Courtney Pine

Speaker 30:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For rights reasons we've had to shorten the music. The programme was originally broadcast in two thousand and one, and the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:31

My Castaway this week is a jazz musician. He was born in Paddington in nineteen sixty four, where he shared one room with his mother, father, baby sister, and the music, which, first on the radiogram and later at school, became an inseparable part of his life.

Presenter0:46

A well behaved boy who went with his parents to church every Sunday, he chose jazz as his method of rebellion. By the mid eighties he'd established a band, the Jazz Warriors, and then came fame in the form of his hugely successful first album, Journey to the Urge Within. It sold a hundred thousand copies in weeks, and its creator never looked back. Always innovating, but always keeping close to people too, he's the man who for many has made British jazz credible. Life reflects music, and music reflects life, he says, and this is what should be happening in jazz. He is Courtney Pine.

Presenter1:22

First thing, Courtney, great name, great Monica, Courtney Py. M that must have helped you, actually, over the years.

Courtney Pine1:28

It was very difficult name at school. I wanted to change my name to John, Simon, Paul. Anything which was easier to say. There was no Courtenays in school. It was such a strange name. And in America it's a girl's name. So for me I was very annoyed with the name Courtenay Pine.

Presenter1:44

So that attracted attention to you. And then you chose the saxophone, which, you know, it's a pretty macho instrument. It's it's it's probably the most noticeable in the jazz line up, isn't it?

Courtney Pine1:54

Most definitely. It was an instrument that was thrown away by the classical world. Adolph Sachs invented it in the eighteenth century and it was an instrument which was invented for, I suppose, military kind of uses, an all-purpose instrument that could be used on the battlefield. And the classical world didn't like the instrument. But what happened in America, Guy called Coleman Hawkins, played Body and Soul.

Courtney Pine2:16

I think it was 1922, but he played a a wonderful solo on T V and that was it. The saxophone became a real instrument.

Presenter2:21

The Saxe

Presenter2:23

So even when you were at school with this name, as you say, and you've got the Sax in mind, so you obviously wanted to be kind of dominant, you wanted to be up front, and you spotted I mean, there you were playing the recorder and you thought, one of these days I'm going to play that sax.

Courtney Pine2:38

Most definitely. It was a strange instrument for me to to pick on. But in school I was pretty much an average kid. I was the kid who would leave take off his gray I'm wearing one now, a gray V neck jumper.

Courtney Pine2:50

Put it on the floor and pretend to be Ray Clements, the goalkeeper.

Courtney Pine2:54

And I would always lose my my jumpers, so I was really trying to be the acceptable kid. But when I actually picked up the saxophone at school,

Courtney Pine3:01

I became somebody else. It was it was almost as if a personality came out with the saxophone.

Presenter3:08

I want to come back to you at school in a minute, but just just tell me about jazz in this country because

Presenter3:13

There remains a feeling, doesn't there, that it's a thing apart. You know, you go into a record store and it's always down the back and around the corner for the Kongish entry. Yeah, exactly.

Courtney Pine3:19

The corner for the congression to the corner.

Presenter3:21

Why, if it is for the people, why isn't it more central?

Courtney Pine3:26

Well, jazz music is a music which is very liberating. We live in a time where you can actually edit the syllables on a vocal.

Courtney Pine3:33

So you can actually get a real singer.

Courtney Pine3:36

who doesn't have the physique or the look, get that person to sing the song, and then get the model to come and sing alongside, and then fix the model's vocal so it fits alongside the real singer's voice, and then just do a match of the two.

Courtney Pine3:51

That's the way pop music is working at the moment.

Presenter3:54

So that's dismissed pop music in one.

Presenter3:58

If it's that bad, why wasn't jazz taken over?

Courtney Pine4:01

No, I mean, there's some nice pop pop music out there. I think Janet Jackson has a wonderful one.

Presenter4:05

Jackson has a one-time quickly.

Presenter4:08

But why isn't jazz got in the middle because

Courtney Pine4:10

Because jazz music is a music which requires, I want to say, deeper thought.

Courtney Pine4:15

A lot of things in this world are groomed so that we are thinking in the same way as a game called Lemmings. Everything is like, well, you've got to buy that product, you've got to walk that way, you've got to listen to this type of music. But for jazz music, jazz music is a music that does the total opposite.

