JETHRO TULL

important work in color

1968: This Was. 1969: Stand Up. 1970: Benefit. 1971: Aqualung. 1972: Thick as a Brick * Living in the Past (live, unreleased and greatest hits). 1973: Passion Play. 1974: War Child. 1975: Minstrel in the Gallery. 1976: M.U./The Best of Jethro Tull * Too Old to Rock & Roll, Too Young to Die. 1977: Songs from the Wood. 1978: Heavy Horses * Bursting Out (live). 1979: Storm Watch. 1980: A. 1982: Broadsword and the Beast. 1983: Walk into Light. 1984: Under Wraps. 1987: Crest of a Knave. 1988: 20 Years of Jethro Tull. 1989: Rock Island. 1991: Catfish Rising. 1992: A Little Light Music. 1993: 25th Anniversary Album (Remixes) * Nitecap. 1995: Roots and Branches * Divinities: 12 Dances With God. 1999: j-tull Dot Com.

Jethro Tull’s first three albums are comfortably eclectic, but perhaps not as well played as they once seemed. The dense folk, blues, jazz mixture, now quaintly English, is enjoyable on Stand Up, but devolves into a thicket of verbiage on Benefit. On 1971’s Aqualung, Jethro Tull leader Ian Anderson succumbed to the idiosyncratic artistic/biological destiny that would set him and his band apart from less ambitious musicians. Aqualung is awesomely, yet tiresomely, riff-heavy, and Anderson’s lyrics are dryly declamatory and acutely downbeat. Never less than wittily articulate and philosophically sound, Anderson wraps his rat’s ass viewpoint around lurching, staccato time signatures that can surprise, enthrall and irritate all at the same time. Anderson may detest Christian proselytizing, but on Aqualung he uses identical devices to deliver his own dogmatic morality lesson. The result is instructional, rather than emotional. Anderson’s arrangements don’t always do justice to his intelligence though the technical laboriousness of his rhythm punctuation has given him a high profile as an arty aesthete equivalent to the popularity of those spell-binding cinematographer/directors of empty art-house hits.

Thick as a Brick offered more state-of-the-human-condition musings with even more complex arrangements and some of the music reaches peaks of whirligig exactitude and performance moxie of a seldom-paralleled nature. Thick as a Brick is word heavy, as are most Tull efforts. Anderson’s tongue-in-cheek, mean-spirited nastiness can be fun: "I see you shuffle in the courtroom/with your rings upon your fingers/your downy little sideys and your silver-buckle shoes/ Playing at the hard-case/ you follow the example of the comic-paper idol/who lets you bend the rules."

Anderson’s ideas are astute. He can carry on and make sense: "Come on ye childhood heroes/won’t you rise up from the pages/ of your comic books/your super-crooks/and show us all the way. Make your will and testament/won’t you join your local government/we’ll have Superman for president/let Robin save the day." Anderson’s earthy prose forcefully dissects hypocrisy, conceit, greed and lust. But Anderson’s spotty melodic flair often can’t help the sententiousness. His rather limited vocal range, his avoidance of vocal harmony, and his unrooted, willfully perverse, technique results in hookless complexity. His punctuations overwhelm his melodies and the songs seldom swing. You don’t come away humming tunes, you come away verbalizing dramatic flourishes – ba BOOM, ba da da, BOOM BOOM ba, BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM. Anderson’s European artiness, despite an entertaining world view, often leads to the same place as the work of King Crimson and the more outré endeavors of David Bowie.

Someone as smart and engaged as Anderson couldn’t sustain a career without reaching interesting high points, and he is a great band leader/writer/musician. Minstrel in the Gallery tackles a theme many rockers – from Dylan to Davies – come to sooner or later: the relationship between performer and audience. On Minstrel, Anderson gets down to shirtsleeves and wades amongst the masses – "the pumpkin-eaters, titillated men-of-action, one-line jokers, woman-haters, backgammon players." "He called the band down to the stage and he looked at all the friends he’d made." Elitism can’t tarnish Anderson: he’s part of the motley crew. On "Baker Street Muse" he has a deft line about his participation: "Talking to the gutter-stinking, winking in the same old way; I tried to catch my eye but I looked the other way."

"Pig-Me and the Whore" is a sustained piece of writing – one of Anderson’s best:

"Big bottled Fraulein, put your weight on me," said the pig-me to the whore, desperate for more in his assault upon the mountain. Little man, his youth a fountain. Overdrafted and still counting. Vernacular, verbose; an attempt in getting close to where he came from. In the doorway of the stars, between Blandford Street and Mars. Proposition, deal. Fly button feel. Testicle testing. Wallet ever-bulging. Dressed to the left, divulging the wrinkles of his years. Wedding-bell induced fears. Shedding bell-end tears in the pocket of her resistance. International assistance flowing generous and full to his never-ready tool. Pulls his eyes over her wool. And he shudders as he comes."

About as ribald as rock gets, Dylan revolutionized song lyrics for feats like Anderson’s. Minstrel in the Gallery seems simpler around the edges than most Tull endeavors. The slow tunes have a sober beauty and delicate emotionalism; the hard rock explosions are impressively dynamic.

Anderson’s music takes on an ingratiating edge when the instrumental music is grounded with a certain amount of acoustic beauty. The pastoral settings and the woodsy flavoring of Songs From the Wood and Heavy Horses bring out more melody and instrumental lyricism than is usual for Tull (though Heavy Horses is possibly robbed of classic status by the thudding tunelessness of the long-winded "No Lullaby"). The live recording, Bursting Out, imparts additional attitude to popular Tull songs and the demanding playing is even more impressive in a live context.

In the dissolute 80’s, a disastrous decade for so many 60’s veterans, Jethro Tull went from new-wave techo experiments (Walking in Light and Under Wraps) to simpler rock dynamics (Crest of a Knave and Rock Island). Neither avenue has proven any more enjoyable for the listener. Tull’s sound remains fairly ugly and dry, full of instrumental tangents that make little sense. Songs like "Dun Ringill," "Dark Ages," "Flying Colors" and "Seal Driver" call for anthemic, epical, martial musical atmosphere instead of the quirky, undescriptive, rhythmic trickery they are encased in. It's admirable that Tull goes to so mucy effort to make is instrumental backing so unique; he often gets the music organized well before the words are written. Sometimes this creates a chasm between lyrical concept and musical concept. What often makes Jethro Tull unpleasant is, unfortunately, Anderson’s forte. Anderson shuts up briefly on Divinities: 12 Dances With God, and it's a relief. Then, on j-tull Dot Com, he delivers another great album, both wordy, frenetic and emotional. There are unsung classic songs (not radio friendly) all over Tull's career. The volume is still increasing.

 

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