The Steely vibe. Some of the finest music ever produced by real composers. I became addicted in 1972, and I don't need no treatment. Too much is never enough.

All aboard first class coach to the 70’s.

Steve Gadd on drums is phenomenal on this track. The album Aja is one of the greatest albums of all time.

AJA 1978 ALBUM of the YEAR. Against Hundreds of other competitors. Taylor Swift would not have even been in the running in 1978...

SD is definitely a band's 'band.' Very tasty, well done music and engineering, don't deny yourselves some of the finest music ever recorded.

So complex and jazzy....the great Steve Gadd on drums and Wayne Shorter on sax.....magnificent! My favorite from SD.

Aja is the names of a woman. Donald Fagen of Steely Dan (the vocalist) had a friend in high school whose older brother went to South Korea, met a girl there, married her and brought her back to the US. Her name was Aja. Fagen has said that they named the song after her to symbolize music that goes with the tranquility of a relationship with a beautiful woman.

There is so much good stuff from Steely Dan, it's hard to recommend any one song...or for that matter, any one album. I could listen to them for hours.

Steely Dan is the band that kept on giving! The Aja album is a classic! Everything on it is a masterpiece! For that matter everything in their catalog is great! Time to go down that rabbit hole!

Donald and Walter(RIP) have never produced a song that I didn't like. I remember buying this album when I was 14(I had a paper route so I had some $ 😉) and listening to it endlessly. Their use of studio musicians was epic. Thanks guys😊

Rick Beato said two of the best drum solos ever are in this song.

@chrisegbertky

2 ай бұрын

The same freaking song!

Black Cow , great one too

Almost everyone I knew liked this album & band. Deacon Blue was on this album & Peg & Big Black Cow 🐄 ! Amazing 👏

@jaymacgee_A_Bawbag_Blethering

2 ай бұрын

💯 man 👍🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

Genius on every level,,,,,,some of my favorite music of all time

The Aja album is Steely Dan's greatest masterpiece and one of the most influential albums of the last several decades.

If it's possible to make immaculate music...SD definitely does.

I almost always have to add this text I found concerning Steve Gadd's great playing on this track. As it’s going on, both Walter and I [are looking at each other]. For whatever reasons each of us had, we had never hired Steve [before this session]. And as we got to the end, it was just so fantastic, Walter turned to me and he said, “Maybe we’ve made a mistake.” That’s the only time he played that track, was the first time. Months go by and we were mixing in New York because we’re not particularly fast about how we do things. We were just about finished with the mix of “Aja” at A&R with Elliot Scheiner. It’s as good as you can imagine something sounding on those speakers in the control room. It was magically great. Someone walked in and said, “Hey, you know Steve is down the hall, he’s playing with Michael Franks.” I said, “Oh, cool, Donald, I’ll go down and let him know we’re here.” I did that and he was finishing up. When he was done, he came in and said [his greetings]. He was feeling good. I said, “Sit down, I want to play you something.” We played him “Aja,” which was finished. He sat right between the Altec 604 Utility [speaker] cabinets. It was great sounding. The track ends and he said, “Wow, who is playing drums?” Donald, Walter and I, Roger Nichols and Elliot, are just looking at each other. Because he wasn’t kidding. I say, “You are, stupid!” He went, “Really? I’m a mother****er!” It’s the best laugh we had in all of the years. Read More: The Steely Dan Song Steve Gadd Didn't Remember Playing On | ultimateclassicrock.com/gary-katz-steely-dan-aja-interview-2022/?

I love Steely Dan and even got to see them free of charge at a place called the Bombay Rock, on the Gold Coast, Australia. It didn't even click to me that it was them until a friend asked me if I saw them, playing under the alias of My old school, which is one of their songs. Duh! I remember thinking that the keyboard player looked and sounded just like their keyboard player, who played for Jackson Browne and sang stay. 😅 They didn't play any of their regular stuff. My friend said she read an article about them missing the old club scene and just being a regular band. I remember thinking they did an excellent job sounding like Steely Dan. 🤣😝💖

You can never go wrong with Steely Dan.

