His Pine Has Come

Given his regular, jovial smile and clear passion for his craft, it’s difficult to imagine how anybody could regard Courtney Pine in a particularly negative light. And yet, the veteran jazz multi-instrumentalist once referred to himself as “one of the most hated saxophonists of all time”. Pine’s contention was that the more precious jazz fanatics resented him for signing a record deal and achieving mainstream success.

“That was weird,” he reflects. “As you know, with music, things start from a small area like a pub, then it develops to a community, then a city, then a nation. Take an artist like KRS-One and how he developed from the underground… well I kind of did that with jazz. Jazz is always seen as a minority music, even in this day and age. That’s just how it is. Being a jazz artist, you expect to be treated like you’re second or third class and you just do the best you can.”
Having rebelled against the notion of jazz being a stuffy business that should be confined to smoky basement clubs, Pine seems equal parts bemused and satisfied by his unique status within the genre, noting that his expressive style isn’t exactly suited for
hipster speakeasys. Not that it puts him off. 
“I’ll walk into the crowd!” he laughs. “There is a space for the jazz club, for that kind of intimacy. Jazz music is creative music. What is he playing? Why is he playing like that? It makes your brain start to question itself. Why are they clapping? What have they seen? This thing is happening on the fly. There’s a space for that to happen in both an intimate and large environment but I do think that the jazz venues have a problem when they have to deal with different artists with different generational agendas. I come from a generation that spawned Bob Marley, The Clash, Sex Pistols… I used to go to the disco! I’m trying to bring that energy to my show.”
It must be strange for Pine to see how certain avenues of  his chosen wheelhouse have come to dominate pop culture, with the likes of the Hypnotic Brass Ensemble winding up on the soundtrack to The Hunger Games and French electro artist M83 finally breaking through to the mainstream thanks in part to a killer saxophone solo on 2011’s  smash hit ‘Midnight City’.
“The mainstream has flipped now,” Pine muses. “Herbie Hancock is mainstream now. There was a time when he was doing the disco thing and he was the outsider, the young whippersnapper. Now he’s the old geezer, he’s the establishment. That’s why I love jazz. It’s so close to humanity. It’s not driven by economics or fashion. It’s driven from the social climate. Whatever is going on in society will be reflected in the music, unlike somebody saying, ‘This is fashionable, let’s do this’. And when you come up with a name like ‘acid jazz’, it doesn’t last long. Herbie Hancock has been here since 1960.”
Pine released House of Legends in 2012. His 14th album under his own name, it stands as a tribute to his culture and the importance of placing a message within the music.  In its own unique Courtney Pine way, the record makes another statement as the London native employed no instruments other than his bass clarinet. Progression through restriction, as it were.

Courtney Pine appears at Guinness Jazz Festival, October Bank Holiday weekend, Cork.