Aja  by Steely Dan

Many friends of Steely Dan consider that Aja, their sixth album, is their masterpiece, the culmination of their career. Aja was released in September 1977 and was produced by Gary Katz, with whom Walter Becker and Donald Fagen had collaborated on all their previous work. He was the one who ensured their compositions received the characteristic smooth jazz tone of their songs. In one way or another, Aja is the point where jazz meets pop/rock music with absolute balance.

What is impressive about the recording of Aja is that Steely Dan worked with over forty musicians to achieve the specific result. The recordings lasted from the end of 1976 until the middle of the following year. The title Aja - pronounced "Asia" according to Fagen, was the name of a Korean woman who married the brother of a childhood friend of his. The cover is a photo of Japanese model Sayoko Yamaguchi and was a work of Japanese photographer Hideki Fujii.

The album reached the highest positions in the charts of many countries, and its sales surpassed every previous Steely Dan album. In the U.S., it exceeded 2,000,000 copies.