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103 of 108 found the following review helpful:
Timeless masterpiece, a landmark album of sheer beauty Apr 03, 2000
By Sharon A.
Not many albums have influenced me as much as Steely Dan's Aja. Donald Fagen and Walter Becker have created a most unique flavour of Jazz meets Rock where beatiful melodies, genius production and perfect performance blend to produce a timeless masterpiece. This album should be on the A-List of everyone who appreciates the beauty of music. The album is full of complex musical concepts which immediately remind the progressive rock fan some of the common manoeuvres in classic progressive rock albums. Take the title song "Aja" for example. This piece takes you on a eight minutes ride to diverse musical patterns that vary between rock and jazz moods, amplified by rich orchestration. Other songs such as "Decon Blues" and "Home At Last" constantly prove to be intriguing while "Black Cow" is captivating. The presence of saxophonist Wayne Shorter on "Aja" is blessed - as a serious Shorter's fan I was delighted to see his inclusion on the album and I regard this decision as a wise one - the solo part he plays is terrific, bringing his genius and gifts to combine perfectly with the different environment he plays in. I would also like to add it is worthwhile for Steely Dan fans to get the remastered version of the album, just for the sound quality. Usually I cannot tell the difference, but since I had the original CD release and heard it so much, I could compare. The difference is amazing, the quality is much better - you can actually hear new sounds and appreciate the separation of the different instruments. The liner notes are quite disappointing, so I ordered the DVD to learn more about making of this unusual album. This album made me buy all of Steely Dan's albums, so if you like it I would recommend underrated "The Royal Scam" and "Countdown to Ecstasy" albums, although all are excellent. Get this album, it may be one of your best musical purchases ever. I know my getting to know it was a bless.
39 of 40 found the following review helpful:
The ultimate jazzy funky rock album. So outrageous! Sep 18, 2007
By K. Swanson
5.5 stars
I've lived my life with Aja as a chief soundtrack since it came out. I got it as a kid for Peg, and it has matured like excellent wine since.
The older I get, the better this album gets. On the walkman throughout my travels in various continents, in my car as I went coast to coast many times a year, on the turntable for many sweet evenings watching sunsets fade into the gloaming....Aja never fails. Perfect background music that opens up like a 100-year lotus to reveal, upon serious listening, many layers of harmonic and melodic and rhythmic sophistication.
Plus you can play it over and over back to back, and it just never seems to get boring. I can't think of many other recordings of any sort of music that hold up this well after a thousand or so listenings; maybe Kind of Blue, certain Bach pieces, Segovia's finest moments, and that's all that comes immediately to mind. Whatever mood you're in, Aja will heighten its highs and temper its lows. It's magic!
Don and Wally hit it way out of the park with this one. Seven perfect songs, not one second of fluff, some insanely great guitar solos, one of the best drum solos on record (Steve Gadd on the title track), a great Wayne Shorter alto solo on the same cut, Larry Carlton's inimitable snappy edge on Josie, lyrics that never grow old in their elliptical irony ("I cried when I wrote this song, sue me if I play too long"), and simply gorgeous production make this a gem beyond gems.
This may have been the peak of analog production; the ride cymbals breathe and shimmer, the Strat tones are snappy and fat, Chuck Rainey's bass on Peg pumps and pops, and on and on. Some of the greatest studio players ever are here, and at their best.
The title track is my favorite Dan tune of them all, except maybe Your Gold Teeth II. You can just float away into heaven behind this song.
No praise is too high for Aja; if you don't own this, no matter what kind of music you like, buy it. You will not be disappointed. It's like a friend that never lets you down.
66 of 76 found the following review helpful:
Their best album Aug 22, 2003
By D. H. Richards
"ninthwavestore"
Ask yourself this, if you have a decent "classic rock" station in your hometown: when you look at the track list to Aja what songs do you see that you might have heard played? Chances are you will have said "Deacon Blues," "Peg," "Josie." Dig a little deeper and you might have heard "Home At Last," "Aja" and "Black Cow." Heck, I know I have heard "I Got The News" on a deep cuts show or two. That's every durn cut on the album. That's how classic this set is. Yes, it is the height of the California sound- smoothed out jazz flavored mellow weed influenced yuppie music, but damn if there has ever been any record that goes down smoother. This is math music, every note laid down precisely. No room here for the wonderful noise of punk that was bubbling up at the time. And unlike say, Gaucho or Everything Must Go, Aja manages to inject some real soul into the music. Simply put Aja is Donald and Wally at their best of best.
15 of 15 found the following review helpful:
Be cautious if you buy this album.... Feb 10, 2003
I've been listening to this album (started with the LP in 1977, wore that out until the CD came out) for a long, long time. Each listen still brings a previously unheard riff. Be careful if you are not a jazz fan. Prior to getting into Steely Dan in 1977, I was listening mostly to Top 40 pop. Having listened to Aja and absolutely being engrossed by it, I read the liner notes, noted the talented musicians who played and next thing I know, I'm buying albums by Lee Ritenour, Victor Feldman, Larry Carlton, etc. For me, Steely Dan's Aja suddenly became a one way bridge from pop to the wonderful world of jazz, it changed my musical tastes. This is the album for me to take "If you would be sent to a deserted island with only one CD..."
18 of 19 found the following review helpful:
Never Eat Anything Bigger Than Your Head Aug 04, 2007
By Eclectic Galaxie
There's an old joke that goes something like this: Never eat anything bigger than your head, and never eat anything that looks like puke. But I break both those rules every time I eat pizza.
I have a few musical rules - not hard and fast, but things that describe my tastes fairly accurately. I don't like music that is pretentious, jazz that is too clean, rock that doesn't rock, or bands that don't perform live. I break all those rules every time I listen to any of my Steely Dan albums, which include all of them up to Gaucho.
Aja is a record that has an inexplicable hold over me. I was already a Dan fan when this crown jewel was released. I was turning 20, maybe that just has more to do with it than anything else. Aja is anti-punk... it's the epitome of musicianship applied to pop/rock/fusion/jazz. It is everything punk set out to puncture. If Aja taught me anything, it taught me not to make rules.
Oddly enough, though I consider an album of this stature to be timeless, every track on it sounds, well, so 1977 to me. It still evokes the same emotions, the same drifting images, the same self-definition I was making for myself then. It IS timeless, but at the same time, re-living these sensations makes me very much aware of the 30 years that have passed in between. It makes me feel old, because it conjures up my youth in such a specific way. And I first noticed this about it 18 years ago.
I don't know what else to say that hasn't been said. Black Cow got stuck in my head earlier this week, and that caused me to get out Aja for a play, and it all came back to me again. The title song Aja may be the only purely sonic narcotic ever burned onto a master tape. It's not just a song about drugs, it IS a drug. And I can get wasted on it stone cold sober. After Wayne Shorter's orgasmic tenor sax solo, there's one more chorus and the song fades - with the trailing piano chords still unresolved. The song haunts me like some unfinished love affair from those days, until it calls out to me again.
What I find fascinating is the comparison to the Doobie Brothers of the same time period. I see the similarities, and recognize the names - many of the same personnel playing on the recordings. But to me the Doobies are just take-it-or-leave-it pop, and I could never stand Michael McDonald's pretentious vocals. Yet I can listen to Donald Fagen's ultra-pretentious delivery and sarcastic lyrics over and over and over.
I guess I just don't know what's good for me, or how to make rules.
Simply one of the best albums ever, of any genre.
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