Presenter4:20

Is it gonna be cool?

Presenter4:30

So what you really want is for people to stop being lemming like and to come along and say, here is a great jazz track, a single, and you'd like to be in the charts, that would be your total ambition.

Courtney Pine4:41

It would open people's minds. It would open'cause whenever I do concerts, I always name check. I always say, well, this music comes from John Coltrane, Charlie Parker, Billie Holliday, Louis Armstrong. And once you hear one of my solos, once you come to one of my concerts, you will know that.

Presenter4:56

But has there ever been a a a jazz single in in the charts?

Courtney Pine5:00

When jazz and popular music were one and the same in the fifties, jazz was in the charts all the time. But for some reason there's been this big divide, and for me I would definitely like to bring back jazz to the pop world.

Presenter5:13

Tell me about your first record.

Courtney Pine5:14

My first record is a track that was a wake up call to me. I listened to a lot of pop music, a lot of ska music. My my parents brought me up on that kind of music. But on this particular record by Bob Marley, the sleeve was gold.

Courtney Pine5:28

The lettering of the album title Exodus was in braille red. And actual lyrics. This guy was singing lyrics for everybody. He wasn't just for.

Courtney Pine5:38

Oboe players or football goalkeepers. It was lyrics that everybody could understand.

Speaker 45:44

What's up the town stress?

Speaker 45:48

They eat the bread of sorrow, oh yeah.

Speaker 45:53

Oh yeah

Speaker 45:56

Get a leak in it.

Speaker 45:59

Restand their confidence.

Speaker 46:03

Oh yeah.

Speaker 46:07

Oh yeah.

Presenter6:10

Bob Marley and the Wailers and Guiltiness. So so take me back to early sixties Paddington Courtenay. What sort you say your parents were playing ska music to you? What is it? What was it?

Courtney Pine6:20

Yeah, we had this big box which was like a shrine in in the front room. Well, the the only room. We had one room. But there was this box there which had the crochet on it and this place they put the records on, which we

Presenter6:32

With a little crochet matte, I mean on the other side.

Courtney Pine6:34

Yeah, the pink crochet thing and the the dog thing, you know, this this statue of the dog which you couldn't go near.

Presenter6:37

Yeah.

Presenter6:40

And your mother polished it?

Courtney Pine6:41

Totally every weekend polishing this thing. But on this this shrine was where the music went on and everybody suddenly became happy.

Presenter6:50

But what sort of stuff, you know, were your pen what was popular?

Courtney Pine6:53

Um, at the time rocksteady.

Presenter6:55

Yeah.

Courtney Pine6:55

Um Millie Smalls had a record called My Boy Lollipop.

Presenter6:59

Yeah.

Courtney Pine6:59

Yes, that was a big record at the time.

Presenter7:00

Yeah.

Courtney Pine7:01

Yeah. Which is actually Ronnie Scott playing on that.

Presenter7:04

But did the neighbors come in and sit in front of this shrine? I mean, is it or did you go to their houses? Did you?

Courtney Pine7:09

Oh, we we were constantly visiting uh family members. We had I had aunties and uncles all over and godparents all over. So we were always visiting. We were always out on the bus going to visit somebody.

Presenter7:20

But they would come to visit what in their Sunday best and sit down and you would play music, you know.

Courtney Pine7:25

Yeah, and then we would have to go and do our Michael Jackson impersonation or something.

Courtney Pine7:29

You know, the kids would have to do this like entertainment thing for a couple of minutes and then move on.

Presenter7:32

A couple of

Presenter7:34

You say Bob Marley was your your wake-up call to to sort of music in general, but what was your wake-up call to jazz then?

Courtney Pine7:37

Yeah.

Courtney Pine7:41

Oh, wow, to jazz music. Well, we sat down in nineteen seventy six, seventy seven with my dad and watched uh a jazz performance of Grover Washington junior. He's sadly gone now, wonderful saxophone player at the Moncho Jazz Festival, playing a song by Billy Joel called Just the Way You Are.

Courtney Pine8:01

But it was on the saxophone. And the way he played it, it it was better than the vocal. It was better than the original. And and that just

Courtney Pine8:10

shone a light in the back of that part of my brain and said, Well,

Courtney Pine8:13

You can do this too.

Presenter8:15

But you're not taking it to your desert island, I suppose, because you can play it yourself.

