STAND UP

Stand Up was the first proper Jethro Tull release since it was their first record to feature a collaboration between Ian Anderson and Martin Barre. Even though the band's sound was still completely soaked in blues rock of their debut album the Jethro Tull managed to blend in new influences such as symphonic music and folk influences. Still it's difficult for me to consider Stand Up an excellent release since the band was still in an early development of their own style that would ultimately culminate on albums like Aqualung in a couple of years.

A New Day Yesterday is a nice opening track that, just like Nothing Is Easy a few compositions later, shows Jethro Tull in their comfortable state of blues rock sound. This is just one of the wide array of styles that are performed on this record. The album's biggest highlight comes in the form of a re-working of Bourrée in E minor by J.S.Bach., simply titled Bourée. This piece of classical music blends surprisingly well with the more contemporary rock sound, plus giving Ian Anderson the opportunity to show off his flute skills. Other highlights include melodically strong Back To The Family, We Used To Know and For A Thousand Mothers. The rest of the material isn't that spectacular to my ears. My least favorite moment comes with a short rhythmically driven Fat Man that, if I recall correctly, is also a bonus track on my copy of Aqualung meaning that I should have heard it enough times to start understanding the intricacies of this composition. Instead it had the opposite effect of driving me even further away from liking this track.

1969 was an important year in the development of prog and even if Stand Up might have suffered a bit due to the amount of filler material it still manages to show a clear distinction between the early Jethro Tull sound and the one that the band would become so famous for in the '70s. Unfortunately this release has never been one of my personal favorites which is why I will have to rate it accordingly.

***** star songs: Bourée (3:47)

**** star songs: A New Day Yesterday (4:12) Back To The Family (3:53) Nothing Is Easy (4:26) We Used To Know (4:03) For A Thousand Mothers (4:22)

*** star songs: Jeffrey Goes To Leicester Square (2:12) Look Into The Sun (4:23) Fat Man (2:52) Reasons For Waiting (4:07)