Jasmine S34C NEX Acoustic Guitar Review

Sometimes you amaze yourself. Or perhaps I should say stupefy, dumbfound, perplex, befuddle, mystify, outrage, and downright disgust yourself. Such was the case when I recently ran over a “little person” in an abortive attempt to pass the D.C. driver’s test. I never saw him; in my defense, he was a very little little person. More like a half-little person. And such was also the case when I decided to review Stand Up, solely as a joke and a chance to pan defenseless Englishman Ian Anderson, who for some inexplicable reason stands poised on one leg while playing the flute, like a hippie flamingo.

Only to discover, horror of horrors, I actually like the damn thing. Who was it that said, “He came to mock but remained to pray”? Because I’ve always considered Jethro Tull, despite a handful of songs I truly like, ridiculous, due largely to Anderson’s flute, an instrument (in my humble opinion) suitable only for tossing out the window. What’s more, Jethtro Tull always struck me as fairly dim. I clearly remember thinking, when they put out 1972’s Thick as a Brick, that it wasn’t the brightest move, touting one’s low IQ on one’s own album cover.

I picked 1969’s Stand Up for the historically important reason that it has a song called “Fat Man” on it. A Facebook friend gave me the idea, and I fully intend to unfriend her. A short history: Jethro Tull (they filched their name from a pioneer of the English Agricultural Revolution) was formed in 1967 as a blues-rock outfit in Luton, Bedfordshire, a town once famed for hat-making. The concrete hat was invented there, and the resulting epidemic of neck injuries very quickly put an end to hat-making in Luton.

Tull’s debut This Was—which includes jazz flute horror “Serenade to a Cuckoo”—came out in 1968, at which point original guitarist Mick Abrahams split to form Blodwyn Pig, balking at Anderson’s decision to expand the band’s sound to incorporate Celtic, folk, and classical influences. (Fun fact: Black Sabb’s Tommy Iommi briefly replaced Abrahams, until Anderson settled on the courtly Martin Lancelot Barre. Fun fact #2: Yes’ Steve Howe flunked the audition!)

The band that recorded sophomore effort Stand Up included Anderson on vocals, flute, harmonica, acoustic guitar, mouth organ, Hammond organ, mandolin, and balalaika (a kind of Greek dessert); Barre on electric guitar and flute; Glenn Cornick on bass; and Clive Bunker on drums and percussion. Anderson wrote the songs as well as the adaptation of J.S. Bach’s Bourrée in E minor, the inclusion of which makes Abrahams’ desertion more understandable. When J.S. Bach takes over the ship, your wisest move is jump overboard, even if it means winding up on the H.M.S. Blodwyn Pig.

We’re already talking about it, so let’s start our discussion of Stand Up with “Bourree,” a “classical gas” (by which I mean foul-smelling) of the sort that has given progressive rock a bad name. “Bourree” opens like a meeting between Van Morrison’s “Moondance” and a Renaissance Faire, and it goes downhill from there. High-falutin’ prog-knockers (who find “mere” rock contemptibly simple) have been trying to introduce classical to rock for decades, and the meeting is invariably as successful as the one between Titanic and Iceberg. Meanwhile “Jeffrey Goes to Leicester Square” is a pleasant enough little ditty, what with its cool congas, nice guitar, and the snazzy little instrumental interlude that ends the song. Anderson plays some understated flute, and tells a woman, “You listen to the news, man, on TV/You may fool yourself/But you don’t fool me.” If you want to be with Ian Anderson, baby, you’re going to have to do better than watch Fox News. You’re going to have to love long flute