Author: Peter Podbrežnik
Artist: Jethro Tull
Label: RandM Records
Release: 2003
Rating: 2.5/5
Releasing Christmas albums is apparently turning into a trend among legendary bands who’ve run out of creative steam in their golden years and are increasingly being eaten away by the rust of missing imagination. How else do you explain the fact that both The Moody Blues and Jethro Tull put out their Christmas albums in the same year, practically back to back? As for the Moodies, who haven’t shown a flash of innovation in ages, it wasn’t exactly a shocker. But from the eternally untamable flute-blower and his crew, I’d still have expected a bit more tact toward their longtime fans, especially after two very decent albums on which they proved they could still surprise with fresh sonic ideas. This release, though, feeds mostly on excellent but long since chewed-over musical ideas from the rich Tull legacy and the legacy of traditional Christmas music.
“The Jethro Tull Christmas Album” looks like a downright paradox at first glance for one of the best-known atheists in music, the guy who once, on the legendary album “Aqualung” (1971), went after organized religion with no compromise and who’s famous for his sarcastic humor. Well, no need to fear that Ian found religion in his old age. By his own account, he made the thing not because he passionately celebrates the birth of Christ on this holiday, but as a birthday gift for his daughter, and because he’s always been drawn to that old-fashioned, uncommercialized Christmas spirit. At the same time, he wanted to rearrange a few of their classics, mainly the ones with a strong folk rock component, along with some traditional holiday tunes. Ian, who’s long since been more than just a music legend and is one of Scotland’s most successful businessmen, also came up with a very slick trick for selling the faithful fans a release as the new Jethro Tull album, even though there’s hardly anything new on it.
The songs on this album are a mix of a handful of new tracks, rearranged old songs and reworked arrangements of traditional Christmas carols. They’re played and arranged at a top level, as you’d expect from Ian and his merry gang, but after listening there’s still a slightly bitter aftertaste of being cheated. There’s nothing on this release that could credibly qualify it as a new Jethro Tull album, so it should be put in a special category of holiday albums, which, frankly, could also be sold at half price. If we don’t get hung up on all that and take it as a sincere tribute to the Christmas spirit, it’s a very solid, straightforward folk rock-oriented album (even their most folk rock-leaning release without any distinct prog component), one that has already become a must-have Christmas fixture for most of their fans.
On two tracks the band was joined by former member, bassist Dave Pegg (Fairport Convention), whose folk rock pedigree always delivers whenever a good folk rock arrangement needs to be created or played. The individual performances and folk arrangements are mostly well executed, fluid, and create a pleasant, rustic, festive atmosphere, where you can easily picture snowy British plains and a handful of bearded revelers leaving an Irish pub. Apart from Ian’s years-old vocal rustiness, which the production cleverly masks, there are no major complaints about the performances. The criticism mostly targets the lack of the usual Jethro Tull verve, liveliness and wit that you can normally feel across most of their releases, the rather sterile production, and the fact that the album is marketed as an official studio album.
The most interesting piece on the whole album is definitely the opener “Birthday Card at Christmas”, which (like the entire album) is dedicated to Ian’s daughter Gael, who celebrates her birthday on Christmas Day and, in Ian’s sarcastic words, therefore always stays in Christ’s shadow. Plenty of nice folk arrangements on flute and acoustic guitar and solid passages on Martin’s electric guitar, backed by Ian’s thoroughly worn-down vocals, make it witty enough to deserve a special mention. The traditional Christmas songs dressed up in folk rock shirts impress a bit less, nearly all of them instrumentals, with Ian and the gang turning into Santa and Irish elves for a while and heading off to a pub crawl by sleigh. Even less exciting are the newly arranged Tull classics such as (as expected) “A Christmas Song”, “Jack Frost And The Hooded Crow”, “Weathercock”, “Fire at Midnight”, “Ring Out Solstice Bells” and “Bouree”, which are interesting only as a comparison to their far better and more energetic originals. Personally, I don’t see any real need to rearrange them, since some of the best (prog) rock elements were stripped out to make them sound as soft as possible. I think it would’ve been much better to record something new, but even so this is better than throwing the original versions on there and selling that as a new studio album.
The winner of the award for Scotland’s most successful businessman has this time slipped a cuckoo’s egg into a prettily painted Easter egg, which nevertheless manages to create a solid Christmas mood, and that’s ultimately its main purpose. Personally, I don’t even count this album, which I don’t touch outside of the Christmas holidays or some truly exceptional circumstances, as part of their regular studio discography, but as a release of some special category. Ian doesn’t have much in common with his distant cousin Scrooge from Dickens’ famous Christmas tale. But he does have a good nose for remembering how to squeeze a few extra coins out of minimal effort, which always come in handy for renovating fish farms and buying large quantities of cat food. The main problem with “The Jethro Tull Christmas Album”, an otherwise perfectly decent folk rock release that comes in handy for killing boredom when someone wants to bore you over the holidays with traditional Christmas tunes performed by the “valiant” Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin or Bing Crosby, remains the unavoidable feeling that it was really made mainly to squeeze a bit of extra cash out of the pockets of the band’s biggest fans, who buy anything with the name Jethro Tull on it, in an easy way while the world still waits for a proper Jethro Tull studio album. If the album were sold at half price (say, the way EPs are sold) or handed out at their concerts as a special gift with the purchase of other albums, my opinion of it would probably be somewhat different.
Lineup
Ian Anderson – vocals, flute, acoustic guitar, mandolin, piccolo, percussion
Martin Barre – electric guitar, acoustic guitar
Jonathan Noyce – bass guitar on tracks 2, 5, 9, 11, 13 and 15
Andy Giddings – keyboards, accordion, bass guitar, organ
Doane Perry – drums, percussion on tracks 1, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12 and 14
GUEST MUSICIANS:
David Pegg – mandolin on 3 and bass guitar on 4
James Duncan – drums on 2, 5, 9, 11, 13 and 15, percussion on 3
The Sturcz String Quartet – conductor Laszlo Bencker;
Gábor Csonka – first violin
Péter Szilágyi – second violin
Gyula Benkö – viola
András Sturcz – cello
Production
Ian Anderson
Track list
1. Birthday Card At Christmas (3:37)
2. Holly Herald (4:16)
3. A Christmas Song (2:47)
4. Another Christmas Song (3:31)
5. God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen (4:35)
6. Jack Frost And The Hooded Crow (3:37)
7. Last Man At The Party (4:48)
8. Weathercock (4:17)
9. Pavane (4:19)
10. First Snow On Brooklyn (4:57)
11. Greensleeved (2:39)
12. Fire At Midnight (2:26)
13. We Five Kings (3:16)
14. Ring Out, Solstice Bells (4:04)
15. Bourée (4:25)
16. A Winter Snowscape (Martin solo) (4:57)
Running time: 62:51
