Courtney Pine, Gala Theatre

May 24 2007 By Barbara Hodgson, The Journal

Jazz legend Courtney Pine proves to be as cool and as laid-back as his music - even when my phone goes dead halfway through our interview.

The man who has almost single-handedly developed Britain's stream of jazz consciousness over the past 20 years was cut off abruptly in the middle of telling me who his inspiration was.

It takes some minutes before I can find another phone but then he's back, as easy and as patient as before.

"That's jazz!" he laughs.

And the answer, it turns out, is Sonny Rollins, the American jazz saxophonist whose record Pine, as a boy, once picked out at random in a London library.

Pine, 43, "I feel like 63!", is looking forward to performing at the Gala Theatre in Durham on Saturday night.

He's been to the North-East before, most recently taking a jazz animation for children to The Sage Gateshead.

"I have a great time up there. It's the people that matter, the people who come and see jazz."

So what has he in store this time around?

Apparently, a real treat, with tracks from his Resistance album, his 11th, and classical jazz sounds given a modern spin with a bit of reggae and hip hop.

He says: "Other jazz musicians want to play the same thing, or jazz from a particular era.

"There's no problem with that, but I am trying to represent the modern day jazz sound in the UK."

His aim "is to play as much music as possible in the time that I have on stage".

The album title is significant for Pine who once said: "For me, just playing jazz, in the early days, was an act of resistance."

His love of jazz, and especially of the saxophone, started when he was growing up in north London with parents who had arrived from Jamaica in the late 1950s.

He was 10 when he saw a saxophone for the first time. But when he heard one played without vocal accompaniment, as he sat watching TV one day with his dad, he says, "it meant so much more to me".

"I told him, `that's what I want to do for the rest of my life'." His dad was rather less enthused.

"He shrugged it off; he didn't think it was possible. My parents didn't want me to play music. They didn't think it was a proper job - they still don't!"

But his struggle to live his dream had only just started.

"I remember when I was 14 or 15 wandering around the streets of London, asking, `where can I hear jazz'?

"I ended up going to a record library and just picked up the best album cover there." It turned out to be Rollins's Way Out West. It spurred his ambition but most people didn't want to know about the young black man trying to make his mark.

He started out playing reggae music, then realised "that jazz incorporated everything, the limits of your imagination, and offered more opportunity.

"And the saxophone is synonymous with jazz."

By now he could play his beloved sax, as well as other instruments. He'd taken part in drummer John Stevens' jazz workshops and played with the Charlie Watts' Orchestra.

But, despite a conscious effort to approach music publications, "they didn't want to talk about music; they talked about what I was wearing and called me a showman.

"Jazz was an Afro-Caribbean art form and not really respected.

"Black people were still seen as outsiders, immigrants. This is Britain."

But sheer persistence, and obvious talent, paid off - big time.

His debut album, the 1987 Journey To The Urge Within, became the first serious jazz album ever to make the British Top 40.

His second, quickly following in 1988, also reached the Top 40 then hit the US jazz charts.

Suddenly Pine was `out there' and pushing the boundaries. He released six albums within seven years.

And he's hardly drawn breath. He tells me there's a 12th album waiting to be mixed; an 11th series of Radio 2's Jazz Crusade, which he presents, currently on air; work on The Jazz, a new digital radio show; and a new film score - which he was commissioned to write for Paul Robeson's groundbreaking classic Borderline - just released on DVD.

"Another dream come true" was setting up his own record company label, Destine-E, to release jazz produced by other artists.

It's just released Pad Up (get ready) by Cameron Pierre.

Not only is Pine's career constantly evolving, but so is his image. He's sporting his dreadlocks but his look "transforms as much as Doctor Who", he says, revealing he has actually appeared in the popular TV series, playing himself in 1988's Silver Nemesis episode, alongside Sylvester McCoy's doctor.

It's hardly surprising that Pine is credited with making jazz accessible and digestible for youngsters.

He runs workshops for young people and it's important to him that they have access to the music and opportunities he sought as a child.

"In one school, I took my saxophone and had a DJ with turntables - they'd never seen them before, they all have CD players.

"I think music is important to youngsters, it's a language. And, if we can improve with an instrument, we can improve with personal development .

"Music is an incredible tool."

He has four children himself and, while they enjoy music, they are left to make their own paths.

And is he married? "I'm married," he laughs. "Married to the saxophone!"

It seems a struggling youth has become a contented man.

And there is one irony that must give him a bittersweet satisfaction.

He's just been voted Saxophone Player of the Year at the renowned Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club in London, where, in those early days, he hadn't been allowed to play.

"I was never invited, even though at the time I was the UK's biggest selling jazz player.

"I wasn't considered good enough to play in places like that."

UK soul singer Mica Paris, with whom Pine has teamed up in the past, was also at the awards - "in a skimpy dress" - and they chatted about the possibility of making an album together.

"Who knows?" says Pine.

With jazz, it seems, anything is possible.

• Courtney Pine is appearing at Gala Theatre, Durham, on Saturday at 7.30pm. Tel: (0191) 332-4041.