Talk:Aja (song)

Studio
Boulevard Recording in Los Angeles also claims to have recorded Aja, at least "most of the basic tracks". The location of the studio at that time is now the Museum of Death on Hollywood Boulevard. — Brianhe (talk) 03:26, 30 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Were they under a different name at that time? The album credits mention a bunch of different LA studios by name, but not that one. Daniel Case (talk) 05:05, 30 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes, it was Producers Workshop, then Westbeach Recorders. Though I think it was more than just a name change, actually different companies at the same Hollywood Boulevard location. Some more background at Talk:Museum of Death. — Brianhe (talk) 05:29, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

About the GA nomination
Although a first-time editor nominated this and added a note about possibly not being available to make the necessary fixes, Daniel Case tried to edit the GAN page to say "as the primary contributor to the article I would be happy to work with any reviewer". However, the bot regenerated the page, and the comment was lost. I've quoted the comment here so it isn't lost, and have removed Copperongold's note, since the nomination will be covered during any review. BlueMoonset (talk) 19:16, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

Responses to GA review
Since I wasn't given the opportunity to respond to these insights before Calvin999 failed the article (Why go into specifics if you don't think the article can be improved in time?), I've reposted them in a separate section with my responses:


 * Language	English → Not needed.
 * Someone else seems to have fixed this. Daniel Case (talk) 22:48, 18 April 2016 (UTC)


 * "Aja" is the title track of Steely Dan's 1977 album by that name. → "Aja" is a song by American rock band Steely Dan from their sixth album of the same name (1977).
 * As already noted in the corrections, the suggested language, while it did include more information, was awkward. I have since come up with better language than the reviewer suggested.


 * Like the other six songs on the album, → Irrelevant
 * ✅ Daniel Case (talk) 22:30, 18 April 2016 (UTC)


 * it is in the jazz rock genre, → it is a jazz rock song
 * Combined with the lede sentence. Daniel Case (talk) 22:30, 18 April 2016 (UTC)


 * though it is regarded as tending strongly towards the former. → So, a jazz song with rock influences?
 * Vagueness here reflects the sources. I would personally describe it as a composition with the structure of a rock song but having a jazz-influenced chord progression and instrumentation, composed by rock songwriters and performed by them in conjunction with musicians who worked in both genres at the time, with one prominent jazz soloist. But that's obviously my take, and none of the sources go into specifics about how, exactly, it's jazz-rock. Daniel Case (talk) 22:30, 18 April 2016 (UTC)


 * Musically, it is a tonally sophisticated and structurally complex work that was praised on its release as the most ambitious song the duo had ever attempted. → This is only attributed to one source, as some parts of the source don't quite match this sentence. I think it is being interpreted a little bit.
 * I could go all LEADCITE on you and say that as long as claims like the first part of the sentence (which my personal interpretation of LEADCITE holds doesn't have to be cited in an introwhereas being claimed as "most ambitious" should be considered an extraordinary claim since it involves a superlative) are repeated and cited in the article's body they need not be cited in the intro. But I see your point, since the note would lead one to believe it supported the entire sentence, and I will put a cite in for the first part, since when it is restated further down I do have cites for it. Daniel Case (talk) 22:30, 18 April 2016 (UTC)


 * Why is so complex? What makes it complex?
 * Well, I sort of thought the idea of writing article intros was to get people to read the article itself, where statements like this are elaborated upon. When you read them in this article, you'll see that Breithaupt identified 24 separate sections of the song. Daniel Case (talk) 22:30, 18 April 2016 (UTC)


 * escape the stresses of his life "up on the hill." → Are these lyrics?
 * Yes, as the full sentence should make clear: "The song's lyrics are the interior monologue of a man who "run[s] to" the title character to escape the stresses of his life "up on the hill."" (emphasis mine). Daniel Case (talk) 22:44, 18 April 2016 (UTC)


 * Supposedly it was inspired by a relative of someone Fagen knew, → This clause is structured wrong, but it also reads fans written.
 * I rewrote it, as the article directly quotes Fagen saying this. The "supposedly" reflects the fact that the two of them are known to be purposely vague and sometimes even contradictory when asked about their inspiration, depending on how much they think their interlocutor understands their work. Daniel Case (talk) 22:44, 18 April 2016 (UTC)


