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Music CD - Steely Dan: Aja
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Music CD: Aja
Artist: Steely Dan
List Price: $9.98
Our Price: $4.25
Your Save: $ 5.73 ( 57% )
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Mca
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Average Customer Rating: 
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Tracks:
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1. Black Cow
2. Aja
3. Deacon Blues
4. Peg
5. Home At Last
6. I Got The News
7. Josie
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Binding: Audio CD
EAN: 0008811205621
Format: Original recording remastered
Label: Mca
Manufacturer: Mca
Number Of Discs: 1
Publisher: Mca
Release Date: 1999-11-23
Studio: Mca
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating: 
Summary: Aja-Steely Dan,SCD
Comment: An excellent remastered version of the original.I played this in my car as well as in my home theater setup and there aren,t any pops or scratchy noises as on an LP.The vocals are nice and clear.When I finally get an SACD player I have to buy the SACD version of this,an excellent value for the money.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Yes, SD's best-ever album
Comment: This is rock-jazz, jazz-rock at its most sophisticated. AJA and Deacon Blues are reason enough to buy this CD. Listening to Wayne Shorter's tenor solo on AJA and Pete Christlieb's solo on Deacon Blues should be inspiration and schooling on improvisation to all tenor saxophonists. Great horn section playing and contributions from Tom Scott and Steve Gadd supplying some masterful drumming.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Steely Dan, Always perfect
Comment: These guys always produce great music. I was able to see the in the early years perform, Realing in the Years, period. They were so tight, true professionals. I was suprised with Aja. So different, but well written music and expertly preformed. "Hay 19" is my feels on getting older. Wait, wrong album, but same smoooth jaz.
Customer Rating:
Summary: SOPHISTICATED, JAZZY, SOULFUL ! (Steely Dan at the peak of it's powers)
Comment: Steely Dan's Aja (1977), like most of the band's work, is thoughtful and sophisticated. It's also smooth, polished, and neat as a pin. The songs themselves are uniquely deceptive in the way they paint detached, sometimes sarcastic, cinematic images of life, but draw you in emotionally at the same time. The sad resignation of Black Cow with it's upscale nightlife, and the dreamer's lament Deacon Blues with it's romantic last stand poetics, are themes you just don't hear everyday in rock music. Deacon Blues has to be my favorite of all of Steely Dan's songs. It's over seven minutes long, and the music is jazzy, sleek, and melodic. It's an imaginative look into the world of a down-on-his-luck dreamer holding on for dear life...
My back to the wall
A victim of laughing chance
This is for me
The essence of true romance
The title track is eight minutes of delightful and jazzy expressions juxtaposed with smooth rock, and augmented with orchestration and rich vocal harmonies. Peg and Josie are pleasant and catchy pop tunes, and both were hit singles. The music on Aja is quite relaxing, actually. It's so orderly and comfortable that there's no real need to chase after it, and it doesn't leave you wishing it was something other than what it already is...an excellant and satisfying album of intelligent, soulful and sophisticated jazz/pop/rock. Aja is also Steely Dan at their highest peak. A classic.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Mellow, Uplifting, Jazz Infused Euphoria
Comment: I am a music fan who enjoys a wide diversity of genres, and as far as classic rock bands go, I will always consider Steely Dan one of the best. I have to agree with many of the reviewers here who state that this is their masterpiece. While I do own several of their other albums (and definitely plan on purchasing more of them), "Aja" is one collection of songs I find myself playing repeatedly if nothing more for the good, positive feelings it evokes in me. When I am tired/down/sad, is truly one album that ranks up there with making me feel better instantly upon hearing it; although I honestly don't have to be in any particular mood to recognize it for the sheer brilliance that it is. Smooth, uplifting, sensual, trippy, clever, intelligent, and just plain amazing!! I own a literal ton of albums, but "Aja" ranks up there easily with my Top Ten favorites. I am so glad I bought it years ago, and I can't imagine ever tiring listening to it (and the title track is incidentally my favorite Steely Dan song, as well). Donald Fagen and Walter Becker truly outdid themselves with this remarkable work!! :-)
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Editorial Reviews:
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History gives Steely Dan's Walter Becker and Donald Fagen the last, hearty laugh on this, the crown jewel in their remarkable canon of '70s Mensa pop. Sneaking onto the charts a half-decade earlier with sinuous, jazz-inflected "rock," the dysfunctional duo's acerbic, anti-heroic visions had been critically lauded for their band identity and killer guitar riffs, then promptly challenged when the two songwriters retired from the road, dissolved any formal band lineup, and used the studio as laboratory. Aja carried the added indignity of its increased focus on sophisticated jazz models and musicianship, which carried the Dan's ambitions even further in terms of suave harmonies, intricate song structures, and brilliant playing. Time has proven them wiser than their rock crit detractors: These seven songs abound in knotty plots, sneaky imagery, and drop-dead brilliant performances from a blue chip studio repertory studded with first-call jazz players epitomized by Wayne Shorter's towering solo on the title song. From the hard-boiled jazz romance of "Deacon Blues" to the twisted Homeric vamp of "Home at Last," the veiled but ominous swing of "Peg" to the sci-fi eroticism of "Josie," Aja is a modern pop classic and the coolest fusion record no one ever thought to lump in that category. --Sam Sutherland
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