Recorded at CBS STUDIOS, London
One of the few times I've heard a symphony orchestra siving was at the ALBERT HALL, London, in February 1967, which, if you think about it, was the time when the embryonic JETHRO TULL was beginning to assemble in the Lancashire seaside resort of Blackpool, where Ian ANDERSON and other TULL brothers were raised.
The orchestra that swung then was The LONDON PHILHARMONIC, driven by the stabbing unadorned gestures and then the handclapping of the peerless Duke ELLINGTON.
A tumbling flute led the drive, and the brass, propelled by nine string basses playing pizzicato, soon joined in.
It was a quite remarkable passage, for it reaffirmed my belief that good music (this was a new suite of Duke's, "The Golden Broom and the Green Apple") can be played enjoyably by siny good gxoup of musicians, even if style and emphasis may change.
All this is excitingly relevant to the album you hold in your hand. The LONDON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA sounds to me as if it has swallowed the orchestrations of JETHRO TULL music that TULL brother David PALMER has produced for it with a heap of professional glee.
The orchestra swings-at times in the literal sense of a regular rhythm, infectious and elastic, but even more so in that metaphorical sense that Edward KENNEDY ELLINGTON, the Duke himself, coined. "Swing", said Duke, "is the ultimate in compatibility."
That's the secret, isn't it? Compatibility. I never have believed, a view shared with Duke, that music should be compartmentalized, pigeonholed and categorized.
The whole history of music has been one of "fusions" and "cross-overs," which the heavy-knuckled ignoramuses who are too often let loose these days to write about "rock" choose to forget, if they ever knew.
How would jazz, for instance, have happened had not the traditions of Europe encountered those of Africa?
Compatibility between musicians is the key: appreciation of, enjoyment in and sometimes respect for what they are playing and for each other. When that happens, as it happened with Duke and the LPO, and has on this album with PALMER, TULL's music and the LSO, the results are always fascinating-and it doesn't matter a damn whether the music was originally intended for a symphony orchestra or not.
There isn't a popular band anywhere in the world, one might add, whose music more deserves to be given a symphonic treatment than JETHRO TULL's, which effectively means Ian ANDERSON's, since he has been their songwriter and driving force for more than 15 years.
In their evolution from jazz-blues band with classical influences into an idiosyncratic rock-jazz-classical-progressive group whose leaning in the last 10 years has been increasingly toward folkish lines and English themes, TULL have been knights of the fusion table.
They were among the first to show that rock needn't be three chords, two guitars, one drummer, one screamer.
They broadened the idea of popular music, brought wit to it and gave it idiosyncracy and eccentricity, especially in the shape of Ian ANDERSON in his tramp-as-rock-star role,
steaming away furiously at his flute on one leg. "Mad Dog Fagin" they called him, as his shaggy hair, wild eyes and dirty overcoat became the hallmark of TULL's rise to sellout-arena and inevitable gold-album status.
TULL opened the way for, and went along with, the battalions who included Genesis, YES, LED ZEPPELIN, PINK FLOYD - the period which, in my view, remains the richest in English rock history.
What, frankly has been offered of much lasting quality since, for all the fact that progressive supergroups often went
"over the top"? TULL went over the top, too, at times, but I never mind that when the cause is ambition rather than dull play-it-again-Sam repetition. TULL's legacy from the 1970s is immense.
David PALMER is without doubt the man best suited to interpret that legacy symphonically. He began working with Ian ANDERSON on TULL arrangements back in 1968.
He created the orchestrations, and conducted the orchestra, for such ambitious TULL projects as "War Child" (1974) and "Minstrel in the Gallery" (1975). He was a full-blown band member in the late '70s-on the classic "Heavy Horses" album and "Songs from the Wood" - before leaving in 1980 to concentrate on his career as composer and arranger. Richard RODNEY BENNETT was his tutor when he studied at the ROYAL ACADEMY Of MUSIC.
Impeccable credentials, I would have thought, and that is the way it has turned out on the album. I love the pun in the title, "A CLASSIC CASE", since TULL are obviously a classic rock band (if we must categorize them), and the classical overtones of the LSO need no emphasizing.
And didn't TULL, too, take their name from the 18th-century agronomist who invented the machine drill for sowing seed, which is surely classical enough?
At the same time, there is nothing "tone-poemish" about PALMER's treatment of the music. He has aimed for, in his own words, "a driving and very 'live' account of the well-known songs," and this he has achieved.
The recording with the orchestra was done in 1984. Ian ANDERSON and other current TULL brothers added their solo parts later-and very excitingly.
The hoarse and gulping, sharp-tongued and voice-over flute style of Anderson, in which he so brightly allowed himself to be influenced by the late jazz eccentric,
Roland KIRK, fits beautifully with the orchestra-not least because he can also play crystal-clear and lyrically when wanted.
Listen to the evolution of "Bonrree", for example a BACH piece, rather like a gavotte, which first surfaced on TULL's "Stand Up" album in 1969- The early flute and strings are very 18th centuryish, but the flute and bass lead toward a most exciting jazay climax where ANDERSON's sound brilliantly rides over yet blends with the strings.
Those strands of care, aptness, surprise and high performance appear on every track. My favorites are the urgent blend of strings, percussion, brass and flute on "Fly By Night"; the menace and softness of "Aqualung", and the surprising briskness of "Elegy".
Of these three, "Fly By Night" draws from me as great a compliment as I can pay: it's so wonderfully orchestrated it sounds like vintage Henry MANCINI.
Nothing on the album, however, quite approaches the grandeur of "War Child". The soft strings-and-oboe elegaic feel of this is absolutely conquering, the evocation of a darker and deeper emotional strain than is usual with popular composers.
This album is a splendid start to what is, I gather, to be a series, with Palmer already at work on the music of Genesis. Fans will savor it, I'm sure, and it could win a host of new fans for TULL (and PALMER!).
Not the least of associated pleasures has been going back to the original albums whose music PALMER has re-created.
Both the old (with those extravagant early='70s sleeves, which will one day be collectors' items) and the new stand up as well as TULL have been doing since their classic album of that name in 1969.
- Derek Jewell
Jazz and Popular Music Critic of the SUNDAY TIMES, London