 * "tranquility that can come of a quiet relationship with a beautiful woman."[3] → Quotes are generally discouraged from being used in the lead.
 * I am not sure how you could paraphrase it without changing the meaning; I also think that where creative works are involved we should be more flexible about using the creator's own words to describe it, as long as they are reliably sourced. And BTW your own sentence there could stand to be rewritten—it should be "we discourage editors from using quotations in the intro". See? Active voice, right subject, right word. Daniel Case (talk) 22:44, 18 April 2016 (UTC)


 * and unlike many of the other tracks on the album, → There's only six, according to the first paragraph, so this reads a bit odd.
 * That still leaves five other songs. I suppose it should be "most of the other." Daniel Case (talk) 22:44, 18 April 2016 (UTC)


 * Both combined for solos → I don't understand this.
 * Now this, on further examination, does sound strange (If you listen to the clip you realize they're both soloing at the same time. But at this point in the article it's unlikely the reader has gotten that far. So I fixed it. Daniel Case (talk) 22:44, 18 April 2016 (UTC)


 * Gadd continued his, the first drum solo in a Steely Dan song,[5] in the song's tag, all recorded in just two takes. → This is really jumbled up.
 * And that ' s why, if I had nominated this myself, I would not have done so without a hard copy proofread. what happens when you start off writing one sentence and finish a different one. Fixed now. Daniel Case (talk) 22:48, 18 April 2016 (UTC)


 * It has been a favorite of the band's fans,[8] → If this is in the main body, then it doesn't need a citation here.
 * Why was that a problem a few notes ago but not now? IME this is something that people see in intros, and then either slap with a fact tag or go on the talk page and complain about instead of finishing the article and getting to where it's actually cited. Daniel Case (talk) 22:55, 18 April 2016 (UTC)


 * You don't mention the producer in the lead.
 * ✅. Daniel Case (talk) 22:55, 18 April 2016 (UTC)


 * The whole lead is a bit messy. It needs rewriting.
 * Other than what I've already done? Daniel Case (talk) 22:55, 18 April 2016 (UTC)


 * A lot of the first paragraph of the Background section is not relevant. This song is from their sixth album, so we don't need info from 6 years previous as to before they formed. That is needed on the first, and perhaps second, album only. But this is a song article, so it's not needed even more so.
 * My intent was to explain how a rock band came to record a song that tilts so far into the jazz spectrum. But I will try to trim it down. Daniel Case (talk) 22:58, 18 April 2016 (UTC)


 * You would add The Village Recorder to the parameter for Recorded in the info box.
 * ✅ Daniel Case (talk) 05:37, 25 April 2016 (UTC)


 * Gary Katz produced, → Gary Katz produced the song,
 * reworded. Daniel Case (talk) 05:37, 25 April 2016 (UTC)


 * Words such as 'Ultimately', 'Eventually', 'Supposedly' read really fan-written and you shouldn't use them.
 * Will take under advisement. Daniel Case (talk) 05:37, 25 April 2016 (UTC)


 * Drum solo section opens with a quote to no prior explanation of what its significance is or who is meant to have said it.
 * Avoid one line paragraphs like in Reception and Samples.
 * There's an awful lot of content in the Recording and Composition sections. They are very detailed and very big. These could easily be condensed and streamlined.
 * You say its a fan favourite in the Legacy section but I can't see anything that supports that.
 * WhoSampled is not a reliable source. I checked at RSN and it was confirmed as such.
 * There are am incredible amount of quotes in this article. Some need to be paraphrased into your own words for sure.

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on Aja (song). Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20150613024529/http://www.jazz.com/dozens/the-dozens-12-esssential-wayne-shorter-tracks to http://www.jazz.com/dozens/the-dozens-12-esssential-wayne-shorter-tracks

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 22:26, 28 June 2017 (UTC)

