Courtney Pine - Back In The Day (2000)

Tracklist
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01. Intro-Search
02. The Jazzstep
03. Hardtimes
04. Brotherman
05. Keep It Real
06. Interlude-Straight Ahead Hip Hop
07. Lady Day And
08. My Father's Place
09. Yeah! Yeah!!
10. Interlude-Quartet No. 1
11. Inner State (Of Mind)
12. Power To The People
13. Love And Affection
14. Third Man
15. Meditate (Outro)


Since he was first fêted in the mid 1980s as the salvation of British jazz, Courtney Pine has made several attempts to find a plausible intersection between two of his favourite sounds--the bebop of Coltrane and Rollins and the groove of soul, reggae and other popular dance forms. Some of his albums have contained isolated successes, but in attempting to be eclectic and voguish, they've tended to be patchy and lacking in cohesive identity. This one, focusing on soul vocals and jazz solos over retro funk beats is marginally more unified. The sound is such a late-90s cliché that the set won't win any awards for originality, but ironically, in an album aimed at the pop charts, jazz comes to the rescue. "The Jazzstep", for example, might be rooted in a tired old "Sidewinder" vamp, but it's topped with an impressive whirlwind of improvised soprano saxophone, piano and guitar. Mark Gilbert

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