A PASSION PLAY

Progressive rock as an art form had only gotten its true recognition as a bona fide rock genre in 1969 but in a mere four years the unstoppable forces that pushed artists to up the game at breakneck speed found the style reaching its logical end game as early as 1973, a year which saw 60s rock bands that were based in blues and heavy psych releasing some of the most demanding and complex expressions of music in the overarching rock paradigm. Pink Floyd evolved into a major concept album powerhouse with "The Dark Side Of The Moon," Genesis had completely morphed into a fairly bland 60s pop band into the prog majesty exhibited on "Selling England By The Pound" and Yes had all but shed its heavy psych art rock clothing and created on of the most complex and sprawling albums in all of prog history with "Tales From Topographic Oceans."

While some of these have gone down in history as the ultimate classics, others simply took things way too far for the non-musicians in the audience to keep up with. Amongst the early popular prog players, JETHRO TULL hit the scene with extremely popular albums such as "Stand Up," "Benefit," "Aqualung" and the Billboard chart topper "Thick As A Brick" making JT one of the most popular bands much less prog bands in the entire rock history book. However, despite the band's popularity, even these guys took things further than their audience was comfortable with when they followed up "Thick As A Brick" with an even more ambitious and unrelenting prog behemoth in the form of A PASSION PLAY which emerged in July 1973 to mostly negative reviews and despite the album having been redeemed in the ensuing decades, still remains the great divide in the fanbase showcasing how a great number of prog fans are only willing to take things so far before it strays outside the comfort zone.

At this point in prog history, it was all about taking things to the next level exponentially as bands strived to outdo the competition which took prog to its logical conclusion peaking in 73 when several albums like A PASSION PLAY unapologetically took things as far as humanly possible. And in the process this all conspired to create a backlash that would ultimately result in the easier to digest punk and new wave scenes to come to fruition a few years down the road. A PASSION PLAY was a major departure from JETHRO TULL's signature progressive folk rock sounds that preceded. While the traditional flute driven jigs and earnest vocal expressions of lead singer Ian Anderson's lyrical content were still present, A PASSION PLAY delved much deeper into the world of hardcore progressive rock with a sprawling album that contained a series of shorter tracks fused into one epic behemoth. Coming across as some sort of Shakespearean play in musical form, A PASSION PLAY despite its pompous presentation was initially designed to be a sprawling triple album but was scrapped and truncated into a single album's playing time.

A PASSION PLAY pulls no punches as it takes all the prog attributes of the day and puts them on steroids. A veritable sampling of the sounds and styles that could be experienced on all past and present JT albums, this sixth installment in the JT universe tackled an overarching concept about the spiritual journey of a man named Ronnie Pilgrim who embarks on a totally new adventure after his death where in the afterlife attends his own funeral and traverses a series of destinations before contacting his angel guide in Act 1 and going through the process of being judged by a jury in order to determine exactly where Ronnie will ultimately end up. After a strange process of musical meanderings that correspond to the jury's ultimate conclusions, the lengthy prog workouts that often take the band completely out of the JT playbook results in a verdict that Ronnie Pilgrim was a decent bloke and is indeed allowed into the pearly gates of heaven above.

With the jubilant celebratory news at hand, "Act II" erupts into a silly rejoicing and festive mood which begins with the most recognizable aspect of the album, the make or break (for your sensibilities) part called "Interlude - The Story of the Hare Who Lost His Spectacles," a rather quirky and comedic interlude narrated by Jeffrey Hammond in an exaggerated Lancashire accent which is presented as an absurd fable that was inspired musical by Prokofiev's "Peter and the Wolf." Once the silliness is presented, "Act II" delves into a never-ending display of progressive rock workouts punctuated by interludes of the more familiar Anderson sung prog folk styles of previous album only augmented with a tremendous focus heavy keyboard use. The album also demanded that the five musicians Ian Anderson, Martin Barre, John Evan, Jeffrey Hammond and Barriemore Barlow essentially became multi-instrumentalists as the added saxophone, synthesizers and various percussive instruments put them in the same camp as the more eclectic bands like Gentle Giant and Gnidrolog.

One of the biggest mistakes one can make is to compare this prog behemoth with "Thick As A Brick" which is derived from a completely different space. That album was essentially carved out of a few intricately designed melodies and then teased out into an infinite number of variations but still maintained a vital thread of continuity that made the album flow so beautifully from start to finish. A PASSION PLAY is a completely different beast and designed to exhibit more of the "Frankenstein effect," that meaning that the album is a concatenation of various disparate shorter songs and melodies that alternate with some recurring and some existing for a brief moment before fizzling out. While "Thick As A Brick" was more about a single idea exhibiting various moods that determined the changes, A PASSION PLAY was designed to be a huge magnanimous expression of the concept which narrates an unorthodox tale of the afterlife which by nature exists in an astral plane disconnected from the physical and therefore alienating, which by the way was the whole point of the experience, namely to take the listener to a musical place and time that had never been heard before.

Despite the negative reviews upon release, A PASSION PLAY still hit the #1 spot on the Billboard charts and has been a fan favorite for many including myself. This album is utterly unique in all of JT's vast and interesting canon as it is by far the pinnacle of the band's expression of progressive rock run amok, a feat they would quickly backtrack upon starting with the rather unremarkable followup "War Child" which took the back to basics approach. The album also marked the peak of JETHRO TULL's stage productions which found elaborate stage sets matching the ambitiousness of the music and lyrical content. Unfortunately A PASSION PLAY was too much prog for the comfort zone of the majority of proggers during the day and has gone relatively underappreicated ever since due to the extra attention this album needs to be understood. This is unlike anything else JT has released and unlike the other albums that are instantly accessible and easily understood, this one is rather dark and elusive in the beginning and is one of those hard to crack nuts that needs quite a few spins to fully comprehend. This was hardly my favorite for the longest time either but ultimately it clicked and now ranks high in my world of crazy complex prog. This one is a true 10 on my prog-o-meter scale and not recommended as the place to start for JT abecedarians. For me, a true masterpiece.