Jethro Tull, one of my favorite bands of all time, just put out a new album. It's called The Zealot Gene, and to be honest, I wasn't sure I really wanted it. After all, Ian Anderson (who for the uninitiated is not only the last original member of Jethro Tull but he's also been the unchallenged mastermind behind the band since Mick Abrams left after their first album) is 74 years old now. His voice has been decimated for decades, to the point where I've decided I just can't bear to see him live anymore. And the last project he released, 2017's The String Quartets, was kind of cringy, due to both his vocal issues and the we-don't-give-a-crap attitude of the BMG record label on which it was released. (They couldn't even be bothered to get the order of the songs right on the album cover.)
It's hard to see your heroes go downhill. A few years ago, I saw Leslie West in concert. He was very hard of hearing, in a wheelchair (because he'd had both legs amputated, due to diabetes), and had lost a significant amount of his guitar-playing ability. A month or so later, I almost bought a ticket to see Gordon Lightfoot at the Westbury Music Fair until I went up on YouTube to hear what he sounded like in the present. I discovered that he sounded like a random old man singing Gordon Lightfoot songs on a park bench. Keith Emerson reportedly committed suicide because he was scheduled to go out on tour and was terrified that he was going to humiliate himself in front of his fans because of the deterioration of his keyboard-playing skills. All of this only reminds me of the effects of aging I see in myself every day. (I'm about a decade younger than my '70's musical heroes.) It's not something I enjoy.
So when I heard that Ian was putting out a new album under the Jethro Tull moniker, I was more anxious for him than I was excited. Last year, Yes, put out a new LP (The Quest), and while it certainly wasn't one of their best efforts, I found myself relieved that it was at least a credible effort. I desperately hoped that Ian and the lads could pull off the same. Because if it turned out to be an embarrassment, it would honestly hurt my heart.
In the end, I needn't have worried. While I wouldn't put it anywhere near Jethro Tull's Top 10 albums, it's actually pretty good. It's better than last year's Yes LP. In fact, to me, it's better than any album of original music Jethro Tull has released since 1987's Crest of a Knave. (Some JT fans are pretty fond of 1995's Roots to Branches, but I've never been one of them.) It's not as good as either of Ian's last two solo releases, 2012's Thick As a Brick 2 or 2014's Homo Erraticus (both of which probably should have been released as Jethro Tull albums), but those were both first-rate projects.
The recording for Zealot Gene began in 2017. However, first a heavy touring schedule and then the COVID pandemic delayed its finish for a few years. The band here consists of Ian on vocals and his usual assortment of other instruments (flute, acoustic guitar, mandolin, etc.); Florian Ophahle (who actually left the band in 2019, after most of the guitar parts had already been recorded); David Goodier on bass; Josh O'Hara on keyboards; and Scott Hamilton on drums. Ophahle's replacement on guitar, Joe-Parrish-James, also played on one track.
This brings up the elephant in the room, the absence of longtime guitarist Martin Barre. Barre replaced Mick Abrams in the Tull lineup for their second album in 1969, and this is the first original studio album released under the JT name without him. At one point, Anderson was quoted as saying that it wouldn't really be a Jethro Tull album without Barre (which is probably the reason TAAB2 and Homo Erraticus were released as Ian Anderson albums), but he's obviously changed his mind. Some Tull fans are a little upset about this. However, the reason Anderson decided to release this under the Jethro Tull appellation was that this particular lineup (prior to Ophalhle's departure) was (not counting Hammond) actually the longest-standing lineup in Jethro Tull's history, but they had never played on an original JT album. I can see Ian's point.
While its not exactly a concept album, there are two thematic threads running throughout. The first is the concept of The Zealot Gene itself, Anderson's explanation for some (most?) of humankind's propensity to see things purely in black and white, and to get worked up to murderous intensity over extreme positions. The second is a comparison of the Old and New Testaments of the Bible - each song comes with an associated Biblical quote and is loosely based on that quote or story.
There are 12 songs on the LP, and they're mostly pretty good. Critics have latched onto the full-band tracks like the title track, "Shoshana Sleeping", "Mine Is the Mountain" and "Mrs. Tibbets", and understandably so. "Mine Is the Mountain" is a particular goody that finds an all-powerful and possibly insane God ranting up on his mountain and threatening to turn people's children into corpses and their wives into pillars of salt if they piss him off. Nevertheless, I would caution listeners not to sleep on the three little acoustic almost-solo tracks that Anderson slipped into the album's second half. "In Brief Visitation" is actually my favorite song here, and "Three Loves, Three" is only slightly behind it.
And thankfully, in this case, Anderson was able to write songs that his voice could largely still handle. You can hear his loss of vocal power here, but at least he's not croaking like he was on the vocals of the String Quartets LP. And all of the other instrumentation is excellent - in fact, his flute work is often exquisite.
So in the end, rather than being an embarrassment, The Zealot Gene actually turned out to be a welcome addition to the Jethro Tull discography. And as of the beginning of 2022, Anderson is already hard at work on another album. Whether it will be an Ian Anderson solo album (and I suspect it will be) or another Jethro Tull is uncertain at this time. Am I still anxious for him? Hell yeah! But at least I'm a little hopeful this time as well.
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I'm late talking about this, and for that I apologize. However, unfortunately, I learned a couple of weeks ago that local Long Island musician Jeff Curtis had passed away. Jeff was well known on the local scene as an excellent guitarist. He released (at least) two excellent albums of instrumental music, 1998's Dreams and 2003's The Next Place.
I don't really have any details about his passing. Denise let me know about it after seeing it on Frank Walker's Facebook page.
I can't really say I knew Jeff very well. I booked him several times for Long Island Music Coalition events. I always found him to be a nice and amiable person, and I rated him as a first-rate musician. My heartfelt condolences to his family. I was sad to hear that he's no longer with us.
