The Purdie Shuffle and Extended Jazz Chords: Inside Steely Dan’s “Babylon Sisters”

Music Radar has published a new analysis of “Babylon Sisters,” the opening track from Steely Dan’s 1980 album Gaucho. The piece, which runs through the session lore and musical nuts and bolts, landed as renewed interest in the album’s production continues to circulate among engineers and players.

Gaucho took two years to finish, with Walter Becker and Donald Fagen cycling through some of the most respected session musicians in the country. Songs were recut repeatedly. The bills piled up. By the time it was released, the record was reportedly the most expensive ever made.

For “Babylon Sisters,” drummer Bernard Purdie was brought in. He showed up with two banners that he placed on either side of his kit, both reading “You done hired the hit-maker.” The track rides on what became known as the Purdie shuffle, a half-time feel with ghost notes and a steady backbeat that Purdie had developed earlier in his career. The analysis traces how that groove locks with the song’s extended jazz chords, pulling the harmony toward something closer to a big band arrangement than a pop structure.

Music Radar’s breakdown includes audio examples and transcribed parts, making a case for why this particular track has remained a reference point for studio drumming and chord voicing. The article is less an anniversary piece than a technical read on a recording that still gets studied.