With a range covering all the saxes from soprano down to baritone, but a humongous column of air to shift and an irritable inclination to squeaks, the bass clarinet is a tempting but high-maintenance partner. It is a measure of reeds-maestro Courtney Pine’s skills that he not only plays this expressive, ornery instrument exclusively on his current tour, but gives it the most unforgiving exposure – on an intimate duo programme of classic and contemporary ballads, shared only with the subtle, vigilant pianist Zoe Rahman.
The generous Kings Place acoustic was the ideal home for the bass clarinet’s low-register purrs and ship’s-timber creakings, lustrous mid-tones and whistling upper range, and Pine’s playing sounded a little warmer here than on this project’s deliberately no-frills album, Song (The Ballad Book). He sat to play at first, but was soon on his feet to quickly drive the music into abstract sonic outlands, alternating between looping squalls of repeating figures and steadying gospel phrases. On Duke Ellington’s Come Sunday, he played the melody straight, and then left Rahman to build a rousing solo of peppery, Thelonious Monkish chords and soul-song phrasing. The Windmills of Your Mind spun softly in trills and quietly slippery runs, A Child Is Born opened on a rocking piano groove, soon replaced by a double-tempo flurry. Twittering, birdlike sounds blown into the innards of the grand piano introduced A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square, before Pine developed it in mellow tones barely distinguishable from the mid-range of a conventional B-flat clarinet. Rahman then cruised into a loping walk, and the pair began conversing in impish calls and replies. Pine respectfully played Amazing Grace as he does on the album, in an unfussy succession of octave shifts, Brian McKnight’s 90s R&B hit One Last Cry in imploring high tones like its composer’s falsetto, and the Donny Hathaway classic Someday We’ll All Be Free as a heartfelt encore. It was a celebration of timeless songs, and of a close improvisers’ relationship growing audibly closer as their tour progresses.
• At St George’s, Bristol (0845 402 4001), on 9 April. At St Mary in the Castle, Hastings (01424 715 880), on 10 April. Then touring.
