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Courtney Pine – Journey to the Urge Within...Revisited

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Courtney Pine – Journey to the Urge Within...Revisited

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I was lucky enough to be able to catch Courtney Pine playing his debut album of his at Ronnies Scotts Jazz Club

Courtney Pine is an incredibly import figure in the creation of British Jazz and is well respected in the jazz community around the globe. He grew up in London and

Although the concert wasn't what I was expecting...

he walked onstage with another jazz giant, Deshenel Gordon a piano player who won BBC Young Jazz Musician of the year in 2020 and has been very active on the London scene since. Id seen Deshenel play last year at the 606 club and it had been one of the most enjoyable concerts of my life. It should of been a match made in heaven two players who have grown up in London and both have had similar influences in reggae music, I would of expected the interplay between the two to have been incredible, but this was not the case.

It felt as if they had fallen out just moments before walking onstage. Deshenel looked like a shadow of his former self from when I had seen him last, his facial expression didn't change and little to no effort being put in to bring excitement to the concert (much to the contrast of when I had seen him previously). There was almost no interplay between the two players which felt very strange, then throughout the set Courtney Pine got more and more agitated and ended up pointing and shouting commands at Deshenel like a high school band leader would which felt totally unacceptable, the other two players in the quartet could only look on and continue supporting the players.

all it in all it summed to quite an unpleasant and uncomfortable experience, sure the individual playing was excellent but it was overshadowed by the awkward atmosphere.

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During this term I had the pleasure of sitting in studio 1 control room and listening to James Pearson teach and run through 100 years of Jazz, this show was put on by the Guildford Jazz team.

James Pearson is the Artistic Director of Ronnie Scotts Jazz club and an exceptional and well rounded Jazz piano player, I've seen him play numerous times as a lead and as someone filling in when bands piano player had issues making the gig.

The Concert was structured to start in the early 20th century and run to present day explaining all the progression and history that came with it. As someone who has spent a fair amount of time studying the history of jazz it felt like he left some important sentences out in order to skirt the awkwardness of talking about how racism pushed jazz to certain places, i.e its move north from New Orleans to Chicago and New York.

as a tonmeister was set to record the concert I was admitted free entry to the control room to listen in over the mics, the concert while incredible also served the purpose for me of being an outside eye looking in on the concert and being able to learn how he manages the audience from my strange 3rd person perspective. It was interesting to see that even though Guildford Jazz is a established and professional group they waited until the concert had started to complain about light placement, which meant we had to start a covert operation to sneak behind the audience to the lighting desk without being noticed in order to change the position of the lights.

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My Concert management assistant roll felt rather usesless in the recital I assisted on.

I turned up rather early although there wasn't much I could do other than help the assistant tonmeisters set up.
there was no assigned concert manager.

I helped print and fold the programmes and then welcomed people and handed them out as the audience came in, all in all this summed to about 20 minutes of work.

There also seemed to be some miss booking by the Fass departments as they had only booked the room until 2pm  and the concert was scheduled to run well past 2pm, another Tonmeister had booked the room from 2pm. The Tonmeister and was understandably annoyed that he couldnt use the room that he had booked on time as he had organised numerous musicians to arrive in which he had to apologise for the couple hour delay.

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During both terms this year at uni I Performed as part of the University Of Surrey Big Band

Audition: The audition process of big band was fun but intense, they would set up a rhythm section and then call forth people to be auditioned to make up a big band of potential candidates, they swapped people in and out to see what fit. at the time I was swapped out rather early and then was not invited back into the band, I took this as a sign that id been cast out but it was not the case.

Rehursles: The Big Band Rehursed once a week on a Tuesday evening + some organised sectionals. The rehursles were always good humoured and a fun. Although didn't totally agree how we rehearsed pieces, we seemed to always run things at tempo to the point of people getting metronomes out to check even when sigh reading. I feel like this is an unproductive workflow as if everyone is barely getting through the pieces and completely skipping sections due to tempo then not much is learnt and it is wasted rehearsal time, there is little point counting in with the metronome set at a speed way to high. I auditioned on both Alto and Tenor sax to increase my acceptance rate.

I was fortunate enough to be awarded the position of Tenor 1, a part which is synonymous with taking lots of improvised solos in big band culture, this pleased me enormously and was a good fit as I am one of the few musicians in the department who is fortunate enough to have received a formal education in Jazz improvisation.

Gigs: at the time of writing this the big band has performed 2 concerts on the university campus and has another one tomorrow! Unfortunately the gigs seem to repeatedly fall on times of busy university life in terms of exams and coursework but makes the relief after the concert that much greater. The concerts always provide just the right amount of pressure to get all the pieces we are playing to a performable standard, although quite often this isn't until soundcheck once everyone has had enough stress to get them to practise.

Album Recording: Throughout the performances this year mics have been setup not just for PA but to capture live recordings for an album. not only these live recordings will be present but also 2 studio recordings, one of which I solo'd over. we also shot some video for the recording (Some of which from a drone!) of us essentially miming over the recorded audio, which proved difficult for the track I had solo'd over as it'd been weeks and I had completely forgotten what I played in the studio.

while the album cover art is still undecided one of the leading pieces of concept art features me on the front cover pictured above.

Tour: at the end of this term the UOSBB will commence on its tour to Birmingham to stay on canal boats while playing at local pubs. I am eager to see how living with my fellow bandmates will inpact the performances and if there are any notable changes.