Presenter8:19

Tell me about the second record.

Courtney Pine8:21

The second record is is one of the all-time classics of of jazz and and pound for pound this is the ultimate jazz record ever. Miles Davis was a trumpet player who was not afraid to reflect his life. As his life changed, his music changed. And he put this track together in the sixties and it was a very smooth, cool sound, very laid back. And this is a performance of a tune called So What?

Speaker 49:41

Uh

Presenter9:44

Miles Davis and so what? Well, a bit of it, anyway. Um

Presenter9:49

That was recorded in what, 1959? Before you were born, it still beats you in the charts, isn't it?

Courtney Pine9:52

Fifty-nine, yes.

Courtney Pine9:54

Sure does

Courtney Pine9:57

I put a record out and uh just couldn't get

Courtney Pine10:01

Could couldn't get p past Miles Davis.

Presenter10:02

Oh well there you are.

Courtney Pine10:03

Oh damn but I was number one for a minute.

Courtney Pine10:07

For a minute.

Presenter10:08

So let's let's go back to your school. Recorder to clarinet to saxophone. And you started to play. Were you playing outside school in bands? What were you doing?

Courtney Pine10:17

Yes, I started playing with a Harrow Youth local big band, which the ultimate aim was to be in the National Youth Jazz Orchestra.

Presenter10:24

Mm. But this was sort of Glenn Miller stuff. Very much Glenn Miller.

Courtney Pine10:26

Very much Glenn Miller, Stan Kenton, that kind of stuff.

Presenter10:28

Where did you play?

Courtney Pine10:29

We played at ex servicemen's clubs, and that was a a real education, you know, kind of Bernard Manning kind of humor, that kind of place. And for me, being a young black man in that environment, I mean, I didn't get any trouble or anything, but it was just interesting playing music and seeing the functionality of music in that environment.

Presenter10:48

But as well as the big band, you were playing in jazz.

Courtney Pine10:51

Um I was doing the jazz kind of thing and I was doing like a popular reggae kind of thing at the same time. And I ended up literally at the age of sixteen being a professional musician. And it was it was very interesting because I was on the road getting twenty pounds on the weekends and coming back falling asleep in school.

Presenter11:10

I was gonna say you were at school as well, so how how could you cope? You couldn't.

Courtney Pine11:12

How could you

Courtney Pine11:13

It was very difficult and um my music teacher said, Well, you are a professional musician, so you may as well leave school and and continue'cause this is what you want to do anyway.

Presenter11:20

Yeah.

Presenter11:22

But difficult for your mother to accept because I think your mother would have had, you know, different ambitions for you.

Courtney Pine11:27

Well, my mum's very much into the educational thing, and music wasn't a part of our family culture. She wanted you to be a little bit more.

Presenter11:32

She wanted you to be a doctor, didn't she?

Courtney Pine11:34

I was supposed to be a doctor, you know, s for some strange reason. I think she saw me in the garden decapitating worms, sending them up to space or something and thought, Oh, he could be a a surgeon or something

Presenter11:45

So, how did you persuade her? Because, as you say, you know, you were very well behaved. You were the boy with the knobbly knees and the shiny satchel.

Courtney Pine11:52

I'm the BS.

Presenter11:53

Well, exactly. So how do you suddenly persuade this this mother, who's obviously quite dominant in your life?

Courtney Pine11:54

Yeah.

Presenter11:58

How do you suddenly say to excuse me, I'm not going to do this education thing?

Courtney Pine12:02

Well, for my exams, my O-levels, I failed every single one, except music.

Courtney Pine12:07

Every single one, and I think that's when it hits her that I'd made up my mind that I wanted to be a musician, you know. And also, my mum, seeing me going out with these rasta men and being associated with that music, didn't take it seriously. She used to lock away my saxophones. Did she? And she would say, Well, you'd better go and do the show with a Harry Youth Big Band and not go on the road and earn £20 with this reggae band. So she was very worried for me. I mean, even to this day, she's very worried for me. She'd rather you've been a doctor, wouldn't she? Almost definitely.

Presenter12:35

She'd rather you'd been a doctor, was she

Courtney Pine12:38

Most definitely. Record number three. Well, this is something that made me realize that you can do whatever you want to do with music. And John Coltrane not only was a phenomenal saxophone player, a reform heroin addict, he was able to

Presenter12:40

Record number three.

