Archive for McCoy Tyner

R.I.P. McCoy Tyner (1938-2020)

Posted in Jazz with tags , , , , on March 7, 2020 by telescoper

I had just got home last night when I heard the sad news of the death at the age of 81 of the brilliant pianist McCoy Tyner. When I was looking through my collection of jazz recordings after hearing about this I was struck by how many of them featured McCoy Tyner, most of them in association with John Coltrane that lasted about five years. Tyner’s style was enormously influential as well as immediately recognizable, especially for the way he used his left hand to punch out chords in much the same way as a right-handed boxer uses his left jab.

Tyner had a very long career as a solo musician and it would be wrong the give the impression that his work with Trane from about 1960 to 1965 was all he did, but when choosing something to share in his memory I kept coming back to that period.

In the end I decided to post a classic piece from the John Coltrane era. This is the title track from the 1961 album My Favorite Things which, as it happens, is one of my favourite things. Coltrane plays soprano sax on this track; apparently he hadn’t played a soprano sax at all until 1960, when Miles Davis bought him one. I like its use on this particularly recording as it gives the performance a very “Eastern” sound.

You might think that a song from The Sound of Music would be unlikely material for John Coltrane to tackle, but in fact he does something extremely interesting with it: the melody is heard numerous times throughout the track, but instead of playing solos over the written chord changes, the soloists improvise over just two chords, E minor and E major, in a manner that seems influenced by Indian music. The whole thing is played in waltz time, but drummer Elvin Jones not only keeps an intense but fluidly swinging pulse going in 3/4 but also does so much around and across that central beat.

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50 Years of A Love Supreme

Posted in Jazz with tags , , , , on February 17, 2015 by telescoper

A very busy day at work has just ended without time to do a blog post, so before I go home I’ll just do a quickie about the classic album A Love Supreme made by the John Coltrane quartet in late 1964 and released in February 1965. The 50th anniversary of the release of this record has been marked by an extremely interesting programme on BBC Radio 4, broadcast a few days ago but still available on the BBC iPlayer.

A Love Supreme is one of my favourite jazz albums, not only because it’s glorious music to listen to but also for its historical importance. Shortly after making this record Coltrane comprehensively changed his musical direction, abandoning many of the structures that underpinned his earlier work and adopting an approach heavily influenced by the free jazz of the likes of Ornette Coleman and, especially, Albert Ayler. Not everyone likes the music Coltrane made after he made that transition (in 1965) but having taken his earlier style to such a high peak as A Love Supreme he and the rest of the band no doubt felt they couldn’t go any further in that direction.

There are glimpses of the later freer approach in the third track, Pursuance, when the drum and saxophone interchanges between Elvin Jones and Coltrane threaten to break the regular tempo apart, and on this (the second) track Resolution, when McCoy Tyner abandons his usual single-note lines in favour of much more complex chordal improvisations. I think Coltrane’s solo on the last track, Psalm, is entirely improvised and , accompanied by Jones’ rising and falling drum rolls, it acquires a hauntingly solemn atmosphere which makes the hairs stand up on the back of my neck every time I hear it. What a fantastic drummer Elvin Jones was.

But I haven’t got time to analyse the whole album – another’s words are in any case no substitute for listening to this masterpiece yourself – so I’ll just mention that Resolution is based on an 8-bar theme that’s very reminiscent of the theme Africa featured on Africa/Brass made a couple of years earlier. To me it sounds like Coltrane is just itching to cut loose on this track. His saxophone tone has a harder edge than usual for that period, giving the piece an anguished, pleading feel. Elvin Jones is also magnificent, his polyrhythmic accents spurring Coltrane to a climactic solo.

The intensity of Resolution ignites an even more dramatic onslaught on the next track, Pursuance, basically a blues taken at a very fast tempo, before the mood changes completely for the final part, Psalm. And all this builds from the opening track, Acknowledgement, which closes with the whole group chanting the words A Love Supreme in unison to a simple four-note figure stated at the opening of the piece.

Four tracks amounting to just over 30 minutes of music, but a masterpiece by any standards. If you’re thinking of starting a jazz collection, put it straight on your list! You could also listen to the whole thing via Youtube

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My Favo(u)rite Things

Posted in Jazz with tags , , , , on January 7, 2014 by telescoper

I’ve got a short gap in between meetings which I thought I’d fill by posting a classic piece by John Coltrane. This is the title track from the 1961 album My Favorite Things which, as it happens, is one of my favourite things. Coltrane plays soprano sax on this track; apparently he hadn’t played a soprano sax until 1960, when Miles Davis bought him one. I like its use on this particularly recording as it gives the performance a very “Eastern” sound.

You might think that a song from The Sound of Music would be unlikely material for John Coltrane to tackle, but in fact he does something extremely interesting with it: the melody is heard numerous times throughout the track, but instead of playing solos over the written chord changes, the soloists improvise over just two chords, E minor and E major, in a manner that seems influenced by Indian music. The whole thing is played in waltz time. In fact, although John Coltrane and McCoy Tyner are great on this track I can never quite manage to tear my ears away from the drummer, the late and very great Elvin Jones, who keeps an intense but fluidly swinging pulse going in 3/4 but also does so much around and across that central beat that it seems he must have more than one pair of hands…

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Resolution

Posted in Jazz with tags , , , , on January 1, 2013 by telescoper

Yesterday I happened to be listening to the classic album A Love Supreme made by the John Coltrane quartet in 1964. Since the second of the four “movements” (for what of a better word) of this work is called Resolution, I thought it would be a good thing to post on New Year’s Day to welcome everyone to 2013!

A Love Supreme is one of my favourite jazz albums, not only because it’s glorious music to listen to but also for its historical importance. Shortly after making this record Coltrane comprehensively changed his musical direction, abandoning many of the structures that underpinned his earlier work and adopting an approach heavily influenced by the free jazz of the likes of Ornette Coleman and, especially, Albert Ayler. Not everyone likes the music Coltrane made after he made that transition (in 1965) but having taken his earlier style to such a high peak as A Love Supreme he and the rest of the band no doubt felt they couldn’t go any further in that direction.

There are glimpses of the later freer approach in the third track, Pursuance, when the drum and saxophone interchanges between Elvin Jones and Coltrane threaten to break the regular tempo apart, and on this (the second) track Resolution, when McCoy Tyner abandons his usual single-note lines in favour of much more complex chordal improvisations. I think Coltrane’s solo on the last track, Psalm, is entirely improvised and , accompanied by Jones’ rising and falling drum rolls, it acquires a hauntingly solemn atmosphere which makes the hairs stand up on the back of my neck every time I hear it. What a fantastic drummer Elvin Jones was.

But I haven’t got time to analyse the whole album – another’s words are in any case no substitute for listening to this masterpiece yourself – so I’ll just mention that Resolution is based on an 8-bar theme that’s very reminiscent of the theme Africa featured on Africa/Brass made a couple of years earlier. To me it sounds like Coltrane is just itching to cut loose on this track. His saxophone tone has a harder edge than usual for that period, giving the piece an anguished, pleading feel. Elvin Jones is also magnificent, his polyrhythmic accents spurring Coltrane to a climactic solo.

The intensity of Resolution ignites an even more dramatic onslaught on the next track, Pursuance, basically a blues taken at a very fast tempo, before the mood changes completely for the final part, Psalm. And all this builds from the opening track, Acknowledgement, which closes with the whole group chanting the words A Love Supreme in unison to a simple four-note figure stated at the opening of the piece.

Four tracks amounting to just over 30 minutes of music, but a masterpiece by any standards.

Happy New Year!

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