An
introduction to "Divinities"
Just before Easter 1995 a remarkle set of
music pieces was released, presented as Ian Anderson's
new solo album, once again showing his musical
versatility: 'Divinities'. It was an album totally
differing from anything Ian had written and recorded
before. Though presented as a solo album, Ian was
assisted by Andy Giddings who contributed a lot to the
composing and recording of the pieces, by Doane Perry
(percussion) and 7 other musicians from the Royal
Philharmonic Orchestra London, who played clarinet, oboe,
violin, cello, harp, french horn and trumpet. At first
hearing the album has a baroque, classical atmosphere and
was by an occasional reviewer even qualified as New Age
music (!), but there is more to that, I think. In
Giddings words: "The album is classical in the sense
that it has orchestral instruments and orchestral sounds.
It is a mixture of real instruments and synthesised
sounds, almost by accident" (Rees, p. 152-153).
An article in the folk and world music magazine Dirty
Linen reveals how this album came into being: When the
project was originally proposed to Anderson by the
classical division of EMI, he had his doubts. "I had
presumed this would be the awful
classical-symphony-orchestra-with-a-rock-group routine,
so I didn't respond too quickly. But they said `No, we
want you to write some original music for the flute and
perhaps other instruments of the traditional classical
orchestra.' And they went further to suggest a religious
or a spiritual theme."
Photograph taken
during the Divinities tour, by courtesy of ©
Kevan D. Shaw.
He also designed the lighting of the Rock Island and
Roots To Branches tours.
After making a couple of demos, Anderson began working
on the project in earnest, writing and recording the
material between Tull tours during 1994. For the first
time, he was writing material on the flute, rather than
on guitar or keyboards. When he decided he needed a
collaborator to work up the arrangements, he turned to
Tull keyboardist Giddings. "We worked on the thing
from the very beginning. This was a different way of
working for me. I felt that the greatest certainty of
having something acceptable at the end was by working
with someone that I knew. The alternative would have been
to work with someone from orchestral music, a classical
background. That would have meant taking a risk that I
really didn't want to have to take, given that there was
only a limited amount of time." (Dirty Linen, 1995,
issue number unknown).
Ian drew his inspiration from elements of religions he
in one way or another was confronted with during the
Jethro Tull tours. Rees quotes Andy Giddings: " ...
it's an acknowledgement of all the religions that are
around. It's not aimed at religious people or at any
particular religion, it's just a theme for the album.
Different religions tend to stem from different countries
and continents, and those people all have their own kind
of music. It was the musical element that was important
to us, in as much as it gives us twelve different styles
of music that we could work from, and then develop it in
our own way" ( Rees, p. 153-154).
Photograph taken
during the Divinities tour, by courtesy of ©
Kevin D. Shaw.
During a radio interview for The World Café, WXPN FM Radio Philadelphia that
took place on June 6 1995, Ian was asked about
what had inspired him:
Interviewer: "Now, I am curious about your study of
comparative religion. How serious is this, or is it a
convenient way to organize these pieces?"
I.A.: "Well; the idea of a religious or a spiritual
theme was something suggested to me by EMI Classics; it
was not originally my thought; it wouldn't really have
occurred to me to do that, but having had that put to me,
I went away and thought about how, how I might have some
input that would be... that would give us something that
was thematic, but wouldn't just be some very insular view
of one particular religion, one particular mood, one
particular, you know, set of ritual or dogma, and so, it
then occurred to me that my own experiences of travelling
around, to all the places we go to playing concerts, was
probably a good starting point, since we do actually find
ourselves in a lot of different cultures, a lot of
different, er, a lot of different countries where not
only is religion very prevalent on a day-to-day basis, in
the way people really do conduct their lives, but also
quite sometimes the reason for a degree of tension or
strife. I mean, I refer to concerts we've done fairly
recently in India, for example, where first time I landed
there, in Bombay a couple of years back, was just when
the bombs had gone off killing, you know, about a
thousand people in the Air India building, and it was,
you know, it is always brought home to you that religion
is alive and kicking, and sometimes kicking pretty
hard."
Photograph taken
during the Divinities tour, by courtesy of ©
Kevan D. Shaw.
Since Ian tends to consider his songs and
music pieces as 'unborn' as long as they have not been
played live for an audience, a short Divinities tour was
organized in May and June 1995. The complete album was
succesfully performed 18 times in relatively small
intimate venues in Europe, Canada and the US by Jethro
Tull-minus-Martin Barre-plus violinist Chris Leslie and
bass player Jonathan Noyce. These three hour concerts
also featured some of the best-known Jethro Tull songs as
well.
