They left off the best story of that album…Steve Gadd and the drums on Aja.
After a little while, Steve said to Joe and Chuck, “Just play it so I can hear how the song goes and I’ll make some notations on the chart for myself.” Donald went out as he usually did and stood in some corner and would sing a scratch vocal low, so the guys could hear it while they are playing. Walter and I were in the control room with Bill Schnee, a very famous engineer and producer at Producer’s Workshop, which was really his studio and he was the only one who knew how to make it work. He said, “Okay, let’s do one.” The track you hear is the only time he played it.
Once. As it’s going on, both Walter and I [are looking at each other]. For whatever reasons each of us had, we had never hired Steve [before this session]. And as we got to the end, it was just so fantastic, Walter turned to me and he said, “Maybe we’ve made a mistake.” That’s the only time he played that track, was the first time. Months go by and we were mixing in New York because we’re not particularly fast about how we do things. We were just about finished with the mix of “Aja” at A&R with Elliot Scheiner. It’s as good as you can imagine something sounding on those speakers in the control room. It was magically great. Someone walked in and said, “Hey, you know Steve is down the hall, he’s playing with Michael Franks.” I said, “Oh, cool, Donald, I’ll go down and let him know we’re here.” I did that and he was finishing up. When he was done, he came in and said [his greetings].
He was feeling good. I said, “Sit down, I want to play you something.” We played him “Aja,” which was finished. He sat right between the Altec 604 Utility [speaker] cabinets. It was great sounding. The track ends and he said, “Wow, who is playing drums?” Donald, Walter and I, Roger Nichols and Elliot, are just looking at each other. Because he wasn’t kidding. I say, “You are, stupid!” He went, “Really? I’m a motherf%5555!” It’s the best laugh we had in all of the years.
Read More: The Steely Dan Song Steve Gadd Didn’t Remember Playing On | https://ultimateclassicrock.com/gary-katz-steely-dan-aja-interview-2022/
Cool story and Thanks for sharing! I’ve gotta say that that drum work is just some of the best. Combined with the piano and the whistle - just wow!
One of my all time favorite tracks.
In fact, I’m going to listen to it right now
That’s funny, but honestly, there’s no way that Steve Gadd wouldn’t recognize his own playing on the “out” drum section of (the tune) Aja. It’s not that it’s the greatest drum “solo” of all time, but the style is very uniquely Gadd.
There are other great stories from the making of this song, bass player, engineer, etc. lots of videos on YouTube about the making of song. I have not figured out if they are jazz musicians masquerading as Rock & Roll or Rock & Roll Masquerading as jazz musicians.