Andrew McCormack and Jason Yarde - One Plus One

The ability of the band to perform on the day to its full potential might bring the deepest furrow to any brow. Above all, the state of mind of the individuals and the chemistry between them are vital for music with a head for improvisation. Minds and bodies have to be bound by the right energy.

Other things matter. Studios are hugely important. Jazz musicians are as sensitive as anybody to the surroundings in which their sounds are captured, to the extent that a particular space might affect a session, ushering the artist towards a new range of nuances. When discussing the Ship studio at Dartington Hall in Totnes, Devon, where he cut Places And Other Spaces with pianist Andrew McCormack, saxophonist Jason Yarde argues that the location wholly impacted on the recording.

“Yes, I think for both of us, the third player in all of this was the actual space we recorded in,” Yarde tells me in a deep, tranquil voice, a distinctive horn of dreadlocks jutting from his forehead. “When you’re in the studio it can be very controlled and dry, you can add reverb here and do very specific things. But because we were very aware of the space we were playing in, it felt as if we were playing to the room.

“The Ship has a certain warmth and length of reverb and so on, so you can’t but play to it, and just let that kind of shape the sound and how you play,” he continues, warming to the theme. “I would walk around the room sometimes and find places to play in, and sometimes I’d be playing inside the piano and that affects where you perceive the sound to be coming from. It’s really nice using a space like that. It would be great to have a surround sound kind of thing, but with the Ship, it’s the kind of situation where you know that you can really use the space.”