Presenter12:46

Uh

Courtney Pine12:56

bring his religious family beliefs together with music. And on this record, A Love Supreme, he dedicated it to to God, to a higher spirit than the dollar bill. And we're going to play the resolution from A Love Supreme.

Speaker 413:34

Trying to

Presenter14:10

John Coltrane, the Master.

Courtney Pine14:12

And resolutely.

Presenter14:12

Resolution.

Courtney Pine14:13

Most definitely.

Presenter14:14

Playing like that.

Presenter14:16

You talk about him conversing with God through his instrument, or he talked about him conversing with God.

Courtney Pine14:20

Yeah.

Presenter14:21

When you do those kinds of solas, you obviously go somewhere, don't you?

Courtney Pine14:26

With all the practicing that you do, you're aiming to get to that point where you do not know what's going on.

Presenter14:31

When did that first happen to you?

Courtney Pine14:33

It was rather bizarre. It actually happened to me when I was playing with the Harry Youth Big Band, and I stood up and they gave me a solo on a piece called Woodchopper's Ball, and I actually played something that I couldn't remember what it was. And that's when I really fell in love with playing jazz music, because it takes you to that place where you you don't know what's happening.

Presenter14:51

How long are you gone? You don't know, I suppose.

Courtney Pine14:52

You don't know.

Presenter14:53

And what's it like out there?

Courtney Pine14:56

But remember.

Courtney Pine14:58

No, but it's it is a wonderful experience to to go there and when you come back and to see the the joy on the audience.

Courtney Pine15:05

They've experienced something.

Presenter15:07

So you've taken them with you?

Courtney Pine15:08

Yes. And you don't actually know what you've actually done. I mean, having doing this for a couple of years now.

Presenter15:14

No.

Courtney Pine15:15

To get back to that in inspirational moment, it's very hard now.

Presenter15:18

Is it?

Courtney Pine15:18

It seems like the more I know, the harder it is to get to that point where I'm truly spontaneous. But it is possible, yeah, for me to just disappear for like forty five minutes and just play.

Presenter15:30

Now the the youth jazz band that you played in uh I mentioned in the introduction was called the Jazz Warriors, all first generation British born black.

Courtney Pine15:39

Yes, black players. That would have been the first time that would have existed. There were great players like Joe Harriet and Shake Keene from the sixties who came with my parents to the UK, but they never or there weren't enough of them to form a an organization or a band on that kind of level.

Presenter15:40

Players, yeah.

Presenter15:55

But it was a kind of community band, wasn't it? It was somebody saying to you, look, you want to make music, anybody can do this thing, come and do it.

Courtney Pine16:03

Yeah, I found at that time I was playing with the reggae band, I was finding other saxophone players, other trumpet players, other horn players that said that they could play jazz. And they were as inspired by jazz music as I was, and my my wife.

Courtney Pine16:17

Thought, well, why don't you? You've got all these numbers down and you're rehearsing with these guys, why don't you just form an organization?

Courtney Pine16:23

And and it actually happened. That's that's worries.

Presenter16:24

And was it true that that that anybody could do it if they just had that that feeling, if they really wanted to enough?

Courtney Pine16:31

Very much so, yeah. Yeah. We used to rehearse at uh in Paddington, it was open rehearsals.

Presenter16:36

Anybody

Courtney Pine16:37

But he could

Presenter16:37

Dwarf in.

Courtney Pine16:37

Anybody could walk in. I obviously wanted to get people that, like myself, couldn't get the opportunity to play jazz, where guys who weren't perfect sight readers could actually come down and play in a band which resembled Sunrise Orchestra, resembled the Art Ensemble of Chicago, bands which were more about reflecting our community than an exercise in musical mastery.

Courtney Pine17:04

Next record. The next record, I suppose following on from that, some some guys I see as my bigger big brothers, Aswat, they're from the Paddington area as well. And this was a recording which captured them live at the Nottinghill Carnival.

Speaker 417:19

I rise concrete no backyard for the children to play Africana children

Speaker 417:28

Are living in a concrete situation African children War Well, they don't know where you're coming up from African children

Speaker 417:45

African children

Presenter17:49

African children sung by Aswad at the Notting Hill Carnival in 1983. When you first came to public notice, Courtney, in the early 80s, well sort of mid-80s, you were wearing these incredibly smart suits. You were very kind of yuppy, you know, jazz and a small. Sunday best. What was Sunday best? Is that what it was all about?

