One of jazz’s biggest innovators of the last three decades, recipient of a CBE, two honorary doctorates, a host of album titles to his name and his own recording label, Courtney Pine is surprisingly down-to-earth with a cheeky sense of humour and an interesting attitude to his instrument; within five minutes of meeting him, he was comparing playing the saxophone to the creativity of the Kama Sutra.
Clearly Pine has an unusual approach to his music, but that’s not surprising given his musical heritage: “I think you have to reflect where you’re from, and if you’re somebody like me who’s born in Europe, but is an African via the Caribbean, but loves jazz music – What does that sound like?! And it’s up to me to say what it is.”
Although Pine began his solo career on the saxophone, his recent albums have involved a variety of instruments. His 2011 album, ‘Europa’, featured the bass clarinet while his most recent release, ‘House of Legends’, was performed on the soprano sax. Where most multi-instrumentalists feature a variety of instruments on a single album, why did Pine choose to feature these two? On ‘Europa’, Pine explained that he chose the bass clarinet because “that project was more classically orientated, also it was to do with the range and what I wanted to try and express, and fulfil that ambition of playing a whole bass clarinet album. Not many people have done it and I thought, well why not? It’s such a great instrument. I mean it’s heavy, but it should be done. I need to do another one at some point; she’s calling me again.”
In the ‘House of Legends’, he chose the soprano because “it fits the frequency, the range, the challenge of playing in just that limited range. It only has a two and a half octave range, but I can get five out of it, y’know, and it’s just such a joy to play soprano. There’s not much space in the music ‘cos rhythmically, all the holes are covered, there’s something happening all the time. As opposed to jazz where you can be like ‘OK this bit is chilled’. But with soca, with Caribbean music, everything is functional. Everything does something. It calls on those spirits and for me the soprano just works on the right frequency. I don’t wanna be stepping on anybody’s toes and it cuts through.”
Having explored the musical worlds of Europe and the Caribbean, what will Pine’s next move be? “I have an album called ‘African Warrior’, or it’s gonna be the ‘United States of Africa’. Either way my plan is to travel across Africa and record the various people, the various friends I’ve made. Hugh Masekela, Angelique Kidjo, this is one of the ideas. But I haven’t done a ballads album, and I might do that next. There’s a couple of songs that I’d like to cover, which are from my life experience. I haven’t done a ballads record and jazz musicians, you know, these are the things that you have to do. So I might do that next, but yeah I would love to go across Africa.”
And what instrument would he choose for an African jazz album? “Ha! What will I play for the African album? Yeah… That could be interesting. I haven’t played tenor for nine years. I was thinking of that album this morning on the way here, I was thinking I could have these vocalists and have the tenor playing the melody all the time, an octave underneath them…”
Pine has found his place and his methods in the jazz world, but having spent so much time investigating the genre’s history, with his curiosity he was bound to gain a good perspective on where it all came from. How did such an imaginative, lively music come to be? Once again bringing conversation back into the vicinity of the Kama Sutra. Pine has the story you won’t read in a beginner’s guide to jazz…
Setting the scene in a brothel in segregated New Orleans at the turn of the twentieth century: “Jelly Roll Morton, whose mum was from Haiti, he would be working in the brothel and the Madame of the house would turn around and say ‘you need to play faster.’ Well why? ‘To get rid of that geezer and get the next trick in, make some more money.’ He only knows seven or eight tunes, he’s fresh out of college—sorry fresh out of school—into this situation, he’s looking through a peep-hole and he has to accompany them, whilst a prostitute is, y’know, working… And he’s run out of tunes, and this Madame is telling him ‘Play faster! Play faster! Cos we need to get rid of this guy and get another one in there!’ So what does he do? He plays the theme again, doesn’t he, but he plays it differently. What does he do, he plays the B section again, he starts to improvise—this is where jazz comes from. Think about it, this is where it actually comes from. So you get these waifs and strays and orphans, who are going down to the Sally [Salvation] Armies, y’know, brass bands, and they now suddenly get employment in the brothels where they can get drink. They can see some action, so they’re all down there playing away, improvising because they only know two tunes, so that’s how jazz came about!”
