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The crux around which Part Two of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Battle Tendency revolves is the Red Stone of Aja or The Super Aja, a miraculous gemstone that the Pillar Men were after. It’s a stone so powerful that it would make them invincible. The Red Stone of Aja is named after the Steely Dan album Aja and its title track.
Aja, a phonetic pun on the word Asia, is Steely Dan’s sixth and most successful album. It is an album that epitomizes a very different kind of music-making, an example of Steely Dan’s romance with jazz, featuring musicians who are giants in the field.
Steely Dan isn’t just a band. It’s a gallery of musicians brought together to bring the music that existed in the minds of Donald Fagen and Walter Becker to life. They would pick the dream team of musicians who would be able to realize the specific sound they wanted to the track. Like Pete Christlieb, who never played on any other Steely Dan album yet delivers a fantastic saxophone solo in “Deacon Blues.” Aja boasts an impressive roster of musicians; Wayne Shorter, Steve Gadd, Bernard Perdie, Chuck Rainey, Joe Sample and Jim Keltner, among others.
In Ripple Master Lisa Lisa’s words, the Red Stone of Aja is “Nature’s perfect miracle crystal. Without a single imperfection! The Super Aja!”
Steely Dan’s Aja is the same. The album has incredibly high production standards as is the case with any Steely Dan album. Even with the advancements in the technology of today, Aja has stood the test of time and remains one of the best commercial recordings ever made.
As with any Steely Dan album, the beauty is that none of the musicians really know what’s going on when they play. It’s taxing to be a musician on a Steely Dan song, mainly because to actualize the sound that Fagen and Becker want, you’d need to do many, many, many takes to get just right. It took seven session guitarists recording various takes of the same guitar solo on “Peg” until Becker and Fagen found Jay Graydon’s solo to be the one. Even then it took him six hours to perfect it.
“Aja” (the song) features Wayne Shorter’s famous saxophone solo. Becker and Fagen were not sure if they could get Wayne Shorter on board for the saxophone solo in “Aja.” Initially Shorter had declined. To a jazz saxophonist like him, a band called Steely Dan sounded like just another rock group. The only way of getting Shorter in the studio was not to tell him what band he’d be playing the solo for, which is what Dick LaPalm, owner of the Village Recorder studio did. The track was all laid out and Shorter was casually asked to do an overdub. Shorter took time to meditate, chant, (he was Buddhist) and did six passes. All it took was about half an hour. Fagen and Becker spliced it into the latter half of the song, towards the end, which the song soars into the stratosphere.
Steely Dan songs nearly always have this elusive quality of lyrics that are open to interpretation. The tracks on Aja are no exception and feature some of the most obscure lyrics in Steely Dan’s discography.
She’s the raw flame
The live wire
She prays like a Roman
With her eyes on fire
Back to JoJo’s Super Aja. The mysterious stone originally belonged to an ancient unnamed Roman emperor from whom the Pillar Men attempted to steal it. Their endeavour failed and the Pillar Men were sealed in stone. The Ripple clan who were unable to destroy the stone as the Pillar Men slumbered instead sought to protect the stone from falling into the wrong hands.
When the Pillar Men awoke, their one-point program was to steal the Super Aja from its current owner, Lisa Lisa. The constant back-and-forth fight for the Super Aja is what propels the story of Battle Tendency along.
This is the day
Of the expanding man
That shape is my shade
There where I used to stand
It seems like only yesterday
I gazed through the glass
At ramblers, wild gamblers
That’s all in the past
“Deacon Blues” is one of the best-known songs about losers. Ironically it begins with “This is the day of the expanding man.” It works on many, many levels. He’s growing (literally), growing lazy, growing older or just boasting. Fagen had this to say on the song’s opening lines:
“The concept of the ‘expanding man’ that opens the song may have been inspired by Alfred Bester’s The Demolished Man. Walter and I were major sci-fi fans. The guy in the song imagines himself ascending to the levels of evolution, ‘expanding’ his mind, his spiritual possibilities, and his options in life.”
Very fitting to be tied into the concept of the Super Aja which the Pillar Men were after to trigger their evolution, transforming them into the ultimate lifeform.
Shine up the battle apple
We’ll shake ’em all down tonight
We’re gonna mix in the street
Strike at the stroke of midnight
Dance on the bones ’til the girls say when
Pick up what’s left by daylight
When Josie comes home
The final battles in Battle Tendency take place in the dark of the night (the Pillar Men cannot be out when the sun’s up). The battle arena — Skeleton Heel Stone at the foot of the Piz Bernina in Switzerland. The battle — a chariot race between Joseph and Wham to determine the owner of the Super Aja.
Of course, despite Joseph’s victory, the final Pillar Man, Kars doesn’t give up. He challenges Lisa Lisa to a one-on-one battle where he tricks her and takes off with the Super Aja. Transforming into the Ultimate Lifeform, he and Joseph begin a fight to the death.
Double helix in the sky tonight
Throw out the hardware, let’s do it right
Aja, when all my dime dancin’ is through
I run to you
It’s a close fight. Joseph wins only by the skin of his teeth, launching Kars along with the Super Aja into outer space via a volcano eruption.
Well the danger on the rocks is surely past
Still I remain tied to the mast
Could it be that I have found my home at last
“Home at Last” is a tribute to The Odyssey by Homer. The lyrics above are a nod to the scene where Ulysses’ crew block their ears from the Sirens’ song but Ulysses himself whose ears are unblocked, has the crew tie him to the mast to make sure he doesn’t dive into the waters. He hopes against hope to make it back home to his wife and child.
Bernard Purdie, a drummer with a lot of groove and soul does a very distinct beat here in “Home at Last” that came to be known as the Purdie Shuffle.
In JJBA, Kars was shot out past the exosphere (like one does listening to Aja) along with the Super Aja. He turns into a chunk of space rock due to the near absolute zero temperatures, unable to do anything other than drift in the vastness of space. He gets his wish of remaining tethered to the Super Aja but at what cost?
Like the Red Stone of Aja, Steely Dan’s Aja is truly a miraculous gem of an album.
Aja’s playlist
“Aja”
“Deacon Blues”
“Josie”
“Home at Last”
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