COURTNEY PINE
Devotion

Telarc

British saxophonist Courtney Pine has been on a mission for some time. It is the same mission that inspired artists like Miles Davis and Herbie Hancock, among others: to reclaim the oneness of black popular music from the splintered genres that had been created in order to allow record companies and radio to carefully market black music as well as to insure that it remained locked into certain market segments and distribution means. By slowly marginalizing blues and jazz, thrusting the primal force of R&B to the fore and gradually introducing new elements into it until it became the radio-friendly urban pop fodder of today, tastemakers made sure that the audience as well as the performers for one style of music remained separated from those of another. Of course, these artificial restrictions have been breaking down, slowly but surely, since at least the mid-1960s. Yet despite the rise of jazz fusion in the 1970s, the voices of tradition have kept a fairly tight lock on the jazz world until fairly recently. The discovery of soul jazz, the direct antecedent of fusion, by a generation of British and European club kids and DJs helped create acid jazz and made it possible for legitimate jazz artists to also experiment with new digital technologies and sounds.

Pine was initially a Coltrane sound-alike, but he began to bring soul jazz, reggae, and other musical genres to the mix with his 1992 album Closer to Home, which made use of his background touring with such reggae bands as Clint Eastwood & General Saint. Since then he has eagerly brought hip-hop elements into his work, performing live with a DJ in addition to his usual combo. His 1996 album, Modern Day Jazz Stories featured DJ Pongo on turntables as well as DJ Sparki on hardware/samples. Using an Apple Mac with Logic Audio software and Pro Tools, Pine generates loops as well as multiple flute and sax parts and combines them with studio techniques that include filtering and pitch-shifting, Pine was able to create the most convincing combination of mainstream jazz and electronica/DJ culture. This combination of jazz fusion and hip-hop has sometimes been dubbed “Trip Jazz.” The DJs function very much as part of the band, throwing ideas at the players and responding to their playing much the way a percussionist might do. On his next album Underground, Pine completed the fusion by taking breaks from recordings that he owned and having live musicians reproduce them in the studio. These recordings were then subjected to various forms of studio manipulation, bringing the idea full circle. He then produced a remix album that featured remixes of tracks from Underground and Modern Day Jazz Stories done by drum ‘n’ bass DJs like Roni Size, Peshay, Attica Blues and Headstrong.

His next recording Back In the Day, continued his fusion of genres with a sound that is close to sixties soul jazz/boogaloo. Still, Pine continued to use modern studio technology to put the album together and achieve the contemporary sound that he wanted: "I wanted the album to sound as if it had been remixed. You know, I liked the remix album a lot and I decided to do it myself this time to get the best possible performance from the sessions and then edit until I was happy. In a lot of ways, making this album was like being a DJ.” Pine has demonstrated that it is completely possible to utilize the latest technology and to incorporate some of the latest elements of popular music without losing a jazz sound and identity. His thoughts on this certainly echo those of Miles Davis, though in different language: “If somebody’s telling you that you can’t step outside the jazz room then that’s wrong. I feel I come from outside the jazz room anyway. What gives me a buzz is when somebody hears my music and hears the different elements at play and says ‘I didn’t know jazz was like that.’"

Devotion takes the work of Back In the Day (available in the U.S. only as an import) and continues to combine the technological and the organic, jazz and pop. It is the kind of CD that many jazz fans would consider a ‘sellout’ if not for the fact that Pine has been moving in this direction for many years. Still, traditionalists are not going to find anything here to really enjoy, despite the fact that Pine still plays wonderful solos and is obviously an accomplished legitimate jazz performer. I suppose that it would be difficult to make a case for Devotion as a jazz album per se, but then it is also difficult to make that same claim for On the Corner or Matthew Shipp’s Nu-Bop. But all are shot through with the adventurousness and improvisation of good jazz fused with elements drawn from other musical genres.

