A sketch – Bert Jansch

I’ve tried to get into the habit of learning a new song (any that occurs to me on the day) whenever I get an hour or two to play. Today I’ve been picking my way towards a bass/chord/melody arrangement of the old jazz standard Guilty. Turns out there are a lot of chords in that song and my muscles are somewhat weaker than I remember.

Anyway here’s a guitarist with no apparent physical limitations whatsoever – the great Bert Jansch, who sadly died last year.

And, here he is, on his first album, aged about 22, playing an instrumental sketch called Finches.

His debut LP is remembered for his virtuosic version of Davey Graham’s folk guitar standard Angie (or Anji), and the none-too subtle heroin tragedy narrative The Needle of Death. Personally I loathe the latter – for me the real heart of the album is in his on-the-nose beatnik travelogues (which sound to me more like the sound of a British chap imagining himself out on the road, probably in the US, than authentic accounts of life on the ‘highway’)(which I find quite charming).

And in instrumental interludes like this.

According to UK folkies revivalist legend, this whole album was recorded at someone’s house, and all of it has the informal quality you can hear here. This track is modest in scale at under a minute long, and Bert breezes through it with no apparent effort at all, despite the extraordinary technique and the complexity of the piece. A lesser player might have made a meal of this – or shouted louder about what an exception achievement it is.