Home » Entertainment » Music: Coltran’s epic ends definitively with pianist McCoy Tyner – News Culture: Music

Music: Coltran’s epic ends definitively with pianist McCoy Tyner – News Culture: Music

His name remains inseparable from that of saxophonist John Coltrane, whom he strongly supported from 1960 to 1965. The last witness inside the Coltranian gesture, McCoy Tyner joined the list of deceased jazz legends last Friday. He was 81 years old.

The native of Philadelphia – his mother runs a hair salon there where Bud Powell sometimes comes to play the piano next door – very early on crosses paths with the famous saxophonist with whom he already played for a week in a club in 1956, when he n is only 18 years old. But he already knew him from one of his sisters, a friend of Coltrane’s first wife. “He was called Coy, he was a bit of a big brother to me”, he remembered 10 years ago, during a visit to Lausanne, at the Jazz Onze + festival.

As early as 1957, “Trane” recorded a composition of his 12-year-old junior, “The Believer”. Then, after a passage from McCoy Tyner in the Jazztet of Art Farmer and Benny Golson, the pianist enters the quartet of his elder, training led to become the classic formula of the blower with Jimmy Garrison on bass and Elvin Jones on drums . He distinguished himself from his first recording with the saxophonist, the album “My Favorite Things” where, from the title track, his supportive play, but not devoid of subtle variations, weaves an ideally exciting rhythmic carpet.

Sixties jazz keyboard master

This prestigious collaboration never seemed to have embarrassed him and he readily evoked it: “I always had to listen to what he was doing, he did not bend to the chord structures and I slipped harmony underneath! ” The pianist is still there when recording the avant-garde “Ascension” in 1965, but, uncomfortable with free radicalism, he then resumes his freedom not without having played on nearly thirty albums (including “A Love Supreme”) by Coltrane, who died in 1967. During this period McCoy Tyner did not hesitate to record his own albums (the excellent “Inception”, his first, in 1962) or share his keyboard art with other musicians, like Art Blakey, Wayne Shorter, Joe Henderson or Freddie Hubbard.

At the end of the 1960s, after Cardinal “The Real McCoy”, first for Blue Note, he struggled a little to find his way and even ended up accompanying Ike and Tina Turner in the early seventies! The flutter is short-lived. In 1973, this master of the keyboard again stood out with the album “Enlightenment”, recorded the same year live at the Montreux Jazz Festival with Azar Lawrence on saxes, Juni Booth on bass and Al Mouzon on drums. In 1978, he was part of the tour organized by his label with Sonny Rollins, Ron Carter and Al Foster. His interests will range from the big band to African or Asian music, but without ever leaving the top of his most beautiful orchestra: his piano.

Below, our 2010 interview with McCoy Tyner during his time in Lausanne:

Jazz

“Coltrane was a big brother”

Lausanne meeting with Coltrane pianist McCoy Tyner, who sold out yesterday at Jazz Onze +

“I talk too much!” laughs McCoy Tyner at the end of a generous interview given Tuesday evening in his Lausanne suite. At the end of the European tour, the legendary pianist John Coltrane has sympathetic elegance. “I have always loved Europe. The educated public has a great ability to listen. I’m not saying this isn’t the case in the United States, but Europe has given most of the great composers, from Bach to Stravinsky, to Beethoven. I have a weakness for France, which has embraced jazz so well. To evoke the Old Continent, the man also knows how to be mischievous: “London is very good too, but I had to run one day to escape a marriage with a young woman yet charming!”

As for his American origins, the 71-year-old musician was born in Philadelphia, a city that jazz mythology sometimes overlooks in favor of Chicago and New York. “The city has produced great musicians, however. Some were born there, like the Heath brothers, others came, like Coltrane or Dizzy Gillespie. “It’s not the clubs in town that his memory most easily unearths -” There were, like the Showboat, but New York is not far away, and that’s where it happened. “

“Hey Bud, come in!”

His memories bring him back to the warm atmosphere of his neighborhood. “People talked to each other, helped each other, shared. The backbone of these good neighborly relations was his mother’s hair salon. “I never touched a client’s hair, but since my mom loved music, she set up a piano there and jams were common. One day we saw Bud Powell on the street. I never studied with him, but he was my hero, my inspiration. He wasn’t always on his plate, but he was told: come in, Bud! He came to play. “

Naima, Coltrane’s first wife, was the friend of one of McCoy’s older sisters, and it was probably during a near-family reunion that he first encountered the legendary saxophonist. “He was called Coy, he was a bit of a big brother to me. “

From his collaboration with the exalted “Trane”, the one who exudes a peaceful serenity remembers the feeling of being on the lookout. “I always had to listen to what he was doing, he didn’t bend to the chord structures and I was sliding in harmony underneath!” The art of great calm? “Why should I get excited?” he retorts, mimicking nervous tics.

At the time, the excitement of free jazz did not completely contaminate it. “I play a harmonic instrument … But I stayed open, I participated. A musician like Ornette Coleman has developed an atonal concept, Cecil Taylor does just that. But I love ballads too much to stay locked in one thing. It’s good to take ownership of a shape and then distance yourself from it. Tyner did not hesitate to take an interest in Asian or African music. “You have to listen to everything, without prejudice, and see what it is. I’ll give you a scoop: I even studied ballet and African dance with a teacher from Ghana! ” For a bit, we would almost see the playful pianist get up and sketch a few dance steps. “Freedom, yes. But it takes knowledge. It is not enough to rush straight ahead. “

83 albums on the counter

In a world less keen on jazz, the pianist does not care. “I have a reputation. But it takes time. A reviewer told me that I had released 83 albums! ” As for young musicians, he willingly encourages them, but does not listen to them. “I wish them the best, and anyone who wants to talk to me is always welcome. Either way, the goal is to find your style, do it your way. So telling the others what to do, very little for me, that would be dictatorial! “

Not too political, McCoy never thought that music would solve the race issue. Formerly tempted by drawing, he did not insist. “You know, for me, the colors come out of the keyboard.”

Created: 08.03.2020, 9:24 p.m.

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