Courtney Pine - Come Together
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Courtney Pine casts his net wide on his new album, his first targeted squarely on the bass clarinet and the first to take on his own thoughts on what it means to be an Afro Caribbean jazz musician living in a modern multi-cultural Europe.
Stuart Nicholson talks to Pine about where he locates his music today and how he is drawing on a synthesis of many cultures to forge ahead with his sound.
Courtney Pine’s latest album Europa represents a sharp departure from his previous recordings. It goes to the heart of identity, an issue that continues to grow in significance in these increasingly globalised times. “I have always said I am Afro, Caribbean, European, that’s who I am,” he says, sipping a glass of mineral water in the Heights Bar in the heart of London’s West End. Through the window behind him, the metropolitan cityscape stretches out impressively into the grey of a wet February morning. “That triangle is a label and my cultural references deal with all of that, so it means all things African, all things Caribbean and all things European. To me it means I shouldn’t feel that I can’t exploit each cultural thing and make it one, which is how I think the United Kingdom should be.”
The album brings together a powerful multi-cultural cast to reflect a series of European stories from ancient times to modern. For the album and subsequent touring, Pine has assembled a key core line-up, plus special guests who appear on various tracks to add their own distinctive flavouring, including clarinettist Shabaka Hutchings, guitarist Dominic Grant, viola player Amanda Drummond, mandolinist Cameron Pierre, violinist Omar Puente and drummer Robert Fordjour. “The basic band is myself, obviously, with Alec Dankworth on bass who I first worked with 14 years ago, we went to Spain to do a gig,” he explains. “Mark Mondesir, he was my first drummer and he mentioned in the studio we hadn’t recorded for 17 years – time just goes by so quick – and [pianist] Zoe Rahman, when she came into the band obviously that was a whole shift in what she does and what we do, she was really key to the project.”
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