HE’s one of the truly great guitarists of a century of jazz, with a sound all of his own rooted in his love of the songs of Robert Burns. Jim Mullen tells me that he “grew up with his songs and their soulful timelessness.” Just listen to his beautiful millennial album Burns and you’ll hear what he means.

He was born in Glasgow in 1945: “It was the post-war baby boom. My dad was a carpenter, my mum worked in a department store. She would sing along to Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra on the radio, and when I began playing I half-knew these songs. As a toddler she would offer to read me a story at night, but I would ask her to sing me a song instead.

“After begging my dad for a guitar, he tried to make me one but the fingerboard proved too difficult. He allowed me to buy one on the never-never, paid for by my after-school paper-round — with dire warnings it would go back to the store if I missed a payment.

“I joined a neighbourhood skiffle group aged nine or 10, until an older friend introduced me to jazz. I was hooked. Hearing records of great guitarists like Tal Farlow, Barney Kessel and Mundell Lowe, I began the long process of trying to figure out what they were doing.

“After leaving school I worked as a journalist in Glasgow, first on the Daily Record then the Evening Times, before moving to London to try to survive playing music for a living.”

He found a living all right, playing and recording with Pete Brown’s Piblokto and Brian Auger’s Oblivion Express, developing his distinctive Wes Montgomery-style technique of picking his strings with his thumb. While touring with the Average White Band in the US he met the Surrey-born tenor saxophonist Dick Morrissey, and back in England they united to form the Morrissey-Mullen Band, straddling jazz and rock and making a series of acclaimed albums together.

I ask him who were the musicians he most remembered playing alongside. “The great Glaswegian saxophonist Bobby Wellins was a local hero who I played a few gigs with and we recorded an album but it was never released. Then I began a 15-year association with Dick Morrissey, who took me under his wing and was a good example to follow. I’ve been fortunate to play with many great musicians, but most memorable are Dick, of course, and US pianist Gene Harris.”

His most recent album is Volunteers, of 2018. “It came about after I survived serious illness in 2015, and all the musicians involved played for free and helped my recovery. Flautist/arranger Gareth Lockrane arranged some of my tunes and encouraged me back playing again after my illness. It’s one of my proudest moments.”

It’s a beautiful album, full of a spirit of musical union and friendship, beginning with a Mullen tune Medication, and fine solos from Lockrane’s flute, Mullen and Mark Nightingale’s trombone, Tristan Maillot’s drums and Mick Hutton’s bass giving a pumping rhythm. Mullen’s ear for picked-out balladry is serenely expressed on When I Fall in Love, with Steve Fishwick’s soaring trumpet ascents and Mullen’s old Burns confrere, pianist Gareth Williams, adding a riveting chorus.

Saxophonists Alan Barnes and Julian Seigel have their moments on Spare Change, and Seigel’s bass clarinet rumbles and rises on Back in the Day. Mullen's thumb picks like lightning on his own composition Speed of Sound, and on the album finale, Rule of Thumb, that’s exactly what it is, with Mullen leading with his miraculous digit and all his musical brothers in the finest fettle.

I asked him, what most compelled him towards a long jazz life? “What I love about jazz is it’s a democratic art form and I enjoy being an equal member of a team. Jazz for me is the most challenging music because you have to reinvent it every time you play.”

Like our old friend Robert Wyatt would say: “Different every time!” And so it is with the marvellous Mullen.

Volunteers is released by Diving Duck Recordings