The Out of Many Festival, running from May to February next year, is organised by Jamaica Society Leeds to celebrate 60 years of Jamaican independence. Spirituality, named for Courtney Pine’s latest CD, brought the festival and a capacity audience to the Howard Assembly Room.
Courtney Pine was a trailblazer for black jazz in this country and since the 1980s he has enlarged his scope as well as switching to the infrequently played bass clarinet. Spirituality is not a jazz album, but it’s difficult to imagine Courtney playing as he does without a jazz background. In the opening number he demonstrates circular breathing and slap-tongue playing and before the evening is done runs through a whole range of effects to the delight of the audience.
He is very happy playing unaccompanied, but the accompanists he chooses are rather unusual: pianist Zoe Rahman and a string quartet. Zoe Rahman lays down rhythm and harmony subtly, then now and again expands into an immense solo: on Windmills of Your Mind in classical style, and on Blue Moon, a delicious 1930s feel jazz solo with unexpected excursions into the dramatic. As for the string quartet, the cello is first introduced on Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child before the full quartet appears, stating the melody behind Courtney’s wilder excursions, providing a harmonic base and ultimately, on Amazing Grace, each soloing in a different style while Courtney supplies the fills.
So what is Spirituality? Evidently, from the above, great hymn tunes, but also, unexpectedly, standards treated very differently. Irving Berlin’s classic What’ll I Do?, no more than a couple of choruses, stays close to the melody whereas the Rodgers and Hart gem Blue Moon launches off into all sorts of derivatives.
Courtney has fun with the audience, laying down doomy footsteps and constantly wandering off in his musical introductions before bringing us, satisfyingly, to a well-known tune. Elaborate cadenzas include quotations from all and sundry. However, there is no doubt about the seriousness of his approach to Amazing Grace and, above all, a piece he wrote for Her Late Majesty.
It was an evening difficult to classify, but consistently enjoyable and remarkably varied in its appeal.
Reviewed on 12th October 2022.