Review: Aja

Aja by Don Breithaupt
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

"Bringing a post-Gershwin compositional gusto to post-Dylan subject matter (and filtering it through the lens of post-Nixon America)."

There is always something for the music-lover to glean from these little books, the 33 1/3 Series, each of which focuses on a 'classic' album. Some of them centre on what the music means to the writer and how it fits into his or her life; some appear only tangentially related to the album in question. Of those that I have read, this one goes deeper into the form of the music and its construction, perhaps a little too deep at times but it does suit Steely Dan and Aja.

Author, Don Breithaupt obviously loves the album and understands music theory and he puts Aja in context, not only with what was happening in the music industry at the time of its release in 1977, but also within Donald Fagen's and Walter Becker's output and their influences with inform the album. There is a large part of the book devoted to the recording of the album and I personally love that kind of stuff although, even for me, the in-depth examination of poetic techniques such as enjambment or the relationship between E9sus4 and Amaj9 chords gets a little too much. Breithaupt is also fond of purple prose such as that quoted at the start of the review but all of this is forgiven when it leads, as this book does, to a fresh listen to, and new appreciation of, the music.

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