Beethoven, Schubert, Reger, Debussy and others are acting more progressive and personal within this genre compared to the big works, which are more focused on the the listeners expectations and public success. In my personal opinion for an example Beethoven's best works are not his symphonies and piano-concerts he is known for.
About the cover: \"Throw back the little ones\" was published on \"Katy lied\", an album of the middle period of Steely Dan. As always the meaning of the lyrics is dark and the listener is forced to interpretate. One possible interpretation could be, to see the song as an undercover cop story. The main character \"act like I belong here\" and the \"little ones\" and \"big ones\" could be his informants in the scene.
This is a less well-known Steely Dan-song, but one of my favorites, probably because there are so many classical elements hidden here, from the baroque-like sequenced intro-melody to the Debussy chord-shifts and sound-paintings in the bridge and at the end. And there is another thing, which reminds me on string-quartet: The independence of the voices during the middle-section. There are many string-quartet arrangements of popular music on the market, but often I just miss the lyrics and the vocals. It's the hardest part of a song-arrangement to transfer the vocals to an instrument. The vocal-melodies of Rock and Pop-music are often simple and depending on the lyrics. It's very hard to transform the vocals to an interesting instrument-part without changing the melody too much. That's the reason because I have arranged for string-quartet plus singer, because pure string-quartet arrangements of Rock-music are often not satisfying.
Again I am very happy to work with J.Rivas, who also loves the music of Steely Dan.
Recording notes: First I programmed the cello-part using the great VSL-library. Then I heavily modified the tempo-curve to achieve natural rubato and ritardando. Then I added a click-track and recorded the viola (Many thanks to my sister, who borrowed her viola), then the second and first violin.
