While Jason Yarde is better known as a prolific producer mainly for the Dune label and more recently for Empirical, as a saxophonist he is noted for a wide variety of work including the celebrated 1990s band J-Life and his own group WAH. Pianist Andrew McCormack on the other hand made an award-winning impact when he sprang from nowhere to release his debut Telescope and together with Yarde shares some basic improvising principles. This month they team up for their first album release together. Interview; Kevin LeGendre

As autumn leaves turned gold in the light of a particularly sunny morning, the crypt café in St Luke’s church, Clerkenwell, is quiet as an evening prayer. Andrew McCormack and Jason Yarde are sitting around a table, the former soberly dressed in a black sweater, the latter displaying a quirkier side by way of a cream T-shirt bearing the jowly smile of Pigsy, he of the cult 1980s small screen series Monkey. Yarde’s distinctive ‘Frohican’, a bundle ofdreadlocks piled high atop a freshly shaven head, probably wouldn’t have been out of place in a fantasy kung fu flick for that matter.

St Luke’s, in any case, is something of an appropriate setting to meet the pair given the fact that the spiritual home of the London Symphony Orchestra has seen a lot of saxophonist Yarde and pianist McCormack through their participation in the Panufnik Young Composer’s scheme. Through past endeavours, they have proved themselves to be mercurial improvisers. Now they are proving themselves to be masterly writers.

This is an extract from Jazzwise Issue #137 – to read the full article click here to subscribe and receive a FREE copy of the latest Partisans CD 'By Proxy'.