It's now over 20 years since saxophonist Jason Yarde emerged, aged just 16, with pioneering London collective The Jazz Warriors. Since then he has played with big hitters like McCoy Tyner, Hugh Masekela and Roy Ayers, as well as a younger generation including Gwilym Simcock and Soweto Kinch. Yet he's more than an in-demand sideman, having also established himself as a composer and arranger in his own right through work for the LSO and BBC Concert Orchestra.
Both sides of that personality were evident at Chelsea’s sober 606 Club for this London Jazz Festival show, Yarde’s first appearance at the venue as leader. The first set saw the saxophonist – head shaved, as is his trademark, save for a stump of braids sitting slightly askew like a mini top hat – twinned with pianist Andrew McCormack. (The act is entitled MY DUO, a moniker that might suggest a quite colossal failure of imagination but which is intended as a reference to the members’ initials. Hence the capitals.)
Here Yarde’s classical sensibilities sat clearly alongside jazz, a marriage hinted at by their cover of "Something’s Coming" from West Side Story, arranged ("or deranged") by McCormack. The mood was tender, delicate, evocative, although it proved too long without a change of pace and by the end of an extended set the pair were struggling to maintain momentum.
After the break, Yarde returned with Larry Bartley on double bass and drummer Mike Pickering, collectively known as Trio Wah!. Yarde, whose tone throughout the first part of the evening had been as clean as a whistle, helpfully signaled the increase in energy levels by grunting and even yelping into his mouthpiece during the opening number. His palette continued to expand for the rest of the evening, overblowing at times and even sneaking in the occasional squeak and skronk.
Although utilising a more conventional line-up, it's the more engaging of the two sets, not least due to the presence on drums of the superb Mike Pickering, who had warmed up with a near-OCD level of finger-clicking and table-tapping. Yarde himself – though audience banter is clearly not his strong point – also seemed notably more relaxed, and thankfully spared us MY DUO’s almost farcically regular CD sales pitches. (Any steel-hearted souls who remained immune to his entreaties can order it below.)
But what’s truly impressive is his ability to straddle, within a single evening, two such disparate styles – and to play with such a rigorous composer’s ear that in neither set does a single note feel superfluous. Both attributes are rare indeed in contemporary jazz and confirm Yarde’s position at the forefront of his generation in the UK.
- London Jazz Festival runs until 21 November
- Find MY DUO on Amazon
