Jethro Tull

Ian Anderson and company seemed to make a conscious effort to update Jethro Tull's sound on this record. And, to the amazement (and distress) of many, it was voted the Grammy Award for Best Hard Rock/Heavy Metal Performance…

Like so many risk takers, Jethro Tull have had their share of both admirers and detractors over the years. To their admirers, Ian Anderson and his colleagues did a lot to expand rock's boundaries; to their detractors, they epitomized progressive rock's excesses (especially during the '70s) and were a prime example of why the punk movement was needed. It's no secret that Tull – like Yes, Pink Floyd, Genesis, and Emerson, Lake & Palmer – were influenced by European classical music (as well as British folk, Celtic music, blues, and jazz).

nformative but partial overview of Tull carreer, based around a concert filmed in Brussels mixed with some footage of the original line-up reformation. That concert was as good as any to film and show your typical Jethro Tull concert of the 90's and now…

The 40th Anniversary edition of Jethro Tull’s Minstrel In The Gallery. Original album plus seven bonus tracks (six previously unreleased) and all to stereo by Steven Wilson. The album has been expanded to include the b-side Summerday Sands, several studio outtakes, and alternate session material recorded for a BBC broadcast. The second disc features a live recording of Jethro Tull performing at the Olympia in Paris on July 5, 1975, a few months prior to the release of Minstrel In The Gallery. During the show, the band played songs from several of its albums, including War Child and Aqualung, as well as an early performance of Minstrel In The Gallery.
Minstrel in the Gallery was Tull's most artistically successful and elaborately produced album since Thick as a Brick and harked back to that album with the inclusion of a 17-minute extended piece ("Baker Street Muse")…

This double CD is a true gift to hardcore fans, offering previously unseen glimpses of Jethro Tull when the group was at its absolute peak. Anyone else, however, may find the album rough going, for while the group was never tighter or more productive, the material isn't even second-rate. Essentially, Nightcap is Jethro Tull's version of the Beatles' Anthology releases. The first disc consists of tracks that the band started to record during 1973 – the best parts of this material ended up being rewritten and incorporated into what became A Passion Play. These outtakes are pretty at times, but also unformed and distinctly unfinished – Anderson takes a gorgeous classical guitar solo on "First Post," but then the song drifts off, and "Tiger Toon" is an early version of the principal theme from "A Passion Play," not altered too much except in tempo.

Where the first Jethro Tull box five years earlier, 20 Years of Jethro Tull, mostly traded on radio broadcast performances and rarities, a few outtakes, and a remastered collection of key songs, 25th Anniversary Boxed Set benefits from a more thorough raid on the vaults that has yielded up one essential addition to any Jethro Tull collection. Disc two is the centerpiece of the set, containing an additional hour of the group's November 4, 1970 concert at Carnegie Hall in New York (two pieces were previously issued on Living in the Past). Preserved on a 16-track master tape, this benefit show for the drug rehabilitation program Phoenix House was the group's most prominent American gig up to that time. It's a good representation of what the band sounded like in its second incarnation, when they were still establishing themselves outside of England…

"A Passion Play" is the sixth studio album by Jethro Tull, released in 1973. Like its predecessor, "Thick as a Brick" (1972), it is a concept album the theme being the spiritual journey of one man in the afterlife. 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. 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 (Porcupine Tree) mix of the album, alongside Steven Wilson mix of the infamous ‘Chateau Disaster’ recordings that preceded it.

Rather than just give fans one live concert DVD to dig into, Jethro Tull deliver Around the World Live, a four-disc collection that spans over 30 years' worth of shows. Starting with a performance at the Isle of Wright festival in 1970 and going all the way forward to a 2005 performance in Lugano, Switzerland…