[Dixielandjazz] McCoy Tyner

[Ed Danielson]

Steve Barbone wrote:

>>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.

I have to disagree, Steve.  You're right about Tyner's work with Coltrane -- 
for good or bad, depending on where your ears are.  I thought his comping 
and tremolos were the perfect accompaniment for Trane's "sheets of sound" 
style.  I admit that I had dismissed him as stuck in that one style.

But Tyner has hardly been "passe" since then.

The first time I played the track "I Could Write a Book" on George Benson's 
mainstream album of 1989, "Tenderly," the very swinging piano in the 
ensemble passages caught my ear.  Looking at the liner notes, I did a double 
take:  McCoy Tyner playing his ass off!  Tyner put out an excellent big band 
album in 1988, "Uptown Downtown," that's very exciting and full of fire, and 
plenty of fine trio albums.  There's also "McCoy Tyner with the Latin 
All-Stars" from 1999 that cooks like crazy.  (What didn't work well, to my 
mind, was his Burt Bacharach tribute album from 1997, with John Clayton's 
lush string orchestrations, but I figure that's Bacharach's fault, not 
Tyner's.  Only Cedar Walton can make Bacharach swing.)

I also have to disagree with Ben Ratliff, who wrote the review of Tyner's 
performance.  Charnett Moffat and Eric Harland are excellent players, but 
Tyner's trio work with Avery Sharpe and Yoron Israel was also very solid.

Obviously Tyner's music isn't to eveyone's taste on the DJML, but he is a 
brilliant player who knows and honors his roots (Art Tatum, Erroll Garner, 
Bud Powell).  He's not in the avant-garde anymore (which is what Ratliff 
looks for), but he continues to do interesting work.

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