Just come back from a fantastic concert with Courtney Pine. He mostly played bass clarinet and soprano sax, and his mastery of both of them was sheer brilliance. At one point he played the bass clarinet, with one hand, for several minutes whilst doing circular breathing. I thought it was only flautists who did circular breathing. It was amazing to watch and listen to. The range of sounds he got out of the instruments was unbelievable. Then at the end, we had dancing and clapping (and the conga ) and Courtney Pine came off the stage and went round as many of the audience as he could get to, either shaking hands or having a little dance. It was a fantastic atmosphere. I don't know if all his concerts are as much fun - who else has seen him?

Anyway a jolly good time was had by all

Sounds Amazing Skylark, I am glad that you all had a good time.

ET

What a lovely man, his enthusiasm for jazz is so infectious. He signed my son's CD, had a chat to him about what instruments he played and for how long, and shook his hand. He also tried to encourage him to take up the bass clarinet!

I was very surprised that it was 10.30 when we left the concert hall. I had enjoyed the concert so much, the time had flown by, and I thought it was much earlier. I still wish he'd played for longer, though. Music Stand's had the CD on repeat all day!

Me! At our local festival about 10 days ago. Isn't he amazing? It was outside, and the sun was going down and it was perfect. He played the flute too - when he played 'au revoir' I'm not saying it brought tears to my eyes, but it might've done Was a young dark-haired woman on the piano? If it was the same person, she was young jazz musician of the year about 10 years ago, I think, and she was terrific - they all were. He had us all in the palm of his hand by the end of it.

That sounds wonderful! They didn't have piano at the Harrogate concert - as well as Courtney Pine himself, there was a violinist, a guitarist, a double bass and drums. He played 'au revoir' on flute at our concert too

And this was his violinist http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2009/aug...de-omari-puente

Good grief, I'd no idea, how very sad

Oh! I've just noticed you've passed Grade 1 piano, Skylark - well done! Did you know that Courtney Pine has recorded Skylark? It's the same one as the forum concert one and is on The Vision's Tale from 1989.

Thanks Chris!

No I didn't know about the Courtney Pine recording - I bet it sounds very different from when it's played by a classical pianist!

saw him years ago in Ronnie Scotts in Brum - he played soprano and alto AT THE SAME time, one hand on each, and still managed to get what sounded like hundreds of notes out of each.