[Dixielandjazz] Reinventing Your Band

[Stephen Barbone]

CAVEAT: Not Dixieland, however the parallel is there regarding the
reinventing of one's band sound. McCoy Tyner was a tour de force in the
1960s with Trane. Then quite passe for the last decade or so. Coasting
along with the same old stuff. Done well, but with no panache. Now,
according to the reviewer, he has reorganized his sound and the band's
offerings. Even including some historical perspective via stride.
Interesting read if your band is experiencing difficulties with new
audiences. Note well the last paragraph as well as the notes about the
terrific audience response.

IMO there is a large audience out there which almost all jazz players
are not yet reaching. Tyner seems to have realized this and has found a
way to become relevant again.

Cheers,
Steve Barbone

May 13, 2004  NY Times JAZZ REVIEW | MCCOY TYNER

Old Dog Offers Some New Tricks of His Own  By BEN RATLIFF

      The pianist McCoy Tyner proved himself a wakeful giant a long time
ago, as part of the John Coltrane Quartet in the early 1960's. His
playing, with its commanding, ancient-sounding chords and the kind of
arm power that gets a roar out of the piano's bass clef, has remained
powerful. When he has seemed like a sleeping giant, it has been a matter
of context: a dull rhythm section, a palpable lack of momentum, a bad
concept for a concept album.

Any accomplished performer can reach a point at which it seems the
battles have all been won. This is the feeling that Mr. Tyner, now 65,
has projected for most of the last decade, and he has given his audience
an unenthusiastic surfeit of riches: the big sound, the famous
Coltrane-band tunes, tired rhythm sections.

But a little less than a year ago he reorganized his trio, hiring the
bassist Charnett Moffett and the young drummer Eric Harland. The change
has energized Mr. Tyner's performance from top to bottom. On Tuesday in
his first set at the Iridium (where he plays through Sunday) with his
new trio and the tenor saxophonists Ravi Coltrane and Pharoah Sanders as
guests, one saw a band that mattered, not just historically, but now.

There was a direct homage to John Coltrane at one point, but it was
nicely done. Mr. Sanders played "Over and Over Again," famous from
Coltrane's "Ballads" album, and for those few minutes a musician famous
for rawboned screaming played in supremely elegant ballad mode. There
and elsewhere, the power of the set was no academic issue. Five or six
times after solos players got full-house ovations of a force that you
rarely see
at a routine jazz-club gig.

The set opened with Mr. Tyner's "Angelina," and right away the band
established momentum. Mr. Harland is an exact, firm-tempo drummer,
filling in rolling, popping details through the width of the groove, but
making them surge and ebb and function as dramatic elements. He locked
in with Mr. Tyner, pushing him, and then began a long drum solo,
building up drum chants and pressing hard on the groove, making it rock.
Next Ravi
Coltrane, who is John's son, and Mr. Sanders appeared, establishing a
pattern that lasted through several pieces: Mr. Sanders played
torrentially, Mr. Coltrane shrewdly.

In the best of those pieces, Mr. Tyner's "African Village," Mr. Sanders
played a solo building up to scrabbling hollers, with rough clumps of
close-interval notes suddenly giving way to a yawping long tone. It was
charismatic and personal, one long detonation. Mr. Coltrane — who, let's
say it again, has escaped sounding like his father — followed with a
decent representation of the opposite. He played a series of soft,
round, isolated single notes, forming them into patterns, and finally
built up to deft, athletic, highly schooled playing.

Through it all Mr. Tyner hit the keyboard hard enough that chords rang
against one another in the air; rhythmically he protected the rolling
vamps that power his music. And in a short piano solo near the end, he
grabbed handfuls of jazz-piano history, stomping through stride-piano
sections. It was 90 minutes into the set — already longer than usual —
and the crowd looked eager for more.