Glenn Jones – Vade Mecum

Thrill Jockey

It has been lovely watching Glenn Jones‘s career and its slow evolution via his experimental work with Cul de Sac to his current solo direction which hints at the likes of John Fahey and Robbie Basho. Somehow Glenn injects a more modern sensibility, a willingness to introduce factors to the sound that make it his own and make the listener feel as though he is leading them on a personal journey.

There is something meditative about his work these days; there is no attempt to fry your brain with finger-breaking fret runs; it is much more thoughtful and if anything is more narrative, using the acoustic guitar or banjo to tell us a tale, draw us a picture or describe something without the use of words.

Longtime friend and collaborator Matthew Azevado is once again in the recording chair and that warm, intimate relationship carries through to the sounds produced on Vade Mecum. From the recent crop of American acoustic guitar purveyors, Glenn always feels the most approachable; there are chord charts for each track in the accompanying booklet and notes about the personal aspects of some of the pieces which, along with the mood of the pieces themselves really gives you a feel for him as a person. You imagine if you ran into him in his home town, he would be more than willing to take you on a tour, showing points of interest and welcoming you. This album is the aural equivalent and his personality shines through.

Like I say, it is less about virtuosity and more about story telling and the comfort of an old guitar playing a familiar figure that reaches out and touches the listener is what opens the album. Opener “Vade Mecum”, Latin for go with me, feels exactly like that, a hand reaching out and drawing you on a journey, the warm thrum of full chords with simple notes pieced together between is a welcoming introduction, so different to the darker more bluesy “Forsythia”. Written for Cynthia Flamm, it feels like a paean full of minor-chord mystery and a touch of darkness. You can almost sense his thoughts and it does feel like a really personal track.

The banjo only comes into play on two pieces. On the short “Bass Harbour Head”, it immediately gives the track and older feel with what sounds like wind rushing in the background. It seems like the only glimpse backwards before the happy-go-lucky jaunt of “Black & White And Gray”. Thoughtful, up and down, a modern day Huck Finn hitting the road, wending his way across modern America, but still slipping in and out of rural pockets, revelling in the dichotomy.

The buzz of strings and the dusty air of “Each Crystal Pane Of Glass” brings darkness falling upon us, a campfire, fading light and a little consideration of what has come before. How have we arrived here? The work on the high strings is poignant and starry, but slow in a surprisingly sensuous way.

There is great joy in Vade Mecum, but also great peace, the sound of somebody happy with their place in the world and the musical firmament, its constant evolution a joy not just to us but to him also. The changes in mood are rather impressive and how charged the atmosphere can become, the constant churn of the lowest string on “Kathy Maltese” injecting a note of caution which is dispensed with when the banjo comes back into play on the lovely ”Ruthie’s Farewell’.

Glenn’s old friend Ruthie Dornfield, who played on Cul de Sac’s Ecim and gifted Glenn his first banjo, joins him in the sweetest of dances between the two instruments, the burr of her violin drawing the banjo out of itself, thetwo friends enjoying a musical conversation made up of many years of friendship. In fact friendship is important in this album, with “John Jackson Of Fairfax, Virginia” being about his relationship with the renowned guitar player and is perhaps the most classic sounding of the pieces here.

Glenn doesn’t ask much of his listeners, just that they give up to the stories he has to tell and allow themselves to be warmed by the companionship that is inherent here. Each of his albums casts a different glow and this is just the latest, drawing you further into his gentle world.

-Mr Olivetti-