I love Donald Fagen's voice and when you add All-World level musicians like Denny Dias, Larry Carleton, Walter Becker on guitar, Chuck Rainey on bass, Wayne Shorter on Sax and last but not least Steve Gadd on drums (his performance on this song was voted one of the best drum solos of all time).

Everything SD had done before all came together on this album. Great to see you both closing your eyes and getting drawn in. Aja is a person by the way. For me their stand out albums are this (Aja), Pretzel Logic and The Royal Scam

Steve Gadd on drums.

Their magnum Opus!

@DavidSaum-is6xm

2 ай бұрын

Prefer Pretzel Logic

@GP-mw8ce

2 ай бұрын

@@DavidSaum-is6xmI love all their albums

Donald Fagen & Walter Becker were master arrangers and it shows.....great reaction thanks guys 👍

It's a good day for music 😊

@jaymacgee_A_Bawbag_Blethering

2 ай бұрын

Aye Sir Col , your not wrong ✊ 👍🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

Yes, insanely good! There's a short documentary on youtube on the making of this tune. Worth reading more about SD on Wiki and elsewhere. The Aja album is phenomenal. My personal favorite albums are Aja and Gaucho. But their whole catalog is brilliant. Enjoy.

As most rock nerds, I always ponder wonder: what if Purdie? and other drums-erm-yeah-induced reveries.

Ive just seen both posts … it’s gonna be a GOOD DAY ! 😃 👍🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

@SPKdesign1

2 ай бұрын

Your in a guid mood then.

@jaymacgee_A_Bawbag_Blethering

2 ай бұрын

@@SPKdesign1 morning tae ye ! Yes I am sir ! Had a good sleep last night , woke up n seen these 2 bangers n thought .. AYE ! It’s gonna be ok today 😄.. you ok ? 👍🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

"This is insanely good" Yup. I really enjoy SD reactions and reactions to Aja are especially welcome, particularly when it's smart people. You both appeared to be glancing across at each other (I assume for endorsement). I've been enjoying this song for 47 years and it's a desert island choice. It doesn't suffer from repeated listening at all. They have plenty of zingers, but this one is top tier, even for them. You really should know it already.

I think that is Steve Gadd on drums on this one; tough to be sure since they used a revolving door of session musicians by this time. This is undeniably great, but I prefer Steely Dan when they were still, more or less, a band. Lol, I can tell you that this was a go to album for demonstrating high end stereo equipment back in the day.

Yes, great song great songwriters. Donald Fagen is a legend. Nice to see you listening to these wonderful songs.

Ah, high school. 😊

the great steve gadd on drums look him up and see how many recordings he's appear and on tenor sax the maestro wayne shorter played with miles davis and other jazz artist r.i.p. !

@todwest

2 ай бұрын

Gadd did it in two takes. Totally improvised. Just ridiculous.

This was the first recording that I had ever heard using a police whistle!

I paid no mind to this band until I moved to Australia. The lady, who would become my wife, got the 'Aja' album fresh off the press, and would play it night and day. I was well versed in prog-rock and jazz-fusion, but I just didn't get too close to Steely Dan's music. Can't say Dan's music changed my entire life after Aja, but it did expand my taste.

THANK YOU, TRY DONALD FAGEN FROM STEELY DAN, The Goodbye Look

i can see a bar brawl happening during this song, lol...

This is their best song. I think I can definitively say that! Deacon Blues is next best.

@hanierfamily

2 ай бұрын

We did that one

@kentclark6420

2 ай бұрын

@@hanierfamily You're doing a good job!

@kentclark6420

2 ай бұрын

@@hanierfamily I got a reply in your name, one of those computer-generated things, I guess. I didn't respond.

@hanierfamily

2 ай бұрын

@@kentclark6420 actually, we responded. We have a video of Deacon Blues. We decided to check it out after we did a reaction to a band by the name of Deacon Blue.

@kentclark6420

2 ай бұрын

@@hanierfamily I mean I got one of those telegram things, aside from your reply.