Courtney Pine18:00

Uh

Courtney Pine18:05

Sunday best

Courtney Pine18:07

Is that what it was all about? It really was. I thought that this is the best music that I've played. I am submitting to you as an audience the best that I can be at this moment in time. I just felt that I should wear my best clothes.

Courtney Pine18:20

But it's in

Presenter18:20

But it's interesting that you should feel that. It's a kind of respectful thing, like like going to s Sunday school with the parents, is it? Yeah. Put your best suit on.

Courtney Pine18:26

The bearings, is it? Yeah. Very much so, yeah.

Presenter18:28

Out of deep respect and reverence.

Courtney Pine18:30

Of the music. Yes, of that music. I reverence.

Presenter18:33

Amazing. Anyway, you ended up playing with some of the the the cream of British jazz at at Ronnie Scott's with the Charlie Watts big band, wasn't it? Well, what were you, fourteenth in line?

Courtney Pine18:43

I was like 27th, 112th saxophone player, and I didn't have a name. I was just somebody that Jon Stevens thought could play.

Presenter18:43

Uh

Presenter18:50

Yeah.

Courtney Pine18:51

And I'd been through my experiences with the the Harry Youth big band, experienced in playing in big band.

Presenter18:55

Big Band

Presenter18:57

So you do read music. Technically, you can do all that.

Courtney Pine18:58

Technically.

Courtney Pine19:00

You have to, yes.

Presenter19:01

So then spool on, cause suddenly in the mid eighties you get a call from the legendary, the great Art Blakey, the the drummer and and and American jazz drummer and bandleader, to join his band.

Courtney Pine19:11

Bandlead.

Presenter19:13

You you've done a gig with him.

Presenter19:15

And crisis, you know, you you turn it down. Why do you turn it down?

Courtney Pine19:19

To this day, I don't say I turn it down. I I really wasn't in the position to accept the offer. He'd worked with the Jazz. He heard about the Jazz Warriors, and he came and he worked with us, heard what we were doing.

Courtney Pine19:30

went back to America and gave me a call and said would I like to come and

Courtney Pine19:33

Be with the Jazz Messengers.

Presenter19:34

Opportunity of a life

Courtney Pine19:36

come to America, you know.

Presenter19:37

Yeah.

Presenter19:38

Why don't you go?

Courtney Pine19:39

Well, I went I went for a week. I went for a week. I had no clothes or anything, um no suits or anything'cause I just went to'cause it was just um you know

Presenter19:41

For a week.

Presenter19:48

You thought you were auditioning, did you?

Courtney Pine19:49

Yeah, well, you know, he can't be giving me the gig, it's impossible. And, um

Presenter19:51

Meanwhile you

Courtney Pine19:55

The main thing was, my record Journey to the Earth Within had been released.

Presenter20:00

Your first album

Courtney Pine20:01

The first album, My Son Was Born as Well at Jamal.

Presenter20:04

Hm. Your first first channel.

Courtney Pine20:05

First child. And it was literally a situation where, well, what do you do? Do I go with Art Blakey and go on the road and be a sideman? Or.

Courtney Pine20:14

be the leader of my own band and I had a chance to do that.

Presenter20:17

That's the point, isn't it? That you it would also have meant that you'd be subsumed, as it were, by the American jazz scene, which is quite different from ours. And it seems to me that you had unf you have unfinished business here. You want to put British jazz on the map.

Courtney Pine20:22

Same.

Courtney Pine20:29

Yeah, and it's also the fact that w the way we appreciate music is different. In America they have their superheroes like Winton Marcellus and Branford Marcellus. In the UK we don't really have that kind of superstar gig. So for me I thought, well, there's nobody doing that here, so maybe I could maybe pick up that gig.

Presenter20:45

You saw a gap in the market.

Courtney Pine20:48

Yes, I sure did.

Courtney Pine20:50

And went for it. Next piece of music. Well, this song came out in the 80s and I was a bit despondent with the R and B, the soul singer thing. It's all seemed to be fabricated, you know. And when I heard Anita Baker sing this song, it was like, oh wow, there are real singers still in the world. And she just totally melted me. And this is Anita Baker singing Sweet Love.

