STEELY DAN – AJA LP – EXC+ A1/B2 UK 1977 ORIG PEG BLACK COW DEACON BLUES

Steely Dan – Aja
(ABC Records  1977  ABCL5225)
Matrix No’s: A1/B2 – UK Pressing

Vinyl in Excellent+ condition
(there are some surface marks visible on the vinyl when held up to the light but they don’t affect the sound quality apart from some light pops/crackles)

G&L Gatefold Sleeve in Excellent/Very Good+ condition
– some wear to edges/corners and some ringwear rubbing
Inner Sleeve has a split in one side

Steely Dan is an American rock band formed in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York, in 1971 by Walter Becker (guitars, bass, backing vocals) and Donald Fagen (keyboards, lead vocals). Originally having a full band lineup, Becker and Fagen chose to stop playing live by the end of 1974 and continued Steely Dan as a studio-only duo, utilizing a revolving cast of session musicians. Rolling Stone has called them “the perfect musical antiheroes for the seventies”.

Aja (pronounced like Asia) is the sixth album by the jazz rock band Steely Dan. Originally released in 1977 on ABC Records, it became the group’s best-selling album. Peaking at No. 3 on the U.S. charts and No. 5 in the United Kingdom, it was the band’s first platinum album, eventually selling over 5 million copies. In July 1978, the album won the Grammy Award for Best Engineered Non-Classical Recording. In 2003, the album was ranked number 145 on Rolling Stone’s “The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time” list. It is sometimes considered a recording for audiophiles, because of its excellent production

Donald Fagen has said the title of the album comes from the name of a Korean woman who married the brother of a high-school friend of his. The cover photo by Hideki Fujii features Japanese model and actress Sayoko Yamaguchi.

The album features several leading session musicians. The eight-minute-long title track features jazz-based changes and a solo by saxophonist Wayne Shorter.

Aja is the subject of one of the Classic Albums, a series of documentaries about the making of famous albums. The documentary includes a song-by-song study of the album (the only omission being “I Got the News,” which is played during the closing credits), interviews with Steely Dan co-founders Walter Becker and Donald Fagen (among others) plus new, live-in-studio versions of songs from the album. Becker and Fagen also play back several of the rejected guitar solos for “Peg,” which were recorded before Jay Graydon produced the satisfactory take.

When DTS attempted to make a 5.1 version, it was discovered that the multitrack masters for both “Black Cow” and the title track were missing. For this same reason, a multichannel SACD version was cancelled by Universal Music. Donald Fagen has offered a $600 reward for the missing masters or any information that leads to their recovery.

On April 6, 2011, the album was deemed by the Library of Congress to be “culturally, historically, or aesthetically important” and added to the United States National Recording Registry for the year 2010.

Track listing

All songs written by Walter Becker and Donald Fagen.

Side one

1. “Black Cow” – 5:10
2. “Aja” – 7:57
3. “Deacon Blues” – 7:33

Side two

4. “Peg” – 3:57
5. “Home at Last” – 5:34
6. “I Got the News” – 5:06
7. “Josie” – 4:33

Personnel

Donald Fagen – vocals, synthesizer, keyboards
Walter Becker – bass, guitar
Victor Feldman – keyboards (1,3,7), vibraphone and piano (5,6), percussion
Joe Sample – keyboards (2), clavinet (1)
Paul Griffin – keyboards (4)
Michael Omartian – piano (2)
Don Grolnick – clavinet (4)
Larry Carlton, Denny Dias, Dean Parks, Lee Ritenour, Steve Khan – guitar
Chuck Rainey – bass
Paul Humphrey, Steve Gadd, Bernard Purdie, Rick Marotta, Ed Greene, Jim Keltner – drums
Gary Coleman – percussion
Tom Scott – tenor saxophone (1), lyricon (4)
Wayne Shorter (2), Pete Christlieb (3) – tenor saxophone
Michael McDonald, Paul Griffin, Timothy B. Schmit, Clydie King, Sherlie Matthews, Venetta Fields, Rebecca Louis – backing vocals
Horns arranged and conducted by Tom Scott.

Guitar solos:
4 – Jay Graydon
5–7 – Walter Becker
6 – Larry Carlton

Production

• Executive Producer: Stephen Diener [ABC Records]
• Producer: Gary Katz
• Engineers: Roger Nichols, Elliot Scheiner, Al Schmitt, Bill Schnee
• Assistant engineers: Joe Bellamy, Lenise Bent, Ken Klinger, Ron Pangaliman, Ed Rack, Linda Tyler
• Mastering: Bernie Grundman
• Production coordination: Barbara Miller
• Sound consultant: Dinky Dawson
• Consultant: Daniel Levitin
• Horn arrangements: Tom Scott
• Art direction: Vartan Reissue
• Design: Geoff Westen
• Photography: Hideki Fujii (cover photo), Walter Becker
• Liner notes: Walter Becker, Donald Fagen
• Reissue coordination: Beth Stempel