Not jazz
Although I don't have a source in front of me, I've been following the band for a long time. They never claimed to be a jazz band. They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Back when there were record stores, you would never find Steely Dan albums filed with Duke Ellington and Miles Davis and Ella Fitzgerald. Fagen's hero seem to be Ray Charles. Even "jazz rock" seems like a stretch given how often that term has been used for jazz fusion, and there are people who think jazz fusion isn't jazz, though I'm not not one of them. Wikiproject stretches the definition to allow for acts of all kinds from all over the world, but there are limits. Vmavanti (talk) 18:07, 16 November 2018 (UTC)
 * No, they never did call themselves a jazz band, but neither Becker nor Fagen ever hid/have hidden their affection for bebop and other postwar jazz movements. They covered one of Ellington's works, "East St. Louis Toodle-oo", on Pretzel Logic, on that same album "Parker's Band" is a pretty clear tribute to Charlie, and in other work they've namechecked Cathy Berberian. They also had no problem, after deciding post-Logic that the band would be just them and whatever studio musicians they could put together who would give them the performance/interpretation they wanted. That often included musicians (like, on this track, Shorter and Larry Carlton) who had become notable for their work on jazz and fusion recordings. In any case, genres are usually given when sourced, and this one is. I would also point out that one of the sources is a musicological journal that discusses the bebop influence on one surprising chord change in the song. Daniel Case (talk) 18:32, 16 November 2018 (UTC)


 * Oh, boy, our standards are really low if you are considered a jazz musician for "namechecking Cathy Berberian". Or doing one cover version. Or getting praise from some out of touch academic. Or hiring Larry Carlton and Phil Woods. It used to be called name dropping, and it was considered bad form. If you want to play the trivia game, I can do that, too. Donald Fagen is playing a Sonny Rollins album on the cover of The Nightfly. He told a reporter in 2006, "I basically listen to the same 40 albums that I listened to in high school, near Princeton. I had much better taste then. I was a kid jazz fan. I only like seven or eight of the greatest artists: Sonny Rollins, Charles Mingus, Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk...And I like big-band arrangers, like Gil Evans. There's a band called the Sauter-Finegan Orchestra that I used to like for the arrangements." It makes obvious sense to accept the judgment of Becker and Fagen that they were not jazz musicians and that Steely Dan is not a jazz band. They say this music isn't jazz. I don't even think of it as jazz rock, a term I've really never liked. It certainly isn't jazz fusion.
 * If you want to complain about this in a productive way, follow the link WT:JAZZ. Having this discussion here isn't really adding anything to the article, nor IMO will it. Daniel Case (talk) 22:56, 5 December 2018 (UTC)
 * It's not complaining. It's stating the facts. There's a difference. And here's a quotation. "I'm not interested in a rock/jazz fusion", Becker told Rolling Stone in 1974. "That kind of marriage has so far only come up with ponderous results. We play rock and roll, but we swing when we play. We want that ongoing flow, that lightness, that forward rush of jazz."

Vmavanti (talk) 19:14, 22 January 2019 (UTC) Vmavanti (talk) 00:14, 2 February 2019 (UTC)
 * We don’t go by what the band says, we use reliable sources to determine genre. Here, it’s clear that reliable sources call it jazz rock.  Calidum   18:26, 22 January 2019 (UTC)
 * How can the band members themselves be unreliable about their own music? Are you suggesting you know better than they do, though they wrote the song? What sources have called this a jazz song?
 * See WP:IS and related pages on using sources independent of the subject. No one is claiming it is a jazz song, but it is a jazz rock song per the sources cited in the article like Rolling Stone and AllMusic.  Calidum   20:33, 22 January 2019 (UTC)
 * You know better than Walter Becker about his music. OK.

WikiProject Rock music
You might want to assess the song on the project's scale. --Kyle Peake (talk) 15:37, 22 June 2019 (UTC)
 * My understanding is that someone who hasn't worked on the article much should do it (beyond moving it from stub- to start-class). Daniel Case (talk) 15:09, 27 June 2019 (UTC)
 * There is no rule that you can't change the class yourself, unless it's to GA or FA status. Good luck with your working on the article after my comments, actually. --Kyle Peake (talk) 15:13, 27 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Thank you; I'm hoping to start work on your punch list by the weekend; I'm currently putting the finishing touches on FM Non-Duplication Rule so as to get it on DYK for Sunday (the 55th anniversary of the rule's adoption). As for not reassessing articles, I guess that has just been a personal thing, because I think it's right (it would be like your teacher letting you grade your own paper IMO). Daniel Case (talk) 15:46, 27 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Each to their own, and I have no issue with the article being done over the weekend; as long as the issues are addressed within the week limit it's fine. Kyle Peake (talk) 17:37, 27 June 2019 (UTC)