COURTNEY Pine CBE strips everything back on his 16th studio album, Song (The Ballad Book), playing bass clarinet in collaboration with MOBO Award-winning pianist Zoe Rahman.

Taking their partnership in jazz on the road, Londoner Courtney, 51, and English/Bengali musician and composer Zoe, 44, visit Pocklington Arts Centre on Tuesday night as he showcases the new Pine sound.

"For me, jazz is constantly changing, as jazz should reflect your lifestyle," says Courtney.

"We have folk music, we have pop music, but the thing about jazz music is that it's constantly evolving, like my favourite artist, Miles Davis, did. So Smooth and Jazz FM will never play the record...as people like me who have creative ideas don't fit into their remit."

His latest evolution finds multi-instrumentalist Courtney standing down his saxophone in favour of the bass clarinet. "One of the legacies is that the repertoire is not as big as it is for the tenor clarinet and it's challenging to play, and that's why there aren't so many players and there aren't many jazz clarinet duet records. That makes it challenging on all levels," he says.

Song (The Ballad Book) is the result of Pine "always wanting to record a collection of my favourite ballads". "There is nothing like performing in a duet format for bringing out the intimacy of great songs," says Courtney, whose album tracks include A Child Is Born, A Nightingale Sang In Berkeley Square, Someday We'll All Be Free and Amazing Grace, more of which later.

"I chose the tracks to put my own stamp on them, treading uncharted areas, as it makes sense for me to do these songs now. My shows have always been about vibrancy and energy, so this is very different from that. This is not an expected direction for me to go in, this chilled-out style, working with Zoe Rahman, who's been doing this for years.

"I am the one in green territory, and the response to Zoe and the music in concert has been fantastic, beyond what I could have anticipated. Playing ballads has an emotional reaction like other jazz forms but in a different way because what music is about is transforming audiences through difference intensities."

When Courtney spoke to fellow jazz professionals about his bass clarinet ballad project, "they were all scared for me as I haven't played this way before".

"But they've since come and enjoyed the show and I've enjoyed the flow of the music," he says.

"We've been playing in churches and to hear a bass clarinet in there has been fantastic."

The most striking selection is slave ship captain John Newton's redemptive gospel song Amazing Grace.

"My first school was the William Wilberforce Primary School in Paddington, so it's a seed that was sown into my psyche, but I wasn't aware until later of why Newton wrote that poem, when he saw 300 slaves being thrown overboard," says Courtney.

"It's very hard not to shed a tear when I play it. I'm 51, I was born in this country, we have the Election coming up this week, and it's very important and very poignant that jazz musicians should represent their culture and guide our future, so that children are aware of where they come from, their history."

Courtney Pine Presents Song (The Ballad Book), featuring Zoe Rahman, Pocklington Arts Centre, Tuesday, 8pm. Box office: 01759 301547 or pocklingtonartscentre.co.uk