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“There have been many pioneers in the black British community – people who have defined an era, changed societal perceptions and made it easier for those who follow to progress in their field. Courtney Pine is such a trailblazer”
– The Voice
Life & Work
Bio:
No musician more embodies the dramatic transformation in the British jazz scene over the past thirty years than saxophonist Courtney Pine. The ground breaking, multi- instrumentalist has led a generation of exciting and innovative players who have broadened their styles to take jazz out to a wider audience.
In the 80’s he was one of the first black British jazz artists to make a serious mark on the jazz scene when his first album “Journey To The Urge Within” charted and some 30 years on (now with an OBE and CBE for services to music) he continues to break new ground with a string of highly acclaimed recordings and numerous prestigious Industry awards. His album “Modern Day Jazz Stories” was nominated for the Mercury Music Prize in 2000 and he was the recipient of the Gold Badge award in 2002.
He has released 16 studio albums to date and continues to tour Worldwide with his award winning band playing clubs, concert halls and festivals from Glastonbury to Fuji Rock, Montreux to Cape Town.
His numerous TV and radio presenting credits include “Mandela Living Legend” for the BBC and the Sony Award winning long running specialist jazz show – Courtney Pine’s Jazz Crusade for BBC Radio 2. He was most recently commissioned by The Tate to compose and perform a unique piece inspired by the work of artist Henri Matisse, as part of Tate’s ‘Matisse Live’ broadcast in cinemas across the UK.
In 1986 a 22 year old Courtney Pine appeared on the front cover of the iconic British music publication NME, he is the only Black British jazz artist to do so – the last quote in a two page interview read “You know I’m doing this for a reason” – some 30 years later he still is…
Contact Information
Management/Booking:
Nikki Meadows
Management for Courtney Pine
Mobile: 07932 021295 Office: 01273 730744
Email: [email protected]
The Recôncavo is an almost invisible center-of-gravity. Circumscribing the Bay of All Saints, this region was landing for more enslaved human beings than any other such throughout all of human history. Not unrelated, it is also birthplace of some of the most physically & spiritually uplifting music ever made. —Sparrow
"Dear Sparrow: I am thrilled to receive your email! Thank you for including me in this wonderful matrix."
—Susan Rogers: Personal recording engineer for Prince, inc. "Purple Rain", "Sign o' the Times", "Around the World in a Day"... Director of the Berklee Music Perception and Cognition Laboratory
I'm Pardal here in Brazil (that's "Sparrow" in English). The deep roots of this project are in Manhattan, where Allen Klein (managed the Beatles and The Rolling Stones) called me about royalties for the estate of Sam Cooke... where Jerry Ragovoy (co-wrote Time is On My Side, sung by the Stones; Piece of My Heart, Janis Joplin of course; and Pata Pata, sung by the great Miriam Makeba) called me looking for unpaid royalties... where I did contract and licensing for Carlinhos Brown's participation on Bahia Black with Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock...
...where I rescued unpaid royalties for Aretha Franklin (from Atlantic Records), Barbra Streisand (from CBS Records), Led Zeppelin, Mongo Santamaria, Gilberto Gil, Astrud Gilberto, Airto Moreira, Jim Hall, Wah Wah Watson (Melvin Ragin), Ray Barretto, Philip Glass, Clement "Sir Coxsone" Dodd for his interest in Bob Marley compositions, Cat Stevens/Yusuf Islam and others...
...where I worked with Earl "Speedo" Carroll of the Cadillacs (who went from doo-wopping as a kid on Harlem streetcorners to top of the charts to working as a janitor at P.S. 87 in Manhattan without ever losing what it was that made him special in the first place), and with Jake and Zeke Carey of The Flamingos (I Only Have Eyes for You)... stuff like that.
Yeah this is Bob's first record contract, made with Clement "Sir Coxsone" Dodd of Studio One and co-signed by his aunt because he was under 21. I took it to Black Rock to argue with CBS' lawyers about the royalties they didn't want to pay. They paid.
MATRIX MUSICAL
The Matrix was built below among some of the world's most powerfully moving music, some of it made by people barely known beyond village borders. Or in the case of Sodré, his anthem A MASSA — a paean to Brazil's poor ("our pain is the pain of a timid boy, a calf stepped on...") — having blasted from every radio between the Amazon and Brazil's industrial south, before he was silenced. (that's me left, with David Dye & Kim Junod for U.S. National Public Radio) ... The Matrix started with Sodré, with João do Boi, with Roberto Mendes, with Bule Bule, with Roque Ferreira... music rooted in the sugarcane plantations of Bahia. Hence our logo (a cane cutter).