A Passion Play (Remastered) Jethro Tull

• 1 Lifebeats/Prelude 03:24
• 2 The Silver Cord 04:28
• 3 Re-Assuring Tune 01:11
• 4 Memory Bank 04:20
• 5 Best Friends 01:56
• 6 Critique Oblique 04:35
• 7 Forest Dance #1 01:33
• 8 The Story Of The Hare Who Lost His Spectacles 04:09
• 9 Forest Dance #2 01:12
• 10 The Foot Of Our Stairs 05:08
• 11 Overseer Overture 03:58
• 12 Flight From Lucifer 03:56
• 13 10.08 To Paddington 01:04
• 14 Magus Perde 03:53
• 15 Epilogue 00:45
• Total Runtime 45:32

Info for A Passion Play (Remastered)

Alongside Thick As A Brick, 1973’s A Passion Play is Jethro Tull’s most overtly Progressive and conceptual release, featuring a complex poetic narrative framed by the most adventurous music of the band’s career. A #1 US hit on its release, the album offers dazzling virtuoso instrumental passages, evocative synthesiser sequences, and fuses Folk, Jazz and Rock influences in a strikingly unique, wholly Jethro Tull way.

A Passion Play (An Extended Performance) features new Steven Wilson stereo-mixes of the album, alongside Steven Wilson mixes of the infamous ‘Chateau Disaster’ recordings that preceded it.

In 1972 Jethro Tull were riding high on the crest of a popularity wave. They sold out huge arenas on the back of their critically acclaimed fifth album Thick As A Brick. The question was, how do you follow a concept album comprising a single 44-minute piece of music? The answer was, with a double album of separate songs of course.

For the first time in their five year career Tull went into the studio with an unchanged line-up. Founder member and undisputed leader Ian Anderson was still writing songs on flute, acoustic guitar and now saxophone, and he was again joined by guitarist Martin Barre, bassist Jeffrey Hammond-Hammond, drummer Barriemore Barlow and keyboard player John Evans. But which studio to use?

The first criterion was that it had to be abroad. The second criterion was that the studio of choice had to have a good reputation. The 18th century Château d'Hérouville near Paris had previously been used by Elton John to record Honky Château and by Pink Floyd for Obscured By Clouds. It contained living accommodation as well as studio facilities, and so seemed the ideal choice. What could possibly go wrong?

The choice was a disaster. First up, there were technical problems with the studio itself. Then there was the accommodation... the band all slept in a dormitory, it was very basic which might have been tolerable, had they been the sole occupants of the rooms. Unfortunately, they had unwelcome company, of a bed-bug variety. And then to make matters infinitely worse everybody got food poisoning from the in-house catering.

Unsurprisingly the band decided to go home and the decision was made to ditch the hour or so s worth of music recorded in France. They decided to start from scratch and write a whole new album, instead of trying to somehow regenerate everybody s interest and commitment to something that had already struggled.

And so to A Passion Play, an album that evolved into a 45-minute piece of quasi-prog rock, with complex time-signatures, complex lyrics and, well, complex everything, really. With a mere nine days left in the studio before the next tour, the pressure was on to produce something quickly. The concept explored the notion that choices might still be faced in the afterlife. It recognizes that age-old conflict between good and bad, God and the Devil.

Ian Anderson, flute, guitar, soprano and sopranino saxophones, vocals
Martin Barre, electric guitars
John Evan, piano, organ, synthesisers, vocals
Jeffrey Hammond, bass, narrator on 'The Story of the Hare Who Lost His Spectacles'
Barriemore Barlow, drums, timpani, glockenspiel, marimba

Recorded from December 1972 - January 1973, Château d'Hérouville, Val-d'Oise & March 1973, Morgan Studios, London
Engineered by Robin Black
Produced by Ian Anderson, Terry Ellis

Digitally remastered

Jethro Tull
formed in February 1968 from the ashes of two unsuccessful blues/rock bands of the era. Ian Anderson brought his unique and innovative style of flute playing to a public raised on the guitar based British bands who courted acceptance at London’s famous Marquee Club.

After their first tentative blues oriented album, titled “This Was,” the group moved through successive records towards a more progressive sound, and with “Aqualung” in 1971 achieved their first real international level of success.

A few hit singles, notably “Living in the Past,” livened up their early career although it was as an album band, with songs of real substance, that the group really took off, both on record and as a major live concert act.

So-called concept albums followed in the early 70’s (“Thick as a Brick” and “A Passion Play”) with the attendant platinum No. 1 album chart sales.

Tull survived the critical backlash of the return-to-basics later 70’s to produce some of their finest creative efforts which, although not quite matching the commercial success of the previous works, established the band as one of the truly creative exponents of progressive music throughout the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s.

They have continued to constantly reinvent themselves, albeit with several personnel changes along the way.

Ian Anderson (flute and vocals) and Martin Barre (guitar) provide to this day the musical and historical backbone of the group, joined by Doane Perry on drums, Andrew Giddings on keyboards, and Jonathan Noyce on bass.

This album contains no booklet.