The Steely Dan songs on ‘Aja’ that can’t be remixed
Steely Dan were obsessive, and that’s meant in the best possible way. Donald Fagen and Walter Becker were meticulous when it came to every element of their legendary jazz-rock band, from the music to the production to the artwork that would be featured on their albums. Patience was required in order to work with the duo, but the results spoke for themselves and continue to resonate with new generations of listeners.
That compulsion for perfection also led to some of the most revolutionary records when it came to high fidelity. Even today, audiophiles will still use the original pressings of Aja to test their equipment. The way Becker, Fagen, producer Gary Katz, and their army of engineers got the best out of each instrument was incredible. But despite the close eyes kept on the tapes during the recordings, the final multitrack tapes are currently not in possession of the band.
Fagen and Becker didn’t own their own master tapes before their initial breakup in 1981. Chances are probably good that the duo negotiated for their masters when they reformed in the 1990s and almost certainly had control over them by the time they recorded 2000’s Two Against Nature. In that in-between period, the tapes were at the discretion of ABC Records, the band’s initial label.
When it came time for Fagen and Becker to dissect Aja for an episode of the BBC programme Classic Albums in 1999, the multitrack masters for the album were collected to allow Steely Dan to walk through their recording process. However, it was discovered that two of the album’s tracks, ‘Black Cow’ and ‘Aja’, were missing their masters.
“When we recently sent for the multitrack masters of Aja so as to make new surround-sound mixes of same, we discovered that the two-inch multitracks of the songs ‘Aja’ and ‘Black Cow’ were nowhere to be found,” Becker and Fagen wrote in the liner notes for the 1999 reissue of the album. The pair put the blame on Gatz, who they imply was careless with the storage of the tape boxes.
“They had somehow become separated from the other boxes, which the producer had abandoned here and there (studios, storage lockers, etc.) almost twenty years before,” the pair wrote. “Anyone having information about the whereabouts of these missing two inch tapes should contact HK Management at (415) 485-1444. There will be a $600.00 reward for anyone who successfully leads us to the tapes. This is not a joke. Happy hunting.”
Those tapes have yet to be found, leading to the strong possibility that they were either destroyed or lost a long time ago. Check out the final mixes of ‘Black Cow’ and ‘Aja’ down below.
