The effect heightened as Fagen and Becker systematically fired all of their band’s other members, and replaced them with industry-standard jazz, soul, and blues musicians. The result is a moment like “I run to you” on “Aja,” where the song seems to come totally unmoored. Still, the extended sessions allowed Fagen and Becker to explore entirely new corners of the their self-taught musical minds. “We overdubbed a lot of the overdubs over,” Becker joked with Cameron Crowe in 1977, and he wasn’t really kidding. Aja ended up taking a year and half to record, with studio expenses piling up into the hundreds of thousands of dollars. At this point, that had become the norm, rather than the exception. Shorter was brought in later and taped his answering solo over their already completed parts. Gadd recorded his titanic drum fills live - and, he’s said, in one surprising take no less - with the rest of the legendarily picky members of Steely Dan.
But even the fiery interplay between drummer Steve Gadd and saxophonist Wayne Shorter was more the product of studio wizardry than in-studio camaraderie. The eight-minute title song to Steely Dan’s best-selling album brilliantly combines jazz and rock. His comment embodied a common-man criticism made about Steely Dan by their detractors: The unit, who stated their claim in the pop sphere with clean, blues-steeped singles like 1972’s “Reelin’ in the Years” and “Do It Again,” had gradually but consistently ceased to resemble a meat-and-potatoes rock band, instead spiraling off into groovier, jazz-inspired pop experimentalism. “They’re doing too many things at once in a song.” Burroughs, who had no personal connection to the band, had been asked to comment on Aja, Steely Dan’s new record, because co-founder Walter Becker and Donald Fagen had named themselves after “ Steely Dan III from Yokohama,” the surreal dildo featured in Burroughs’ most notorious novel Naked Lunch. These people are too fancy, they’re too sophisticated,” William S. Then again, is this a rock album? The nearly eight-minute opus has been described by Donald Fagen as being about “tranquility that can come of a quiet relationship with a beautiful woman.” The title track is the antithesis of what should be on a rock album. You wouldn’t think it was recorded anywhere else in the world. Ian Dury once said of this album, “Well, Aja’s got a sound that lifts your heart up… and it’s the most consistent up-full, heart-warming…even though, it is a classic L.A. You have to appreciate that the beauty of Steely Dan’s music is found in its sonic flawlessness enveloping sharp and intelligent lyrics. Becker, Fagen and crew ease you into Aja with “Black Cow,” a song about a man who grows fed up with his lover’s pill addiction and continuous infidelity. Admittedly, I’ve always found it silly to criticize a band for being too proficient at their job. One of the many signature qualities of this album is that it is impeccably produced, a fact that has garnered both praise and condemnation. But on ‘Aja,’ they reveal a warm, beating heart beneath that steely exterior.
Band leaders Donald Fagen and Walter Becker have been criticized for their coldness. They were never as sharp or as focused as they are on ‘Aja,’ their 1977 hit that balances cool jazz with timeless pop appeal. Steely Dan’s records were pristine to the point where you could eat off their glistening surfaces.
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