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)
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).
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