|
"Aja" is the title track of Steely Dan's 1977 album by that name. Like the other six songs on the album, it is in the jazz rock genre, though it is regarded as tending strongly towards the former. It was composed by Walter Becker and Donald Fagen, the band's two members, who respectively play guitar and synthesizer on the track, with various studio musicians playing the other parts. Musically, it is a tonally sophisticated and structurally complex work that was praised on its release as the most ambitious song the duo had ever attempted. Its lyrics are the interior monologue of a man who "run() to" the title character to escape the stresses of his life "up on the hill." Supposedly it was inspired by a relative of someone Fagen knew, who had married a Korean woman named Aja. He has described the song as being about the "tranquility that can come of a quiet relationship with a beautiful woman." Despite its complexity, and unlike many of the other tracks on the album, it took a very short time to record, which Becker and Fagen credit to the musicians' superior sight-reading skills. Denny Dias's guitar work, including a solo, marked the last appearance on a Steely Dan record by any other founding member of the group. Making their first appearance, on the other hand, were tenor saxophonist Wayne Shorter and drummer Steve Gadd. Both combined for solos during the song's instrumental break that have contributed greatly to its reputation and been considered among their finest work; Gadd continued his, the first drum solo in a Steely Dan song,〔Breithaupt, (52 )〕 in the song's tag, all recorded in just two takes. Jazz critic Ben Sidran later called the "Aja" session "a moment when ... pop music suddenly took a turn left." While it was never released as a single, it is notable as the longest song the band ever recorded,〔Prior to "Aja", "Your Gold Teeth" from ''Countdown to Ecstasy'' had been the band's longest track, at just under seven minutes. "Deacon Blues", which follows "Aja" on the album, and ''Gaucho'' ==Background== Songwriters Walter Becker and Donald Fagen had formed Steely Dan in 1972 as a rock sextet, with Becker playing bass (occasionally guitar) and Fagen on keyboards. Even on the group's first album, ''Can't Buy a Thrill'', however, they had been willing to have outside studio musicians such as Elliott Randall play parts on songs if the two felt it was better, and after their third album, 1974's ''Pretzel Logic'', they decided to stop touring to focus on songwriting, The remaining other members left, although guitarists Denny Dias and Jeff "Skunk" Baxter continued working with Becker and Fagen on occasional tracks. The following album, ''Katy Lied'', relied largely on various assortments of studio musicians, and showed more of the influence of the jazz the two had listened to during their formative years.〔(【引用サイトリンク】url=http://www.steelydan.com/timelinebio.html )〕 By the time they began writing and recording their sixth album, ''Aja'', in 1977, the two felt comfortable enough to focus on expanding their songwriting. "We were feeling really lucky that year," Becker said in the 1999 ''Classic Albums'' documentary on the album, "and wanted to try something longer." He describes "Aja" as a suite, created by combining several other songs they were working on,〔Lewens, at 42:30〕 including an early song called "Stand by the Seawall" they had recorded a demo version of. During the same interview, Fagen called the song "a journey in time and space."〔 He has long claimed it was named after a Korean woman a high school friend's brother married after serving in the Army in that country. He is not sure about the spelling, however.〔 "We thought that was a good name, a very romantic sort of image, the sort of tranquility that can come of a quiet relationship with a beautiful woman."〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Aja (song)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|