Preview: Courtney Pine: Jazz Warriors Afropeans, Barbican, London

Warriors back for show of musical unity

History – specifically, black British history – is very much on Courtney Pine's mind. "There's so much of it people don't know about," he says. "Elizabeth I rounded up as many Moors as she could and put them on boats to send them back. They gathered them up at the market stalls and threw them out."

This year is the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade; October is Black History Month, and Saturday marks the first time Pine goes on stage with a band bearing the name of the ground-breaking collective he formed in 1985, the Jazz Warriors, since it petered out after his solo career took off.

The aim of the concert is to promote unity. The new Jazz Warriors, which Pine will keep going as a working band, with plans for a recording soon, bring together British-based musicians of different ethnicities, including the Cuban-born violinist Omar Puente, pianist Alex Wilson, whose family is originally from Sierra Leone, and video artists whom Pine knows through collaborations with Nitin Sawhney.

The band kick off with a concert themed around the experience of what Pine calls "Afropeans" – those of African descent who were born in or live in Europe. There will be a short film, poetry and new compositions, mostly by Pine, performed by a big band augmented by violin, cello and steel pans. "We're setting out who we are and where the music is coming from."

Coming back to British black culture, it's clear that Pine thinks that jazz should be an important part of that – and that the "liberating" power of jazz can enrich other music forms. "I'd love to see Dizzee Rascal, Soweto Kinch and Beverley Knight tour together. I think people would love to see those spirits colliding."

This is precisely the kind of talk that irks critics who would like to hear Pine return to the "heir to Coltrane" path. "It's the musicians who change the definition of jazz," he parries. "And history has shown that it's the ones who go beyond the barriers who stand out."

6 October (0845 120 7550)