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The Making of Steely Dan's Aja

Monday, June 11, 2007 | 06:30 PM

While waiting for last night's Soprano's to start, I decided to pop in a DVD I had lying around: Steely Dan - The Making of Aja.

Since someone else is sure to bring it up in comments, let's deal with the finale: Creator/writer/director David Chase made his bones adding a level of reality -- Cinéma vérité -- to his plotting and characters. He never liked neat endings, always leaves a level of ambiguity and uncertainty.

And while I didn't love last night's episode -- it was just another episode, and not any way at all a special "finale" -- I recognize what Chase attempted: He ended the show on a note of tension, uncertainty, and ambiguity. You know, just like real life. Hey, no one knows what will happen in the future, or what fate awaits us. He ended the show the same way . . .

Not that I really liked it -- it was disappointingly slow, and except for Phil "Flat-Head" Leotardo, not a whole lot happened.

But I digress.

Where was I? Oh, yes.

A few months ago, I mentioned on Friday Night Jazz this great video on the making of Steely Dan' Peg that I (somehow randomly) discovered on YouTube.

Turns out its part of a series of DVDs titled "Classic Albums" series that aired originally on VH1. So, while waiting for the last episode to begin, I popped in this DVD I've had lying around.

It was simply terrific. Really high quality stuff -- none of this "Behind-the-Boy-Band crap typical of VH1. Indeed, the great tragedy of VH1 is this very series -- and many of the UnPlugged shows -- are just so damn good, it makes you wonder how the rest of their programming can be so goddamned awful. It was that much better than what you would expect from typical VH1 stuff.

If you are any type of Dan fan, you must go order this right now.

In fact, I was so impressed with the quality of the interviews, clips, and sound quality -- I can't recall the last time I did this -- that, even as the DVD credits were rolling, I ordered four more DVDs (all $10 or less) from the same series.

As a music fan, I felt compelled to check out these "Classic Albums":

The Making of The Dark Side of the Moon

Paul Simon - Graceland

The Who: Who's Next

U2: The Joshua Tree

I'll update how these are at a latter date, but based on the Steely Dan DVD, and the high caliber of reviews at Amazon.com, I expect these all to be similarly excellent . . .