The name of the song/album from Steely Dan titled Aja, is from a Korean women.
I’m not sure if I told you all before but some of my earliest exposure to Jazz guitar influences was from this fabulous band, Steely Dan and I owe a lot to this band in terms of my playing style. This is a little bit of music trivia that I found out while viewing youtube searching for Jackie Blue from the Ozark Mountain Daredevils.
First of all, my wife and I were watching this new show called Swingtown (go tot he bottom right for music samples). It’s about these couples from the 70’s, who were swingers, in the Chicago area. The music for this series is top notch, in our eyes! So while viewing the show, this song from the Ozark Mountain Daredevils (viewed by some to be a country version of Steely Dan) entitled Jackie Blue was playing. This song, like most of the songs on this show, just blew me right back to the 70’s during my childhood.
I remember this song as a comforting song, regardless of it’s content. During this part of the show, I picked up my acoustic and tried figuring it out. I was leaning towards a unplugged version of it and I soon nailed it very promptly.
Never perfectly happy in how I play songs, always looking for multiple ways to it, I looked in youtube to see if there was someone else who plays it in an unplugged style with no luck. Then in the Related Video section I found a video called Steely Dan – “Aja” The Making Of:
It was an interview with Walter Becker and Donald Fagen talking about their album Aja. As a kid, I was always interested in who that was on the front cover of it, this is when I found out who it finally was!
Donald Fagen said that a high school friends older brother brother had went off to Korea and married this women, and her name was Aja. The couple later on moved back to the US. Donald Fagen thought that it was a very romantic image with a feeling of tranquility that comes with the name. Now after writing this particular song, he put her name to it, neat eh? AND she is the one on the front cover!
Another musical mystery solved!
Keep on Jammin’ everybody
Oh. My. Gosh! This is my favorite album of all time. I try and try, but can NOT emulate Chuck Rainey’s amazing bass lines. Love, love, love it!
Have you seen the documentary on the making of Aja? I wish I owned it. May have to fix that soon.
Very interesting. I am a big Steeleye Dan fan too.
Now there are some very sweet bass progressions throughout that album for sure Carol! Keep it up, you’ll get it eventually! Just take the thing a part so slowly that if people hear you play it, they just might think you’ll a little bit slow in the head, but that’s the only way to master anything like that in my eyes!
No, I didn’t even know there was a doc about that one. I WILL keep mu eyes out for that one.
I’d wish ya luck, but I know you won’t need it;)
Keep on Jammin’ Carol
Thanx OSoNY. I’d love to be able to play any song on that album live. It would certainly be a labour of love!
Keep on Jammin’