The Wider Session Circle

A deck by Tessa Mbeki · 34 cards

Every notable session musician who played on a Steely Dan record, plus the artists they collaborated with across the LA and NY studio scene of the 70s and 80s.

Dean Parks

Weldon Dean Parks is an American session guitarist and record producer from Fort Worth, Texas. Parks has one Grammy nomination.

Denny Dias

Dennis Dias is an American guitarist, best known for being a founding member of Steely Dan.

Aretha Franklin

Aretha Louise Franklin was an American singer, songwriter and pianist. Regarded as the "Queen of Soul", she was twice named by Rolling Stone magazine as the greatest singer of all time.

Elliott Randall

Elliott Randall is an American guitarist, best known for being a session musician and performing with popular music artists. Randall played the well-known guitar solos on Steely Dan's song "Reelin' in the Years" and Irene Cara's song "Fame". The former solo was ranked as the 40th best guitar solo of all time by the readers of Guitar World magazine and the eighth best guitar solo by Q4 Music.

Greg Phillinganes

Gregory Arthur Phillinganes (born May 12, 1956) is an American keyboardist, vocalist, and arranger. A session musician, Phillinganes has contributed to numerous albums over a broad array of artists and genres. He has toured with artists including Stevie Wonder, Eric Clapton, David Gilmour, Toto and the Pussycat Dolls, was musical director for Michael Jackson, and has released two solo studio albums.

David Sanborn

David William Sanborn (July 30, 1945 – May 12, 2024) was an American alto saxophonist. He worked in many musical genres; his solo recordings typically blended jazz with instrumental pop and R&B. He began playing the saxophone at the age of 11 and released his first solo album, Taking Off, in 1975. He was active as a session musician and played on numerous albums by artists including Stevie Wonder, Bruce Springsteen, Aretha Franklin, Sting, the Eagles, Rickie Lee Jones, James Brown, George Benson, Carly Simon, Elton John, Bryan Ferry, Ween, and The Rolling Stones. Sanborn released more than 20 albums and won six Grammy awards.

Quincy Jones

Quincy Delight Jones Jr. was an American record producer, composer, arranger, record executive, conductor, trumpeter, film and television producer, and bandleader. During his seven-decade career, he received dozens of accolades, including 28 Grammy Awards, a Primetime Emmy Award, and a Tony Award as well as nominations for seven Academy Awards and four Golden Globe Awards.

Joni Mitchell

Roberta Joan "Joni" Mitchell is a Canadian singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and painter. As one of the most influential singer-songwriters to emerge from the 1960s folk music circuit, Mitchell became known for her personal lyrics and unconventional compositions, which grew to incorporate elements of pop, jazz, rock, and other genres. Among her accolades are eleven Grammy Awards, and induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1997. Rolling Stone, in 2002, named her "one of the greatest songwriters ever", and AllMusic, in a 2011 biography, stated "Joni Mitchell may stand as the most important and influential female recording artist of the late 20th century."

Toto (band)

Toto is an American rock band formed in Los Angeles, California, in 1977. Toto combines elements of pop, rock, soul, funk, prog, hard rock, R&B, blues, and jazz. Having released 14 studio albums and sold over 50 million records worldwide, the group has received several Grammy Awards and was inducted into the Musicians Hall of Fame and Museum in 2009. David Paich (keyboards, vocals) and Jeff Porcaro (drums) had played together as session musicians on several albums and formed the band; David Hungate (bass), Steve Lukather (guitar, vocals), Steve Porcaro (keyboards, vocals), and Bobby Kimball (vocals) were recruited before the release of the band's eponymous debut album in 1978.

Rick Derringer

Richard Dean Zehringer, known professionally as Rick Derringer, was an American guitarist, singer, and songwriter. He gained success in the 1960s with his band, the McCoys. Their debut single, "Hang On Sloopy", became a number-one hit in 1965 and is regarded as a classic track from the garage rock era. The McCoys had seven songs chart in the top 100, including covers of "Fever" and "Come On, Let's Go". After releasing All American Boy, Derringer established a career as a solo artist.

Hugh McCracken

Hugh Carmine McCracken was an American rock guitarist and session musician based in New York City, primarily known for his performance on guitar and also as a harmonica player. McCracken was additionally an arranger and record producer.