Speaker 421:15

Don't remember.

Speaker 421:17

I go one way, it'll always be this way. There's no stronger love in this world. Oh baby, no, no one day, I'm your girl. I'll never go, wait and see, can be wrong. Don't you love this?

Presenter21:42

Anita Baker and Sweet Love. You mentioned Courtney Pyne, your first child, Jamal, uh and you and June, your wife. You married in the eighties. Yeah, you have three girls as well, aged eight, six and three.

Courtney Pine21:52

Yes.

Presenter21:53

You also early on, I think, lost two daughters, both both a few days old.

Courtney Pine21:57

Yeah.

Courtney Pine21:59

Yeah, yeah.

Presenter22:00

How did those

Presenter22:02

Terrible experiences. How did that affect your attitude to your music and your work?

Courtney Pine22:07

Well, that was in the late eighties and we decided that we were going to have this larger family. And but my career um it's strange talking about Art Blakey and the decision that you had to make. I'd made a decision that, okay, I'm going to be on the road. And I was in in America and I became a father.

Courtney Pine22:25

one day and then a couple of days later, literally three days later, I had to sort out some funeral arrangements. So I came back and I had to make the decision about my musical career. This had had affected me so much that I had to literally stop

Courtney Pine22:41

Trying to be a John Coltrane, trying to fulfill the American jazz dream and make some big decisions musically about what I was doing. The resulting album

Presenter22:50

Why would it be the death of a child that would make you come face to face with the child?

Courtney Pine22:54

I think when you realize that life is not that long.

Courtney Pine22:57

It makes you realize that, well, rather than doing this ten, twenty year plan of what I'll be doing, you know, oh, I'll do the the Strings album when I get some more grey hairs, I'll do the Latin album, then I'll do the Blues album. You know, you you have to rip up that paper because you may not get the chance to do that.

Presenter23:14

So it's kind of intimations of mortality. It's liberating and all

Courtney Pine23:17

Very much so. Well, that's that's kind of what it did to me.

Presenter23:18

I think that's kind of

Presenter23:20

What so you then decided to do what you felt you wanted to do rather than design yourself?

Courtney Pine23:25

Yes, yes. And the album was dying called To the Eyes of Creation, which had a Scar Track on it. Next to an R and B track, which was next to a psalm that is Psalm twenty three.

Presenter23:35

And you dedicated that, didn't you, to Cleopatra? Yeah, yeah.

Courtney Pine23:38

Yeah, because that experience did actually has actually changed the way I look at music now.

Presenter23:44

So it liberated you, but what it did was take you into controversial territory, didn't it? Because today you do you combine all sorts of things. I mean computerized music you have in there. I mean deeply offensive to the jazz purists. And scratch DJs, you should we should explain what what a scratch DJ is.

Courtney Pine24:02

Yeah, well it's almost like a martial artist. You take a record and you pull it back and you get the reverse of the sound.

Presenter24:09

On the turntable. They're just moving it round a lot.

Courtney Pine24:09

On the turntable.

Courtney Pine24:11

Battam fourth.

Courtney Pine24:13

I'll just tell Pogo what you just said, DJ Pogo. Just moving it around. It's not that easy. No. It looks easy. Well, you've got to. It's a combination of rhythm.

Presenter24:18

He said

Courtney Pine24:22

Yeah.

Presenter24:22

Hmm.

Courtney Pine24:22

and also good choice in notes, almost like playing an instrument.

Presenter24:25

Is it? I mean it's a sound, but is it music?

Courtney Pine24:26

What's this?

Courtney Pine24:28

Very much so. Remember Skiffle?

Presenter24:30

Uh

Courtney Pine24:30

Uh

Presenter24:30

Uh

Courtney Pine24:30

The washing board

Presenter24:31

True.

Courtney Pine24:32

That washboard. Washboard, yes. That was a sound. Sorry.

Presenter24:33

Washable Yeah.

Presenter24:35

Uh

Speaker 424:35

Yeah.

Presenter24:35

Sorry.

Speaker 424:37

Uh

Presenter24:37

Uh

Courtney Pine24:40

But those sounds, it's the manipulation of sound, and that's what we do with all the instruments that we play. So, what they do on the turntables.

Speaker 424:42

But we do it

Speaker 424:46

Mm.

