Photo: Mick Hutson/Redferns 
 
 Walter Becker, the co-founder and guitarist of rock powerhouse Steely Dan, has died at the age of 67. His official website confirmed the news without a cause of death — although his health had been declining in recent months due to an unspecified illness, as he was unable to join Steely Dan for their summer Classic West and Classic East sets. Becker and his fellow co-founder Donald Fagen met at Bard College in the late 1960s, choosing to pursue the famously dry-humored band together after working for a brief period as songwriters. What ultimately ensued was over decade of seminal albums — including Can’t Buy a Thrill, Countdown to Ecstasy, Pretzel Logic, and Aja — assisted by a rotation of supporting musicians, which culminated with the band being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2001. They even released two albums in the new millennium after a long hiatus, frequently touring around the country until Becker’s health problems began earlier this year. 
 
 “I’m not interested in a rock-jazz fusion,” Becker explained to Rolling Stone in 1974. “That kind of marriage has so far only come up with ponderous results. We play rock and roll, but we swing when we play. We want that ongoing flow, that lightness, that forward rush of jazz.” 
 
 In a lengthy and poignant statement released to Variety, Fagen reflected on his long-time friend, writing partner, and bandmate. “He was cynical about human nature, including his own, and hysterically funny. Like a lot of kids from fractured families, he had the knack of creative mimicry, reading people’s hidden psychology and transforming what he saw into bubbly, incisive art,” he wrote. “I intend to keep the music we created together alive as long as I can with the Steely Dan band.” ||||| Walter Becker, the guitarist and songwriter who made suavely subversive pop hits out of slippery jazz harmonies and verbal enigmas in Steely Dan, his partnership with Donald Fagen, died on Sunday. He was 67. 
 
 His death was announced on his official website, which gave no other details. 
 
 [Mr. Becker’s wife, Delia Becker, said in a statement on Nov. 15 that he had died at their home in New York City “in the course of being treated for an extremely aggressive form of esophageal cancer.” He also had a home in Maui, Hawaii.] 
 
 Mr. Becker was unable to perform with Steely Dan this summer at Classic West and Classic East in Los Angeles and New York City, two stadium-size festivals of 1970s bands. Last month, Mr. Fagen told Billboard, “Walter’s recovering from a procedure and hopefully he’ll be fine very soon.” 
 
 As Steely Dan, Mr. Becker and Mr. Fagen changed the vocabulary of pop in the 1970s with songs like “Do It Again,” “Reelin’ in the Years,” “Rikki Don’t Lose That Number” and “Peg.” Mr. Becker and Mr. Fagen were close collaborators on every element of a song: words, music, arrangement. “We think very much the same musically. I can start songs and Walter can finish them,” Mr. Fagen said in a 1977 interview.
– Walter Becker, one half of the legendary rock duo Steely Dan, died Sunday at the age of 67, the New York Times reports. Becker, a guitarist, bassist, and vocalist, formed the band with Donald Fagen in 1972 after the two men met at Bard College in the late 1960s. Together they became one of the most successful rock acts of the 1970s, creating a sound that owed as much to jazz as rock and roll. Since forming, the band has sold more than 40 million albums worldwide and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2001. After breaking up for most of the 80s the band re-formed in 1993 and won the Grammy award for album of the year that year. While the cause of Becker's death has yet to be announced, he had been suffering from an undisclosed illness in recent months that kept him off recent Steely Dan shows, Vulture reports. In a statement released Sunday, Fagen says he intends to "keep the music we created together as long as I can with the Steely Dan band."