Bodhisattva by Steely Dan

In Buddhist teaching, a Bodhisattva is a highly enlightened being. In Steely Dan history, “Bodhisattva” was the leadoff track to the second album Countdown to Ecstasy, which was where the band’s highbrow jazz-rock leanings really made themselves known.

Though they’d later become a studio project with rotating members, at this point Steely Dan was still a full-fledged band, with a mighty double-guitar frontline in Denny Diaz and Jeff Skunk Baxter. The latter has an especially unique career trajectory: After Steely Dan he became a Doobie Brother, then went onto work for the Pentagon as a missile defense consultant.

One of the first artists ever to record a song by Steely Dan masterminds Walter Becker and Donald Fagen was Barbra Streisand.

Steely Dan didn’t get their reputation as a serious-chops band for nothing. This incredibly tough song has a lot of jazz/swing influence, so you’ll need to have the right feel if you’re playing on Expert drums.

Drummer Jim Hodder didn’t play any two verses the same way, so this song is a real challenge to streak. Particularly toward the end of the guitar solo, there are a lot of light fills and flying snare hits. Take time to develop a swing feel, prepare your left hand to work hard and brace yourself for a lot of tough double-strokes.

The guitar part isn’t much easier. The good news: During the first solo there’s a call-and-response part between guitar and keyboard; the keyboard parts aren’t mapped so you get a couple bars to breathe. That’s it though, and the end solo hits you with a wall of notes that could still wipe you out after you’ve mastered the rest.

The solo has a pattern of three ascending notes that you have to hammer on, then it nails you with a ridiculously fast trill. So if you’ve used up your Overdrive before it hits, you may fail out of the song seconds before its Big Rock Ending.

We don’t want to be doomsayers here; but our in-house expert who beat both “Battery” and “Panic Attack” couldn’t get through this one.

Steely Dan reunited in the late '90s with Becker and Fagen at the helm; they’ve since toured more often than the original band did in the '70s.