Courtney Pine24:47

Is manipulating musical sound. They're reinventing a phrase, even if they take a vocal sound.

Speaker 424:53

Hmm.

Courtney Pine24:53

And they playing and the.

Courtney Pine24:56

They can reverse it or they can use the ah a the and and repeat that and play that rhythmically. So it is an instrument.

Presenter25:03

Okay.

Courtney Pine25:04

And yes, I did get a lot of stick for doing that. But it's just something that I had to do because this is these are sounds that are around my ears right now. And jazz music, I believe, should reflect what's going on at the current time.

Presenter25:17

And then, on top of that, you've become a showman. You walk the bar, as they say, walking around with the saxophone. You're kind of.

Courtney Pine25:21

Is it walking

Presenter25:25

communing with the audience, you're touching them or you're playing kind of strange noises that make them laugh, you know. And again, the purists don't like they think you're diminishing jazz.

Courtney Pine25:34

I mean, there's guys who who can approach it from a very classical point of view and do a reflective kind of thing, playing in the style of previous masters. But there should be somebody out there representing today. And for me, this is just how I feel.

Presenter25:39

And black.

Presenter25:48

Yeah.

Courtney Pine25:48

Yeah.

Presenter25:48

Record number six.

Courtney Pine25:48

Jazz music is a language that people communicate with.

Courtney Pine25:52

And here's an African saxophone player, Manu Dibango.

Courtney Pine25:56

And he found a way to communicate with

Courtney Pine25:59

Us fifteen year old kids since nineteen seventy nine with this song which is Sol Makosa Manu Di Bango from the album Big Below

Speaker 426:05

Let's start my cold sound.

Speaker 426:10

Nika Sol

Speaker 426:13

I'm not sure if I can do it.

Speaker 426:29

Right or

Presenter26:36

Manu Di Bango and Sol Ma Cossa. They say, Courtney, that you're not just a great musician and a showman, as discussed, but also a technical virtuoso, because you do this kind of circular breathing. What do you do?

Courtney Pine26:49

The circular breathing is a is a device where you play you can play one note and breathe in through your nose and keep playing the note for as long as you can.

Presenter26:58

How long's that? Two minutes?

Courtney Pine27:00

As long as you can physically maintain it, two hours, three hours. Roland Kirk, great saxophone player. Two hours. Has done it for three hours, and that's the world record.

Presenter27:05

Two hours.

Courtney Pine27:08

That's the longest anyone is gonna use.

Presenter27:09

How long have you done it for?

Courtney Pine27:10

Well I've sat at home and done it for two two hours and fifteen minutes, but to go on stage and do it to an audience it's a bit much I think.

Presenter27:17

But what does that do to you physically? I mean, you've got a sort of permanent thing on your lip from the mouthpiece perception.

Courtney Pine27:22

Thing on your lip from the mouthpiece. I'm scarred, yes. Physically scarred.

Presenter27:26

Yeah. Yeah.

Presenter27:27

But I mean that that huge blowing, that kind of inflation of your lungs and your face and your teeth, what does that do to you?

Courtney Pine27:34

You can play one note, you can play three notes, you can play high notes, you can play low notes. You can use it to extend a phrase musically. And that's how I utilize it on stage. There's a great story about the trumpet player who went on stage and just learned this device and he did it at the end of his solo. He played this long note

Courtney Pine27:53

And you just heard crash bang wallop.

Courtney Pine27:56

He fainted.

Courtney Pine27:57

So it's not something that's it's it's it's easy, but you have to learn how to do it properly and utilize it properly.

Presenter28:04

It's very much been for you from everything you say, music, a way kind of up and out and on.

Presenter28:13

In you obviously knew that instinctively, because as you say, there's no history of music in the family. Do you think actually?

Presenter28:19

that in a way the knowledge that music was the way was also instinctive in youth.

Courtney Pine28:23

It's a very difficult question. It's hard to answer something like that. I think it's just the desire.

Courtney Pine28:29

To express myself in this way.

Presenter28:30

But where does that desire come from?

Courtney Pine28:32

I think the easy answer would be from my culture.

Courtney Pine28:35

from where I've started, from way back in Jamaica, there's something there that wants to express themself in this way artistically. Our family has not had a history of an artist and I've just taken up that mantle, you know, to try something different.

Presenter28:38

This

Presenter28:53

Record number seven.

