Steely Dan reached their immaculate peak with Aja. Released in 1977, the album is a masterclass in studio craft, folding jazz, rock, funk and pop into something impossibly sleek without sanding away its personality. Walter Becker and Donald Fagen were already obsessive perfectionists, but here that obsession becomes the whole aesthetic.
Black Cow opens with a deep, lazy groove before the title track stretches out into one of the duo’s most ambitious pieces, complete with Wayne Shorter’s extraordinary saxophone solo and Steve Gadd’s famously explosive drumming. Deacon Blues is pure Steely Dan melancholy, while Peg, Home At Last and Josie glide on grooves so polished they almost feel frictionless.
The musicianship across Aja is ridiculous, but it never becomes empty virtuosity. Every note serves the song, every arrangement is packed with detail, and Fagen’s dry, sardonic writing gives the pristine surfaces just enough dirt underneath. Sophisticated, strange and endlessly replayable, Aja remains one of the defining studio albums of the 1970s.
TRACKS:
Side A
Black Cow
Aja
Deacon Blues
Side B
Peg
Home At Last
I Got The News
Josie
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