AJA : At home , at last !

The dangers on the rocks is surely past. Still i remain tied to the mast. Could it be that i've found my home at last ?

It's kinda hard to write this post all submerged in this vast , endless and utterly magnificent ocean of sound that's surging in through my headphones.

Who wrote that tired sea song set on this peaceful shore? You think you've heard this one before.

It's Steely Dan. It's Aja. It's awesome. It rules my life these days. Well , as much as a band or an album can now anyway.

What i really dig about the band is their complete subordination of everything else to the music. No stardust , no statement , no glitter , no glimmer, no love-peace , no greenpeace, no angst , no existentialism, no nothing. Heck, mostly not even a band. Only a cast of exceptional musicians revolving around Walter Becker and Donald Fagen from project to project.

No nothing- except the music and a relentless pursuit of musical perfection.

I first got into them during college when I went in for the more straight-on rocky stuff - though mind, their straight-on isn't as straight-on as your average rock band anyway , right. Albums like Can't Buy A Thrill and Countdown To Ecstacy were more my scene.

But Aja i just didn't get back then. (except Peg obviously!) Maybe it was the sax , the jazz , i dunno. I had it duly recorded on cassette tape of course - one for the collection , see - but didn't bother revisiting for a long long time.

Until now. And this time i'm making up for all these years of neglect. Big time !

This album is a masterpiece of collossal musicmanship from start to finish. There's guitars,keys,drums,horns. There's production, there's poetry,there's funk , rock , jazz , jazz-rock. Everything mixes into an exquisitely tight and intricate blend of sound. And you dont expect less from an ensemble that includes Wayne Shorter , Larry Carlton , Lee Ritenour , all those other cats...So much magic this one.

Like when that laidback slow tempo gives way to a sax-and drums explosion at the end on Aja , or when that teasing guitar solo snakes its way out through bass-and-horns heaven on Peg , or that warning-chimes intro cues in on the funky menace of Josie , or (most of all) when the first piano chops and horns of Home At Last lays out the red carpet to the greatest exposition - and the only one , far as i'm concerned - of Homer , Ulysses , exile and the loss of direction .... all things considered ,an enormous song. On an enormous album. Ah !

Aja featured in an apparently well known Classic Albums documentary series of some sort .I was so glad to come across these great clips on You Tube. I thought they brought out both the musicmanship in terms of the art & craft of the album and the personality - that whole other "calibre musician-not celeb rock star" quality to the geeky Dan duo very well. This video of the making of Peg : wow !