Remembering Walter Becker, John Ashberry, Larry Elgart

In the late 1960’s, Walter Becker, a precocious but desultory student from Manhattan, attended Bard College and met another student, Donald Fagen. The two of them went on to form the rock band Steely Dan, which combined jazz and rock rhythms with erudite lyrics. Steely Dan became one of the seminal bands of the 1970’s. John Ashberry was an American poet and novelist, who won a Pulitzer Prize in 1976 for his poetry collection, Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror. Larry Elgart was a big-band leader who penned the memorable song “Bandstand Boogie” that became the familiar theme to the long-running television show American Bandstand (1952-1989).