* Jan Voorbij
Annotations
As an instrumental
album 'Divinities' has (of course) no lyrics. However
several fans posted comments on the pieces of music of
this album to the SCC and in the Jethro Tull News Group
in 1997-1998, that might be of interest. At the time
there was a discussion going on in the SCC about Ian's
sources of inspiration for the 'Divinities' album. I also
included some of Ian's stage banter regarding
'Divinities' pieces. I want to thank Neil Thomason who
collected them for me.
In A Stone Circle
In Sight Of The Minaret
In A Black Box
A few years ago, I was able to
speak with Ian at length about Divinities, and I
questioned him about "In A Black Box"
and essentially, being an album about religion,
he decided to give "Cautious Inclusion"
to the "darker" sides of religion. I
feel the need to be very careful here, as Ian
strongly stated that he was "in no way into,
or advocating devil worship". But that
because that particular facet of religion was a
fact of life it did merit "cautious
inclusion". 'If you really listen to the
piece, you'll notice that while it seems very
whimsical, there is a very dark undertone to the
music. When I first heard it, I was strongly
reminded of Ray Bradbury's "Something Wicked
This Way Comes." It's my favourite cut on
the album. In it's original incarnation, it
started with a "student flute player"
playing a few not e s based on a music box. Then
you would have heard the sound of the kid putting
the flute down and walking from the room,
whereupon the box would spring to life and start
playing by itself. "Beautiful, dark and
seductive", to paraphrase Ian.
* Andy Bowyer
Another interpretation is that it
refers to the Kaaba - A small stone building in
the court of the Great Mosque at Mecca that
contains a sacred black stone, and is the goal of
Islamic pilgrimage.
* Theron Macay Quist
Ian's introduction to 'In A Black
Box' on stage:
"This next one is a piece, which is a bit
scary to me, because I grew up with a terrible
fear of music boxes; you know those things,
clockwork things? Scared the shit out of me. So,
I'm trying to overcome that with a bit of
therapy, here tonight. This a song called 'In A
Black Box'." (Hochschule der Künste,
Berlin, 22 May, 1995)
"Okay, moving on now, this is a piece, based
on a sort of a musical box idea, it's called 'In
A Black Box'."(Massey Hall, Toronto, 3 June,
1995)
In The Grip Of Stronger Stuff
Celtic again I think. Mostly
because of the musical themes.
* Theron Macay Quist
Remember, the album is " ...
instrumental and orchestral music, drawing on his
[Ian's] interest in comparative religions and
cultural influences... " (Ali Aziz,
Divinities sleeve notes). Not all the tracks
necessarily have religious themes.
* Neil Thomason
Ian's introduction to 'In the
Grip of Stronger Stuff' on stage:
'In the Grip of Stronger Stuff' - an ode to the
demon drink. Which of course we will not allow
near our lips until a little later this
evening". (Hochschule der Künste, Berlin,
22 May, 1995)
"That was called 'In the Grip of Stronger
Stuff' - an ode to the demon drink".(Massey
Hall, Toronto, 3 June, 1995)
In Maternal Grace
Sounds Catholic to me, or at any
rate, it has an orthodox Christian church sound
to me.
* Theron Macay Quist
Ian's introduction to 'In
Maternal Grace' on stage:
"The next piece is in fond response to that
most maternal of religions, Catholicism, and the
sort of thing that makes fully-grown, hairy,
Italian football players burst into tears at the
thought of 'Mama' . But that's good, that's good.
This is a piece called 'In Maternal Grace'."
(Hochschule der Künste, Berlin, 22 May, 1995)
"This next one is a much more gentle piece
which evokes fond thoughts of maternal instinct,
it\rquote s, sort of, the kind of the thing that
makes Italian football players burst into tears
at the thought of 'Mama' . There's nothing wrong
with that; it's the good side of Catholicism, and
it's called 'In Maternal Grace'." (Massey
Hall, Toronto, 3 June, 1995)
In The Moneylender's Temple
Ian's on stage: "Thank you
very much. That was called 'In the Moneylender's
Temple', wherever the moneylender's temple might
be. Having just come from Switzerland, I suggest
it could be there".
(Hochschule der Künste, Berlin, 22 May, 1995)
Interviewer: It seems to me that
almost every religion is at least represented
here in some way or another; there's 'Bombay
Valentine' for the piece you're talking about
with India. There's a piece that can go back to
either the Christian, I guess the Christian
religion or the Judaic tradition: 'In The
Moneylender's Temple'.
I.A.: Stripped bare, here's 'The Moneylender's
Temple'; which is a polite way of referring to
the loan institutions of the world.
(The World Café, WXPN FM Philadelphia, 6 June,
1995)
In Defence Of Faiths
I thought of St. Augustine and
other writers that wrote in the defence of
Christianity and also the later reformation
leaders - the use of the cathedral organ here is
the main clue for me. Ian quoted Prince Charles,
who said that because of multiculturalism, he
would no longer call himself a "Defender of
Faith", but a "Defender of FaithS".
