Music: Courtney Pine

Jeff Hemmings talks to the jazz legend

Jazz may be enjoying a resurgence at the moment. Much like folk and blues, it has suffered in the past from stereotypes that once upon a time may have had some truth in them, but which need to be revisited if they haven’t already.

“Jazz is about having a boundless imagination; it’s a tool for communication between humans,” says Courtney Pine. “There is no other form of music that comes straight from the crater to the artist and then to the audience in a split second. That’s Art Blakey’s line, that’s what he taught me.”

Immersed in jazz all his life, Pine has managed to forge a successful career over the years, releasing a string of acclaimed albums that have jazz as a basis, but which has always reached out to other forms and styles. His recent album, House Of Legends, is a case in point, finally revisiting the role the Caribbean (where his roots lie) as a beacon of jazz. “It was about time…
it took so long because I am a bit older, more experienced and more confident with my cultural identity.

“When I first started I was doing a kind of apprenticeship, playing jazz through the eyes of Sonny Rollins, John Coltrane, Miles Davis… Over the years of working I applied myself to the task and got to the point where I made an amazing discovery – some of the people of the Caribbean went to New Orleans and contributed to what we call jazz – guys like Leslie Hutchinson [originally from Grenada, and who became a cabaret star of the ‘20s and ‘30s in the UK]. New Orlean’s resident Jelly Roll Morton’s mum is from Haiti…”

Pine’s own roots reside in the Blue Mountains of Jamaica, a country famous for its ska. ‘On the old vinyl ska records there was always an instrumental version of the vocal version. To me, they were more interesting – guys like Don Drummond, Roland Alphonso, Ernest Ranglin (who arranged‘My Boy Lolipop’) were creating the music called ska. Then I found out that these guys were jazz musicians! That’s just the north side (of Jamaica).

If you go to the opposite side, the French side, places like Martinique, Guadeloupe, you find an incredible array of jazz rhythms and music, or styles that inspired jazz. I’ve not been to the Caribbean and not heard jazz…”

House of legends features many musicians steeped in Afro-Caribbean music; merengue, mento, ska, calypso, as well as more modern jazz, and sees Pine returning to his soprano saxophone for some exhilarating solo work.

Komedia, Thursday 7 February, 8pm, £18