History:
(December 11, 1938 – March 6, 2020) McCoy Tyner was an American jazz pianist known for his work with the John Coltrane Quartet and a long solo career. He was an NEA Jazz Master and a five-time Grammy winner. Not a player of electric keyboards and synthesizers, he was committed to acoustic instrumentation. Tyner, who was widely imitated, was one of the most recognizable and most influential pianists in jazz history.
In 1960, Tyner joined The Jazztet led by Benny Golson and Art Farmer. Six months later, he joined the quartet of John Coltrane that included Elvin Jones and Steve Davis (later replaced by Art Davis, Reggie Workman, and, finally, Jimmy Garrison). He worked with the band during its extended run at the Jazz Gallery, replacing Steve Kuhn. Coltrane had known Tyner for a while growing up in Philadelphia. He recorded the pianist’s composition “The Believer” on January 10, 1958; it became the title track of Prestige’s 1964 album The Believer issued as a John Coltrane record. He played on Coltrane’s My Favorite Things (1961) for Atlantic. The band toured almost non-stop between 1961 and 1965, recording the albums Coltrane “Live” at the Village Vanguard (1962), Ballads (1963), John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman (1963), Live at Birdland (1964), Crescent (1964), A Love Supreme (1964), and The John Coltrane Quartet Plays (1965), all for Impulse! Records.
While in Coltrane’s group, he recorded albums in a piano trio. In late 1962 and the first half of 1963, Tyner was asked by producer Bob Thiele to record more straightforward jazz albums as a leader. These albums included Reaching Fourth (1963), Today and Tomorrow (1964), and McCoy Tyner Plays Ellington (1965). Reviewing the album in 2017, Marc Myers of JazzWax said, “…the finest of these straightforward piano recordings was Nights of Ballads & Blues. Tyner’s playing is exciting and exceptional on all of the tracks… On the album, he exhibits a reserved elegance and tenderness that reveals the other side of his personality—a lover of melody and standards. In this regard, there are traces of Oscar Peterson in his playing. Perhaps Thiele was using Tyner to take a bite out of Peterson’s vast and successful early-’60s share of the jazz market.” Tyner also appeared as a sideman on many Blue Note albums of the 1960s, although he was often credited as “etc.” on the cover of these albums to respect his contract with Impulse!
Tyner’s playing style developed in close contact with Coltrane. His style of piano is comparable to Coltrane’s maximalist style on saxophone. Writing in 2019, Sami Linna at the University of the Arts Helsinki noted that Coltrane described the two different directions in his playing as: “playing chordally (vertically) or melodically (horizontally)”. Linna suggests: “Tyner would eventually find a way of dealing with the two directions simultaneously, in a manner that was supportive and complementary yet original and slightly different from Coltrane’s approach.” After 1960 Coltrane did not hire anyone at the piano if Tyner was not available; between Tyner joining the group (around the end of May 1960) and leaving (in December 1965), there was nobody else at the piano accompanying Coltrane.
McCoy Tyner, Groundbreaking Pianist Of 20th Century Jazz, Dies At 81
Videos of The Week:
McCoy Tyner (piano, composer), Azar Lawrence (tenor sax), Jooney Booth (bass) and Alphonse Mouzon (drums). Recorded at the Montreux Jazz Festival, July 7, 1973.
McCoy Tyner & Ravi Coltrane – Walk Spirit Talk Spirit – LIVE