Aja
Steely Dan
An Apex of Studio Perfection
Walter Becker and Donald Fagan of Steely Dan had a reputation for fanatical persnicketiness. Working on the later Steely Dan records, they were known to spend expensive days in the studio chasing an ideal thwack on the snare drum, endlessly tweaking (and debating) barely perceptible shadings of sound. The hired guns, crucial to Steely Dan starting with the 1975 Katy Lied, were sometimes baffled by the process. (Fagan once recalled that people would leave their sessions saying things like "But we didn't play any music today.") Still, the ends did justify the means: On the level of pure sonic wizardry, Steely Dan records shine like crazy diamonds. Their razor focus and futuristic gleam catch a sonic ideal nobody else imagined.
The darkly acidic The Royal Scam (1976) marks the beginning of the Dan's obsessive phase, and the lean Aja represents its apex. The seven (!) tracks exist in a kind of hyper-real state, where each snare drum hit is a dagger to the heart. Songs that start with shooping, instantly accessible backbeats wind up deep in graduate metaphysics, where abstraction rules and the "angular banjos" mentioned in the title track serve as pathways to illumination. Embedded within these tunes are chord sequences more demanding than you'll find in most jazz, some built on a tonality Becker and Fagan called "mu major." These provide a platform for broiling extended solos, from Becker on impossibly liquid electric guitar, from the furtive Wayne Shorter on saxophone, and from drummer Steve Gadd, whose melodic excursion through the title track is one of the great drum solos of all time.
Aja marks the rare occasion when a pair of wisecracking music obsessives managed an elaborate, unapologetically sophisticated end run around the lowest-common-denominator mentality of pop radio. Yes, there's a killer sense of the hook at work here. But Becker and Fagan are not going to spoon-feed anybody. Your ears have to adjust to their palette. This happened, en masse, upon Aja's release: Several of the songs became radio hits, and the album went on to sell millions. One explanation for the album's success might be the tones Becker and Fagan spent all that time obsessing over. Most music from 1977 sounds like it was made in 1977. Aja is timeless.
Genre: Rock
Released: 1977, MCA
Key Tracks: "Deacon Blues," "Aja," "Black Cow"
Catalog Choice: Pretzel Logic; The Royal Scam; Gaucho
Next Stop: Donald Fagan: The Nightfly
After That: The Blue Nile: Hats
Book Pages: 738–739
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Comments:
#1 from Duane Howard, Maryland - 10/02/2008 3:36
Back in the day - my high school years (76-78) I was introduced to this album. It still is amongst my all time favorites. When I was in the hospital recovering from a near fatal car accident in the Burn Unit Intensive Care Unit, I knew that I was turning the corner to some normalcy when I was asked if my family could bring anything from home to me - my Steely Dan personal CD with many of the tunes from “Aja” among them. Great medicinal and healing powers for my listening enjoyment! Glad that it made your list also!!