The CD begins with a sound montage, an intro created by Pine that fuses industrial sounds, television broadcasts, and spoken word performance. This explodes into “Sister Soul” on which Pine creates his own woodwind section comprised of alto, tenor, and baritone saxophones as well as bass clarinet, which he solos over on electric soprano sax. He also handles a variety of keyboards (electric piano, Hammond B4,) and some drum programming. Aiding him are guitarist Cameron Pierre and drummer Robert Fordjour, who contribute a great deal to Pine’s vision on this CD. Listening to Pine’s overdubbed Pro Tools sax section, one cannot escape the impression that one is listening to Rahsaan Roland Kirk, another superlative jazz musician who was often dismissed for taking R&B, soul, blues, and other popular black musical forms every bit as seriously as jazz and incorporating them into his work. Whereas Kirk’s multi-sax groups were created by his mastery of the talent of circular breathing (which unfortunately contributed to the sideshow reputation that sometimes surrounded him), Pine’s are created by the use of technology. But the sound and the intent seem remarkably similar.

“Devotion” again allows Pine to create this large woodwind band comprised only of himself, and it ventures into the familiar (for Pine) territory of reggae and dub. On top of that, it’s a pretty damn good composition, and one can easily imagine this being arranged for a big band and sounding really excellent. Next up is the venture into straightforward contemporary R&B with “Bless the Weather,” featuring British singer David McAlmont, whose voice is rich and lends the right feel to this track. The song itself is beautiful, composed by influential but underappreciated British folk singer/songwriter John Martyn. Pine and McAlmont don’t do anything to dramatically alter the song, choosing rather to merely amplify the song’s soul undertones. When Pine lights into what would normally be a pappy smooth jazz saxophone fill near the song’s end, you realize just how talented a player he is compared with many of the pop jazz saxophonists plying their trade today.

Following another brief interlude (again utilizing something of a reggae beat), Pine continues to offer tribute to black popular musical styles (particularly as practiced in the U.K) with “Osibisa,” a tribute to the visionary multi-racial band formed in London in 1969 by several musicians from Ghana, adding musicians from Antigua, Trinidad, Nigeria, and other musical points of interest. They continue to exist, but the important thing about them is that they were recording what we would today refer to as “world music” before that term came into existence. Here , with the help of trumpet player Byron Wallen, Pine recreates the group’s mixture of Jazz, R&B, African music, Latin, and pop.

No survey of the British popular music landscape would be complete without the inclusion of the Indian sound, and so on “Translusance (Rag Desh)” Pine brings in sitarist Sheema Mukherjee, who also played with Pine on Back in the Day and has worked extensively with Indian/Brit pop group Cornershop. The track “U.K.” is a straightforward feel good piece of gospel rock featuring the most stripped down sound of the CD, with Pine and his saxophone army accompanied by bassist Peter Martin, drummer Robert Fordjour, guitarist Cameron Pierre, and electric pianist Chris Jerome. This is a happy major key piece that might have found its way onto any smooth jazz album, but Pine’s Pro Tools overdubbing of saxophones to create a layered effect keeps this from sounding clichéd, as it might if played by a single saxophonist with a cloying tone.

Following another interlude, this one dedicated to Pharaoh Sanders, the CD’s ending sequence begins with the Joe Sample/William Jennings composed song “When the World Turns Blue.” Sample originally recorded this on his album with Lalah Hathaway. Pine’s version adds some punch to the number. Carleen Anderson, formerly of U.K. group Young Disciples, turns in a good vocal, and Pine himself offers a finely tuned saxophone solo. The whole thing bobs along over a bubbling drum ‘n’ bass foundation that is, curiously, not at all programmed but rather created live by Martin and Fordjour. To conclude, Pine brings back a reggae/shuffle feel on “Everyday Is Everyday,” creating a dubby boogaloo that benefits from earthy performances by Pine on sax and Dennis Rollins on trombone, while Farfisa and Korg Cx3 organs keep the soul pumping. Following an “Outro” featuring a variety of overdubbed flutes and other sonic ephermera you are deposited back on planet Earth a little wiser and, hopefully, more open to the musical wonders that surround you.

Ten or so years from now, this will be one of those albums that will be avidly sought out by young musicians who will realize that Pine was onto some kind of intense musical touchstone here. Luckily for you, you don’t have to wait to hear it.