So: jazz began in a brothel. Does today’s music still link back to those days, or has it grown into something different? “I think it’s meant to be a reflection of the current social climate. And that’s why drum and bass, for example, has been so accepted, that’s why world music is being accepted in jazz right now. Because musicians are reflecting from their travels, whether it’s Wynton Marsalis, Sonny Rollins going to Cuba, y’know, they reflect that in their music, they bring that flavour, that dish, to Poland, to Japan, and when they go to Japan: ‘Oh this is different,’ and they bring that to New York, so I think this is how the world is always moving. Whether it’s in clothes, whether it’s in speech and how the language is changing, or instruments, this is how we – we want to know what’s over the hill and I think musically that’s what’s going on. And I think jazz is the closest to doing that in a real human way.”
If jazz is still developing culturally, has it changed in any other ways; does Pine think today’s society is shaping things differently? “I think there’s more education. When I went to school they told me I couldn’t go to university because you couldn’t do saxophone as a main study, you had to do clarinet and then saxophone secondly, you’re talking about 1981. And now, a lot of the guys who play music have come out of Uni. Either they’ve done business studies or they’ve done some kind of music related topic, so a lot of them are a bit wiser at a younger age. The bands now—I’ve a record company and I have young artists, a lot of them are considering artwork, promotion, the album title, concept… They’re thinking about that now, whereas back in the day Charlie Parker would have just turned up with his saxophone, half sozzled, and just done the session, and somebody else would’ve made all the money. So, we’re in a different place right now and it’s very exciting times.”
Exciting times indeed for Pine, with ‘House of Legends’ named 2012 album of the year by ‘Jazzwise’ magazine. It will be at the root of his performance at the upcoming Cork Jazz Festival. Where ‘Europa’ was saturated with European influences, in ‘House of Legends’ Pine has moved on to exploring the music of the Caribbean. “A lot of people don’t realise that the Caribbean is different nations, they believe that it’s just Bob Marley. You laugh, but seriously there’s guys out there who don’t realise that Barbados is different from Trinidad, which is different from Cuba, which is different from Antigua… When I first put the album out guys were like oh it’s all Calypso. Usually bands come over and they do reggae and that’s all they’ll do – they’ll throw in a ska tune but to actually go to a mento tune to a soca tune to… do you know what I mean? And to mix it all – it can be done and we’ve been doing it, and it’s worked every night. Not just from the audience’s perspective but from our perspective as musicians and the thing that glues it all together is improvisation; jazz. The fact that we don’t know what’s going to happen next, it’s amazing.”
Pine is known for his energetic, hands-on performances; how does he expect the Irish crowds to react? “I’ve always had a good time here. Word has got around to who I’m trying to attract to the concert. For the most part you have to throw your hands in the air, you have to get up and dance. That’s my concert and that’s what I’ve been doing for twenty years and I think the first time I came here they were a bit taken aback – ‘oh, he’s actually talking to us in the middle of the song?’ So now, they kind of understand what I’m trying to do.”
Continuing on from the change of concept last year, the line up for this year’s festival has taken a few broad steps away from its strictly jazzy roots. What does Pine think of the bill? “Primal Scream just stood out to me… It’s a very different Cork festival than I’m used to. When I came before it was much more traditional, there were no names like this, none at all, none of these guys would have gotten the festival. So that’s very interesting.”
How does he feel about the more mainstream shift in programming? “Doing the festivals around Europe, and Canada, that’s what they’re all doing. That’s what everybody’s doing. In Barbados, who were even more extreme, they ended the Barbados Jazz festival with James Blunt! It’s a festival and it’s music. At some point, somebody comes up with the realisation that it’s just music, and giving it all these different tags is just belittling it. Just give me a great festival with all the trimmings!”
Has Pine’s set up adapted to all the changes in concert practice in recent years? “I brought out a USB version of the album. It’s on CD, but at shows I’ve been selling a USB thing, and I ask well ‘Who’s got a computer? Well, here’s a USB version’ – it makes sense. I’ve had to reorder twice, I’ve done five shows. It’s all on there—artwork, and in the future I can put a video on. I don’t have to be restricted. It’s a two gig, and it’s like a credit card … I haven’t heard of any jazz artist doing it yet!”
Courtney Pine will perform with his ensemble at The Everyman as part of the Guinness Cork Jazz Festival on Friday October 25th, tickets cost €30 available from www.everymancork.ticketsolve.com/shows/873500874/
Photos: Mark Stedman/Photocall Ireland