Courtney Pine – Destiny's Song + The Image Of Pursuance (1988)

I'm always interested to hear a Courtney Pine album, especially when it's cheap in a charity shop. Hence my purchase of this one a week ago.

This one was recorded with Delfeayo Marsalis producing as a tight quartet with Pine's saxes supplemented by Julian Joseph (piano), Paul Hunt (bass) and Mark Mondesir (drums), as tight a jazz quartet as you could hope for.

This is an album which could have come out 25-30 years earlier and fitted right into the Davis / Coltrane / Coleman era, and just as in that era there's much that is difficult, much that is lovely and much that is just solid intro-everyone takes turns to solo-outro type jazz.

Opener Beyond The Thought Of My Last Reckoning typifies the first of these, a modal composition, it says, and I'm taking that to mean it doesn't really have a tune. But I'm finding most joy in the gentler, easier pieces and my highpoint is the three piece run of Sacrifice, Prismic Omnipotence and Alone are my high spot of the album - the first two lively, catchy pieces, and the third more reflective.

This is an enjoyable album with a variety of sounds, nothing that grates (even the drum solo is kept to about 30 seconds), although nothing which makes you sit up in excitement either.

Link to album tracks

3* - a solid jazz album, which is a fine listen without really feeling like anything new