Aja
by Steely Dan
- Type: Album
- Released: September 23, 1977
- Label: ABC
- Country: United States
- Length: 39:54
- Community rating: 4.4/5 from 28 ratings
Artists on this release: Walter Becker, Donald Fagen
Album Notes & Community Reviews
'Aja' represents Steely Dan's full immersion into jazz-rock, featuring longer, harmonically complex compositions realized by an extensive cast of nearly 40 elite session musicians. [1, 3, 2] The album is renowned for its immaculate and pristine production, a collaboration with producer Gary Katz and engineers including Roger Nichols and Bill Schnee, which won a Grammy for Best Engineered Recording and established a new benchmark for audiophile sound quality. [5, 10] With lyrical themes that are at once cynical and melancholic, 'Aja' became the band's most commercially successful release and is preserved in the National Recording Registry as a culturally significant work. [3, 14]
Genres
Descriptors: fusion, sophisticated, polished, complex, sleek
Tracklist
- Black Cow (05:10)
- Aja (07:57)
- Deacon Blues (07:35)
- Peg (03:57)
- Home At Last (05:35)
- I Got The News (05:07)
- Josie (04:33)
Credits
- Donald Fagen - lead vocals, synthesizer, police whistle, backing vocals, piano, rhythm charts prepared by, words by, music by, liner notes
- Walter Becker - electric guitar, bass, guitar solo, rhythm charts prepared by, inside photography, words by, music by, liner notes
- Larry Carlton - guitar, guitar solos, rhythm charts prepared by
- Denny Dias - guitar
- Jay Graydon - guitar solo
- Steve Khan - guitar
- Dean Parks - guitar, rhythm charts prepared by
- Lee Ritenour - guitar
- Chuck Rainey - bass
- Paul Griffin - electric piano, backing vocals
- Michael Omartian - piano, rhythm charts prepared by
- Joe Sample - electric piano, clavinet
- Don Grolnick - clavinet
- Steve Gadd - drums
- Bernard Purdie - drums
- Jim Keltner - drums, percussion
- Rick Marotta - drums
- Paul Humphrey - drums
- Ed Greene - drums
- Gary Coleman - percussion
- Victor Feldman - percussion, piano, electric piano, vibraphone
- Tom Scott - lyricon, tenor saxophone, horn arrangements, conductor
- Jim Horn - saxophones, flutes
- Plas Johnson - saxophones
- Jackie Kelso - saxophones, flutes
- Bill Perkins - saxophones, flutes
- Wayne Shorter - tenor saxophone
- Pete Christlieb - tenor saxophone
- Chuck Findley - brass, trumpet, flugelhorn
- Lou McCreary - brass, trombone
- Dick "Slyde" Hyde - brass, trombone
- Timothy B. Schmit - backing vocals
- Clydie King - backing vocals
- Sherlie Matthews - backing vocals
- Venetta Fields - backing vocals
- Rebecca Louis - backing vocals
- Michael McDonald - backing vocals
- Gary Katz - producer
- Roger Nichols - executive engineer, engineer, remastered by
- Elliot Scheiner - engineer
- Bill Schnee - engineer
- Al Schmitt - engineer
- Stephen Diener - executive producer, liner notes
- Bernie Grundman - mastering
- Patricia Mitsui - design
- Geoff Westen - design
- Hideki Fujii - cover photography
- Dorothy A. White - inside photography
- Sayoko Yamaguchi - model
- Daniel Levitin - consultant
- Joe Bellamy - assistant engineer
- Lenise Bent - assistant engineer
- Ken Klinger - assistant engineer
- Ron Pangaliman - assistant engineer
- Ed Rack - assistant engineer
- Linda Tyler - assistant engineer
- Barbara Miller - production coordination
- Vartan - art direction
- Beth Stempel - reissue coordination
- Michael Phalen - liner notes