Sign in Stranger for funk! Next

Excellent, but it should be. They never toured so they could be singularly focused on writing. ELP, Zep, and all the rest toured in huge venues ongoing so had to tour and write.

Steve Gadd on drums Wayne Shorter on sax Steve Gadd has played drums on probably every song that’s ever been recorded. Not really, but an incredible amount.

@kentclark6420

2 ай бұрын

Did he play with Zappa?

@parrothd007

2 ай бұрын

@@kentclark6420 No. But…. From Wikipedia… “Zappa's dialogue in the Joe's Garage recording also lampoons Steve Gadd's status as one of the highest-paid session drummers in popular music.”

@parrothd007

2 ай бұрын

Here is Steve with Eric Clapton and Steve Winwood. (Two thirds of Blind Faith, by the way) kzread.info/dash/bejne/o2qsuKuyh5i8krw.htmlsi=6_aRclf7M8OxsVpu

Cynthia is right, "Aja" = "Asia", just written phonetically. I quite like😂😮 'Steely Dan', personally I prefer their early '70s stuff more, after 1980 I lost interest a bit. The tracks that I recommend are: "Rikki Don't Lose That Number", "Doctor Wu", "Do It Again", "Any Major Dude Will Tell You", "Kid Charlemagne", "My Old School", "Haitian Divorce", "Peg", "FM", "Reelin' In The Years", "Black Cow", "Babylon Sisters". There are many more but these are good ones to continue with.

@jaymacgee_A_Bawbag_Blethering

2 ай бұрын

Haitian divorce - FM - Rikki don’t lose that number , outside chance they will have heard of all 3 tbh Adam , but worth a shot mate as all are top shelf , top notch 👌 👍🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

@Adam_Le-Roi_Davis.

2 ай бұрын

​@@jaymacgee_A_Bawbag_BletheringIt's always a gamble, Jay, I'm not sure what they've heard so, I included the more well known ones just in case.

@jaymacgee_A_Bawbag_Blethering

2 ай бұрын

@@Adam_Le-Roi_Davis. sound strategy Adam 👌 👍🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

@Adam_Le-Roi_Davis.

2 ай бұрын

@@jaymacgee_A_Bawbag_Blethering Thanks, Jay, I think that it's a good choice, that way they can't moan. 😄

@jaymacgee_A_Bawbag_Blethering

2 ай бұрын

@@Adam_Le-Roi_Davis. yup 👍 👍🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

The Rabbit Hole of Steely Dan! They were not a band after the first 2 albums Don and Walter were the duo who got together the best studio musicians in the country and produced the sounds by playing at recording studios over and over again with different musicians and sounds until they achieved perfection!

Theres a good Steely Dan mix on the Six Million Steps/JJ's Smokin' Sessions site

How many arms does Steve Gadd have?!

Hey !!! Haniers !!! "Jojo" by Boz Scaggs !! (Make sure it's the album or audio version...NOT the video version which is cut...) Also..Kenny Loggins & Shanice "Love will Follow" Live from the Redwoods !! -Criminally under reviewed !!!! Keep it goin"!!!!

Lovely , melodic , acceptable Jazz fusion ! You gotta pay attention with Steely Dan there’s SO much going on . IMHO Aja is nice , I’ve enjoyed revisiting it but it is FAR from their best offering , somewhere there is a shed bursting with bigger , meatier tracks such as Haitian Divorce FM Rikki don’t lose that number Kid Charlemagne My old school Any given day … and many many others 👀 👍🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

I generally find them a bit on the light side but what do I know.

@jaymacgee_A_Bawbag_Blethering

2 ай бұрын

I’m with Adam LRD , 70’s SD - Si Senor ! …80’s and post - No Gracias! 👍🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

@dougcosbie5860

2 ай бұрын

Not enough I would say

@jaymacgee_A_Bawbag_Blethering

2 ай бұрын

@@dougcosbie5860 🤣 luckily we don’t care what you say - ta ta 🥱 👍🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

Hmmm, nah!

Aja is a woman though...