Michael McDonald (musician)

Michael Hanley McDonald is an American singer, keyboardist, and songwriter. Known for his distinctive, soulful voice, he was a backing vocalist for Steely Dan from 1973 to 1980 and rose to fame as a lead vocalist of the Doobie Brothers as well as its keyboardist across various stints. McDonald wrote and sang several hit singles with the Doobie Brothers, including "What a Fool Believes", "Minute by Minute", "Takin' It to the Streets", "Real Love" and "It Keeps You Runnin'". McDonald has also performed as a prominent backing vocalist on numerous recordings by artists including Toto, Steely Dan, Christopher Cross, and Kenny Loggins.

James Taylor

James Vernon Taylor is an American singer-songwriter and guitarist.

Wayne Shorter

Wayne Shorter was an American jazz saxophonist, composer, and bandleader, widely regarded as one of the most important and influential figures in the history of modern jazz. Over a career spanning more than six decades, he received 12 Grammy Awards and the Polar Music Prize, and was acclaimed worldwide for his originality, compositional depth, and transformative approach to musical improvisation.

Steve Lukather

Steven Lee Lukather (born October 21, 1957) is an American guitarist, singer, songwriter, arranger, and record producer, best known as the sole continuous founding member of the rock band Toto. His reputation as a skilled guitarist led to a steady flow of session work beginning in the 1970s that has since established him as a prolific session musician, recording guitar tracks for more than 1,500 albums spanning a broad array of artists and genres. He has also contributed to albums and hit singles as a songwriter, arranger, and producer. Notably, Lukather played guitar on Boz Scaggs's albums Down Two Then Left (1977) and Middle Man (1980), and was a prominent contributor to Michael Jackson's Thriller (1982).

Marcus Miller

William Henry Marcus Miller Jr. (born June 14, 1959) is an American musician, songwriter and record producer. He has worked with trumpeter Miles Davis, pianist Herbie Hancock, singer Luther Vandross, and saxophonists Wayne Shorter and David Sanborn, among others. He was the main songwriter and producer on three of Davis's albums: Tutu (1986), Music from Siesta (1987), and Amandla (1989).

Wilton Felder

Wilton Lewis Felder (August 31, 1940 – September 27, 2015) was an American saxophone and bass player, and is best known as a founding member of the Jazz Crusaders, later known as the Crusaders. Felder played bass on the Jackson 5's hits "I Want You Back" (1969) and "ABC" (1970) and on Marvin Gaye's "Let's Get It On" (1973).

Michael Brecker

Michael Leonard Brecker (March 29, 1949 – January 13, 2007) was an American jazz saxophonist and composer. Over a four‑decade career, he recorded widely in jazz and popular music and appeared on more than 900 albums as a leader and sideman. He received 15 Grammy Awards from the Recording Academy, was inducted into the DownBeat Hall of Fame in 2007, and received an honorary doctor of music degree from Berklee College of Music in 2004. He died in New York City in 2007 from complications of leukemia following a 2005 diagnosis of myelodysplastic syndrome.

Jeff Porcaro

Jeffrey Thomas Porcaro was an American drummer and songwriter. He is best known for being the co-founder and drummer of the rock band Toto, but he is also one of the most recorded session musicians in history, working on hundreds of albums and thousands of sessions. While already an established studio player in the 1970s, he came to prominence in the US as the drummer on the Steely Dan album Katy Lied (1975).

Diana Ross

Diana Ross is an American singer and actress. She was the lead singer of the vocal group the Supremes, who became Motown's most successful act during the 1960s and one of the world's best-selling girl groups of all time. They remain the best-charting female group in history, with a total of 12 number-one pop singles on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100.

Paul Simon

Paul Frederic Simon is an American singer-songwriter and guitarist, known for his solo work and his collaborations with Art Garfunkel. He and Garfunkel, whom he met in elementary school in 1953, came to prominence in the 1960s as Simon & Garfunkel. Their blend of folk and rock, including hits such as "The Sound of Silence" (1965), "Mrs. Robinson" (1968), "America" (1968), and "The Boxer" (1969), served as a soundtrack to the 1960s counterculture. Their final album, Bridge over Troubled Water (1970), is among the best-selling of all time.

Larry Carlton

Larry Eugene Carlton (born March 2, 1948) is an American guitarist who built his career as a studio musician in the 1970s and 1980s for acts including Steely Dan and Joni Mitchell. One of the most sought-after guitarists of his era, Carlton has participated in thousands of recording sessions, recorded on hundreds of albums in many genres including more than 100 gold records, in addition to music for television and movies. He was a member of the jazz fusion group the Crusaders and the smooth jazz band Fourplay maintaining a long solo career.

