Dreaming of the Masters Special Edition - RIP, McCoy Tyner

McCoy Tyner and John Coltrane, 1963

McCoy Tyner, a cornerstone of John Coltrane’s groundbreaking 1960s quartet and one of the most influential pianists in jazz history, died on Friday at his home in northern New Jersey. He was 81.

That's the opening paragraph of The New York Times' obituary on the late, great pianist McCoy Tyner.  Although most famous as a sideman and accompanist to the legendary John Coltrane, McCoy was a legend in his own right, one of the titans of jazz music whose influential sound helped shape jazz at its transitioned from the bebop and hard- and post-bop era to the modal explorations pioneered by the John Coltrane Quartet.

"Mr. Tyner’s manner was modest, but his sound was rich, percussive and serious, his lyrical improvisations centered by powerful left-hand chords marking the first beat of the bar and the tonal center of the music," they state later.

"That sound helped create the atmosphere of Coltrane’s music and, to some extent, all jazz in the 1960s. (When you are thinking of Coltrane playing My Favorite Things or A Love Supreme, you may be thinking of the sound of Mr. Tyner almost as much as that of Coltrane’s saxophone.)"

There's no doubt that McCoy benefited greatly from his association with John Coltrane. Coltrane definitely made McCoy sound better, but McCoy also made Coltrane sound better.  

The video above is from an old PBS television series called Jazz Casual, hosted by the critic Ralph Gleason, and originally aired on December 7, 1963.  Listen to how McCoy's rumbling riff beneath the dramatic opening and closing passages of Alabama, the middle song in the video, adds to the brooding nature of the moody piece.  

Listen to the opening song, Afro Blue; how Coltrane plays for only the first minute of the composition before turning it over to McCoy for a full  2 ½ minutes before jumping back in again to improvise on the theme.   He does the same on the closing number, Impressions, playing the lead for a mere 35 seconds before turning it over to McCoy and the rest of the band again, this time for nearly 7 ½ minutes.  That's faith and trust in your accompanists to properly articulate your artistic vision.  

In a 1961 interview, Coltrane said: “My current pianist, McCoy Tyner, holds down the harmonies, and that allows me to forget them. He’s sort of the one who gives me wings and lets me take off from the ground from time to time.”

McCoy's artistry was an integral part of the reason that the John Coltrane Quartet is widely considered the pinnacle of Coltrane's career.  Can you even imagine a song like Wise One without McCoy's contributions?

McCoy was committed to acoustic instrumentation and never switched over to electric piano or synthesizers, or play with rock and disco backbeats, as many jazz fusion artists did in the 70s.  In 2002, McCoy Tyner was named a National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master, one of the highest honors for a jazz musician in the United States.

RIP, McCoy.  You were an artists and a genius, and your music touched my soul.