Jethro Tull

This DVD made this reviewer laugh a lot, and smile even more, and think longer and harder than he expected to, for most of its 90-minute length. There's a peculiar grandeur to be experienced in Jethro Tull, astonishing as that statement may seem in 2004 -- it was brought home again with the release of +New Day Yesterday: 1969-1994 on DVD. Then again, they've always been the most underestimated of all the progressive rock bands of their era -- that's one way that they've survived, by managing to defy others' expectations on an album-to-album and tour-by-tour basis. And they've never broken the spell, mostly because Ian Anderson never threw the fact that they did this with disturbing regularity back in observers' faces -- they just give an ironic smile (even when they won a Grammy Award as Best Hard Rock/Heavy Metal Band in 1989) and look as delighted with the whole idea of their still being around as everyone else is astonished. Jethro Tull have never been without their sense of irony, except in the early days when they were trying to be a serious blues band. Since the aftermath of that first album, when Anderson took over the band, the group has shown the most wry sense of humor in popular music this side of Noel Coward. +New Day Yesterday may work as well as it does because it's like the music on their best albums, permeated with that irony. In the opening seconds of the footage depicting the 1994 25th anniversary reunion of 13 past and present members of the band, original lead guitarist Mick Abrahams (who left in 1969) and lead guitarist Martin Barre (then in his 24th year with the group) each describe themselves as limited to one style of playing -- Abrahams seems contented with the notion that his blues-based sound was what he had to pursue, which meant losing millions; drummer Clive Bunker, who left in 1971 and comes off as unpretentious as any musician ever associated with a progressive band, describes the early Jethro Tull as "a bloody loud folk band." Interspersed with all of these and other interviews, you get extraordinarily good quality clips (and sometimes more than clips) of songs from across 25 years of their history. Glen Cornick seems still bitter over the circumstances his departure, but Barriemore Barlow seems content with his years and their end, and speaks highly of Cornick's successor, Jeffrey Hammond-Hammond -- who is seen in a long excerpt from "The Story of the Hare That Lost His Spectacles." The performance clips, from concerts and television, cut across decades, starting in 1993 (by which time Anderson is starting to look and talk a lot like a young Alec Guinness) back to 1970 and into the mid-'70s. John Evans, who spent a decade with the group -- usually hidden in the background on-stage, as he was clean shaven and looked more like an accountant than a rock musician -- gives an almost tongue-in-cheek account of the debate that swirled over his addition to the band on keyboards; that cuts quickly to an extended clip of "Aqualung" from the BBC in 1977 (by which time the group was considered tame family fare next to the punk bands nipping at the heels of most progressive rock outfits). The clips show a lot of work, especially the moments merging rehearsals and actual performances from years apart, and lest anyone thinks Anderson was showing his age at any point, the clips of "Rocks on the Road" or "A New Day Yesterday" from the 1990s reveal a voice as powerful as ever and better flute technique than he could muster on-stage sometimes in 1970.

The actual documentary runs only 50 minutes, but the DVD has been extended out with the full-length versions of seven videos used as excerpts in the documentary. "Teacher" from French TV in 1970 is mimed, but it's still great viewing -- the color looks amazingly good, the camera angles and cutting capture the most exciting moments in the group's show, which, in those early days, still possessed a psychedelic component amid the rocked up English folk music. "The Witch's Promise" from Top of the Pops shows Anderson engaging in a pantomime a little too arch for his own good, but the production is so pretty and the song so haunting that it's a keeper, as a slice of history, and for catching Anderson in a very theatrical mode and Martin Barre contentedly playing an acoustic guitar. If the folk melodies on their albums weren't enough to tell you that Jethro Tull were an English band in all capital letters, "The Story of the Hare Who Lost His Spectacles" from their woefully underrated A Passion Play should have gotten the message across -- the extended pantomime, a mix of A. A. Milne and Michael Powell channeled through Anderson's (and Jeffrey Hammond-Hammond's) wry presences, bewildered most Americans, but it had this slightly more trans-Atlantic viewer laughing out loud, sitting here alone watching it, when he wasn't delighting in the costumes, melodies, performances, and so on. Indeed, between moments like this and his service in spreading English folk music to audiences and generations that otherwise would never have known of it, Anderson ought to be in the running for a knighthood, if not a life-peerage. The complete performances of "Aqualung" and "Kissing Willie" (which looks like an animated Bruegel painting crossed with a road-company production of +Tom Jones) are worth the price of the disc by themselves. The 1993 version of "Living in the Past" is icing on the cake, as hard-rocking a performance as you'd ever want and a delight from beginning to end.

The disc opens automatically to a short menu on start-up. The sound is state-of-the-art, mastered at a volume level equivalent to the most modern CDs, and utilizing the best quality sources and digital technology, for the live or studio performances. The packaging says there's a "hidden" bonus track, a French TV performance of "The Witch's Promise," though that didn't seem to turn up on any of the options cued by this reviewer. ~ Bruce Eder, All Music Guide