A little tidbit about Steve Gadd's famous drum track on the song Aja. Just one of many reasons why he may be my favorite drummer ever.
Aja is the most popular of all the Steely Dan recordings. Four of its seven tracks were radio hits with a broad spectrum of appeal. Musicians had a field day with the title track, which had powerful solos from Wayne Shorter and Steve Gadd. Gadd, it seems, was the ultimate foil for the Dan’s demanding assault on a musician’s psyche. For ‘Aja’ he sightread the entire seven-minute chart perfectly, solo and all, by the second take. An article at the time quoted Fagan as saying, “I was stunned. No one had ever done anything like that before. I couldn’t believe it.”