So, Ian said, although the Prince managed to make
a complete mess o f his personal life, he had
succeeded in giving him the name of that song,
for which he was grateful.
* Theron Macay Quist
Personally I
consider this piece - musically speaking - as the
least attractive one of the album. It makes me
think of the Anglican religious celebrations,
broadcasted by the BBC each Sunday evening, where
psalms are sung supported by dominant
organ-playing.
* Jan Voorbij
Ian's introduction to 'In Defence
Of Faiths' on stage:
"Here's a piece dedicated in a way to our
Prince of Wales, Prince Charles who, as you know,
manages to pretty much fuck up his life at every
possible twist and turn. But, he did say
something, sensible some months ago, when he
referred to himself.... In English tradition, the
Prince Of Wales is the 'Defender Of The Faith',
but he said he would prefer to be 'Defender Of
The Faiths', in plural. And I thought that was
pretty good, for him, and we decided to call this
piece 'In Defence Of Faiths'. Well done, Prince
Charles! Let's hear it for Prince Charles! Hey,
what do you think of Prince Charles? Do you think
he's a good guy, or a bad guy? Let's hear it from
those who think he's a good guy. Let's hear it
from those who think Prince Charles is a bad guy.
Well, this is a little embarrassing, because I
have the great pleasure of introducing to you:
His Royal Highness, the Prince Of Wales! Hey,
just kidding. That would be embarrassing,
wouldn't it? Okay; right; 'In Defence Of
Faiths'."
(Hochschule der Künste, Berlin, 22 May, 1995)
Ian was actually mistaken on one
point: the British monarch is termed 'Defender Of
The Faith', not the heir to the throne; in the
quote Ian referred to, the Prince was talking
about when (if?) he becomes King. He got it right
in Toronto a couple of weeks later:
"Okay, this next one is a, is one that's
sort of based on a title, which came from our
Prince Charles; you know, we have our
'monarch-in-waiting', and, er.... He really is
quite a nice fellow, it's just that he's given to
making a total fuck-up of his life at every twist
and turn. But he said something a few months back
that was actually quite good. He's, as is
tradition, you see, the monarch is the 'Defender
Of The Faith', but Mr. Charles said he would
prefer to be considered the 'Defender Of Faiths',
in plural, and, you know, being a multi-racial,
multi-ethnic, multi-religious society, like your
own, I think that's quite indeed proper, so we
called this rather 'Englishy-sounding' hymn 'In
Defence Of Faiths'. It's not terribly good, but
it's a bit of fun, as I said." (Massey Hall,
Toronto, 3 June, 1995)
* Neil Thomason
At Their Father's Knee
Judaism, as stated by Anderson
directly in the interviews.
* Theron Macay Quist
Ian's introduction to 'At Their
Father's Knee' on stage:
"Any Jewish people in the audience tonight?
Good; okay, this next piece is for you. It's
based on a very traditional, authentic, Jewish
folk song. Which I wrote last year. And we don't
get there until the very end of the piece, but it
sort of works backwards, a very simple tune. On a
good night. On a bad night, it never gets there.
This is called ' At Their Father's Knee'."
(Hochschule der Künste, Berlin, 22 May, 1995)
"Now; anybody out there Jewish? Okay; don't
be embarrassed. Could be worse; could be
vegetarian. This one is dedicated to those Jewish
folks and the Jewish family tradition,
particularly the paternalistic and sometimes
heavy-handed fatherly role that we all have to
endure from time to time. Don't know how you are
with your kids, if but you bring them up in a
liberal fashion, treat them like young adults,
tickle them under the chin when they do wrong,
and say tut, tut, tut. Or whether you just beat
the shit out of them. Everything has it's place,
to a point. This one is called 'Their Father's
Knee'; respectfully, yours". (Massey Hall,
Toronto, 3 June, 1995)
En
Afrique
In
The Olive Garden
In The Pay Of Spain
For me this
graceful piece of music conjures up the image of
ships sailing a calm sea to destinations far
away. Are "all who sail in her" Spanish
seamen, soldiers and priests, on their way to a
new Eldorado where gold is to be found and people
to be 'converted' to Christianity?
* Jan Voorbij
In The Times Of India (Bombay Valentine)
Ian's introduction to 'In The
Times Of India' on stage:
"This is in fond memory of St. Valentine's
Day in Bombay, India, last year, when I noticed
in 'The Times Of India', the main newspaper, they
publish beautiful letters and brief messages,
from husband to wife, wife to husband, girlfriend
to boyfriend, it's moments of great passion, in
simple language; it's really very, very...
stupid. But, nonetheless, endearing. So, God
bless India, and all who sail in her, and this is
in fond memory of St. Valentine's Day, and 'The
Times Of India'." (Hochschule der Künste,
Berlin, 22 May, 1995).
|
Back to "Divinities" album page 