Saxophonist Courtney Pine is not simply a part of the British jazz revival, he is the guy who kicked the whole thing off. In the late 1980s Pine burst on to a jazz scene populated by dedicated, if ageing, white enthusiasts. The idea that young black musicians would be into jazz, and would want to follow a jazz career, would have seemed unlikely to say the least.

Pine bucked the trend. His debut album Journey to the Urge Within became the first serious jazz record to hit the Top 40, and suddenly Courtney Pine and jazz were cool. The follow up made an impact in the US as well and Pine became an international star, and an inspiration to young black musicians, and to young jazz musicians everywhere.

Part of Pine’s appeal is his refusal to be fenced in. In 1990 he went to Jamaica to record the reggae-influenced Closer To Home album. The single I’m Still Waiting helped make this another best-selling album among jazz and wider audiences alike.

Ten albums later Courtney Pine is still pushing the boundaries. Most recently working on the BBC series Made In England he left the urban environment we associate with jazz and travelled to Holy Island in Northumberland. The result was a jazz soundtrack drawing on the folk traditions, history and landscape of this special place.

At Scarborough Jazz Festival Courtney Pine will be presenting his Transition In Tradition, a tribute to the legendary Sidney Bechet. Born in New Orleans in 1897, Bechet played cornet and clarinet before mastering the soprano saxophone. He is credited as the man who brought the saxophone into jazz, and so beginning a line of great musicians, of whom Pine is the latest. Jazz festival organiser Mike Gordon says, Philip Larkin sums it up in his poem For Sidney Bechet:
'On me your voice falls as they say love should,
Like an enormous yes.'

Roger Osborne

Scarborough Jazz Festival 26 -28 September, The Spa
www.scarboroughjazzfestival.co.uk Box Office 01723 357869