Courtney Pine

Both as the founder of the Jazz Warriors and as a solo artist, Courtney Pine helped to change the face of the British jazz scene (not to mention his U.S. impact) in the '80s. Pine was born in London, England to a mother and father who had emigrated from Jamaica. Learning saxophone and clarinet, he became adept at reggae, starting out as a reggae musician and eventually incorporating the style into his syncretic vision of modern jazz. In 1985 he started the big band Jazz Warriors, who released their debut album, Out of Many, One People in 1987. Pine's solo debut, Journey to the Urge Within, came out in '86, making it into the British Top 40 albums. Between these two releases, Pine helped find a place in young black British culture for jazz that didn't previously exist in that era, and he was hailed as one of England's young lions of jazz. Pine's time with the Jazz Warriors was short-lived, as he focused on his solo career. Over the years, Pine's expansive brand of post bop came to include dashes of everything from Caribbean flavors and international influences to R&B, hip-hop, and dance music, while always maintaining its ties to his jazz roots. In the late '80s and early '90s, Pine also found his way into the U.K. singles charts via collaborations with R&B star Mica Paris and British reggae singer Carroll Thompson, and would occasionally feature vocals on his records throughout the decades. In the 2000s, Pine earned two lofty British honors, awarded the OBE in 2000 and the CBE in 2009 in recognition of his contributions to jazz in England.