Steve Gadd

Stephen Kendall Gadd (born April 9, 1945) is an American drummer and session musician. Gadd is one of the best-known and most highly regarded session and studio drummers in the industry, recognized by his induction into the Modern Drummer Hall of Fame in 1984. Gadd's performances on Paul Simon's "50 Ways to Leave Your Lover" (1976) and "Late in the Evening" (1980), Herbie Mann's "Hi-jack" (1975) and Steely Dan's "Aja" (1977) are examples of his style. He has worked with other popular musicians from many genres including Van McCoy, Simon & Garfunkel, James Taylor, Chick Corea, Chuck Mangione, Randy Crawford, Eric Clapton, Michel Petrucciani, Paul McCartney, and David Gilmour.

David Paich

David Frank Paich (born June 25, 1954) is an American keyboardist, singer, and songwriter, best known as the co-founder, principal songwriter, keyboardist, and secondary vocalist of the rock band Toto since 1977. He wrote or co-wrote much of Toto's original material, including the band's three most popular songs: "Hold the Line", "Rosanna", and "Africa". With Toto, Paich has contributed to 17 albums and sold over 40 million records. He and guitarist and singer Steve Lukather are the only members to appear on every studio album (Steve Porcaro contributed to every studio album as well, but was not an official member of the band from 1987 to 2010).

Randy Brecker

Randal Edward Brecker (born November 27, 1945) is an American trumpeter, flugelhornist, and composer.

Jeff Baxter

Jeffrey Allen "Skunk" Baxter is an American guitarist, known for his stints in the rock bands Steely Dan and The Doobie Brothers during the 1970s and Spirit in the 1980s. More recently, he has worked as a defense consultant and advised U.S. members of Congress on missile defense. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of The Doobie Brothers in 2020.

Donald Fagen

Donald Jay Fagen (born January 10, 1948) is an American singer-songwriter and musician who is the co-founder, lead singer, co-songwriter, and keyboardist of the rock band Steely Dan, formed in the early 1970s with musical partner Walter Becker. In addition to his contributions to Steely Dan, Fagen has released four solo albums, beginning with The Nightfly in 1982, which was nominated for seven Grammys. In 2001, Fagen was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Steely Dan. Following Becker's death in 2017, Fagen continued to tour using the band name until 2026.

Anthony Jackson (musician)

Anthony Claiborne Jackson (June 23, 1952 – October 19, 2025) was an American bassist. Described as "one of the masters of the instrument", he performed as a session musician and live artist. He is also credited with the development of the modern six-string bass, which he referred to as an electric contrabass guitar.

Rob Mounsey

Rob Mounsey (born December 2, 1952) is an American musician, composer, and arranger.

Phil Woods

Philip Wells Woods was an American jazz alto saxophonist, clarinetist, bandleader, and composer.

Victor Feldman

Victor Stanley Feldman (7 April 1934 – 12 May 1987) was an English jazz musician who played mainly piano, vibraphone, and percussion. He began performing professionally during childhood, eventually earning acclaim in the UK jazz scene as an adult. Feldman emigrated to the United States in the mid-1950s, where he continued working in jazz and also as a session musician with a variety of pop and rock performers.

Bernard Purdie

Bernard Lee "Pretty" Purdie (born June 11, 1939) is an American drummer, and an influential R&B, soul, funk and jazz musician. He is known for his precise time-keeping and his signature use of triplets against a half-time backbeat: the Purdie shuffle. He was inducted into the Modern Drummer Hall of Fame in 2013. Purdie recorded Soul Drums (1968) as a band leader and although he went on to record Alexander's Ragtime Band, the album remained unreleased until Soul Drums was reissued on CD in 2009 with the Alexander's Ragtime Band sessions.

Walter Becker

Walter Carl Becker (February 20, 1950 – September 3, 2017) was an American musician, songwriter, and record producer. He was the co-founder, guitarist, bassist, and co-songwriter of the jazz rock band Steely Dan. Becker met future songwriting partner Donald Fagen while they were students at Bard College. After a brief period of activity in New York City, the two moved to Los Angeles in 1971 and formed the nucleus of Steely Dan, which enjoyed a critically and commercially successful ten-year career.

Chuck Rainey

Charles Walter Rainey III is an American bass guitarist who has performed and recorded with many well-known acts, including Aretha Franklin, Steely Dan, and Quincy Jones. Rainey is credited for playing bass on more than 1,000 albums, and is one of the most recorded bass players in the history of recorded music.