Courtney Pine: Spirituality

Editor's Choice

Rating: ★★★★

Record and Artist Details

Musicians:

Jenny Adejayan (c)
Natalie Taylor (vla)
Zoe Rahman
Mira Glenn (vla)
Elaine Blair (vn)
Courtney Pine (b cl)

Label:

Destin-E Records

February/2023

Media Format:

CD, DL

Catalogue Number:

777103579X

RecordDate:

Rec. January 2022

Courtney's Pine's Spirituality comes at us like a soul-cleanse, a reminder to take stock and practice gratitude.

Supported in part by a string quartet and throughout by the elegant piano stylings of Zoe Rahman – with whom he collaborated on 2015's similarly stripped back Song (The Ballad Book) – Pine's bass clarinet playing is a masterclass in control, nuance and authenticity.

Given the breadth of the album's remit – to create a work that both reflects our contemporary humanity and imparts hope for a unified future – this might have ended up feeling too ambitious. But Pine isn't a national jazz treasure for nothing, and this keenly felt mix of new originals and left-field covers only underlines the fact.

Gospel-infused opener ‘Black Water’ positions Pine's clarinet as a strong – and elemental – lead voice, while ‘Charlie Chaplin's Smile’ glimmers, heartfelt and poignant, becoming increasingly animated with the short, sharp bowing of the strings. Legrand's ‘Windmills of My Mind’ is a tempo-varying, improv-flexing wonder; Welsh hymn ‘Ayr Hod Y Nos’ has a questing gravitas; closer ‘Your Majesty’, Pine's paean to the late bestower of his MBE, has cathedral-like flair, and Burleigh's ‘Motherless Child’, with its threaded electronic drone, is darkly portentous. An album that commands attention, invites reflection. Get the mood lighting going.

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