Courtney Pine28:55

Number seven. This is from the days of romance and first love and all that. And this is just a wonderful song by a great artist, Brenda Russell, and I did a cover of her one of her songs. And this is one of those songs that is real sweet.

Speaker 429:10

She cannot think of me.

Speaker 429:14

Better get a grip and get it on again

Speaker 429:18

Getting a grip and get it all

Speaker 429:23

Yeah.

Speaker 429:24

Get in on

Speaker 429:29

Get it on from.

Speaker 429:34

Why are you here?

Presenter29:38

Brenda Russell singing in the thick of it. You got the OBE last year, Courtney. It obviously it meant an enormous amount to you.

Courtney Pine29:46

It was incredible. I I can't believe that I'm s well, sitting here with that tap on my name. It's it's just hasn't been done. It's unprecedented for somebody like me from you know, there's people like Joe Harriet, Shake Keene.

Presenter29:59

What do you mean when you say somebody like me?

Courtney Pine30:01

An immigrant like me who plays music to be represented in this way, usually it's a sports personality or Lenny Henry or somebody in in that field who's in a very visible role. But

Courtney Pine30:13

I started off playing jazz music.

Courtney Pine30:16

My first professional engagement in that was at the Atlantic Pub in Brixton.

Courtney Pine30:21

And from that playing to drug dealers, drunks, prostitutes, to going to see the Queen.

Courtney Pine30:31

You couldn't write that down in a book. You know, you couldn't imagine something like that happening. I mean, it has actually happened.

Presenter30:36

It has actually happened. But on the other hand, that's your whole upbringing was kind of establishment, wasn't it? Your mother's attitude, everything you've talked about.

Courtney Pine30:47

Yeah, yeah, very much so, in terms of being accepted.

Presenter30:50

Yeah.

Courtney Pine30:51

Um

Presenter30:51

He should be a good boy.

Courtney Pine30:52

Very much so.

Courtney Pine30:54

And strange enough, I kind of am, you know, I've never been one to lean on the dark side of the force, you know. That's just how I am.

Presenter31:00

Yeah.

Courtney Pine31:02

I mean, I actually think playing saxophone was rebelling against my parents. You know, th I suppose that's my way of of of of getting through that rebellion thing.

Presenter31:02

Aias

Presenter31:11

But there's not a lot of money in it all, you tell me.

Courtney Pine31:13

No, jazz music, I mean Ronnie Scott did quite well at the club.

Presenter31:17

Boom.

Courtney Pine31:17

But jazz music being a minority of a minority music in this country, records don't get A-listed, B-listed, C-listed.

Presenter31:25

So that's why you want to chart singles.

Courtney Pine31:28

Well, yeah, I think the charts are good.

Courtney Pine31:31

There are other uh ulterior mot motives to that. But no, I think if I got a chart single, it would open up the floodgates for people who want to play jazz music.

Presenter31:42

Tell me about your last record.

Courtney Pine31:43

The Last Choice is is a group Earthwind with Fire. The album's called Gratitude. It was done in the seventies. And it really is a mixture of for me the ultimate mixture of jazz and popular music.

Presenter32:25

Earth, Wind and Fire, and part of the medley Africano forward slash power. If you could only take one of those eight records to your desert island, which one would you take?

Courtney Pine32:34

Would be a real difficult choice, uh but I think we'd have to go with Bob Marley.

Presenter32:35

Yeah.

Courtney Pine32:38

Exodus

Presenter32:39

The Wake Up

Courtney Pine32:40

Yes, most definitely, that would definitely wake me up.

Presenter32:41

But

Presenter32:43

And what about your book? You've got the Bible and you've got the complete works of Shakespeare waiting for you.

Courtney Pine32:48

If I was to take one book it would have to be Chartmingus Beneath the Underdog.

Courtney Pine32:53

That's a wonderful book for any musician thinking about getting into the industry, it's very enlightening.

Presenter32:58

Yeah.

Courtney Pine32:58

What about Your luxury.

Courtney Pine33:01

My saxophone

Courtney Pine33:02

Cool.

Courtney Pine33:10

That's it. That I mean, it's got me this far, hasn't it?

Presenter33:14

Courtney Pine, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your desert island is.

Courtney Pine33:17

Thank you, Sue.

Speaker 333:25

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk slash radio four.