It was a lean time for jazz, and for Mr. Tyner. He was not performing much and, he later said, had considered applying for a license to drive a cab.With his rich, percussive playing, he gained notice with John Coltrane’s groundbreaking quartet, then went on to influence virtually every pianist in jazz.Mr. The pianist McCoy Tyner, who has died aged 81, ... who had by that time already come to prominence with a career-launching stint in Miles Davis’s quintet during the mid-50s. Tyner did not use electric piano or synthesizers, or play with rock and disco backbeats, as many of the best jazz musicians did at the time; owning one of the strongest and most recognizable keyboard sounds in jazz, he was committed to acoustic instrumentation.
He quickly delivered “The Real McCoy,” one of his strongest albums, which included his compositions “Passion Dance,” “Search for Peace” and “Blues on the Corner,” all of which he later revisited on record and kept in his live repertoire.That October, Mr. Tyner made his first recordings with Coltrane, participating in sessions for Atlantic Records that produced much of the material for the albums “My Favorite Things,” “Coltrane Jazz,” “Coltrane’s Sound” and “Coltrane Plays the Blues.”To a great extent he was a grounding force for Coltrane. 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.Just before Coltrane’s death in 1967, Mr. Tyner signed to Blue Note. Coltrane made magic with Miles Davis before the classic quartet, and with Alice Coltrane, Rashied Ali, and others after it. He quickly delivered “The Real McCoy,” one of his strongest albums, which included his compositions “Passion Dance,” “Search for Peace” and “Blues on the Corner,” all of which he later revisited on record and kept in his live repertoire.That October, Mr. Tyner made his first recordings with Coltrane, participating in sessions for Atlantic Records that produced much of the material for the albums “My Favorite Things,” “Coltrane Jazz,” “Coltrane’s Sound” and “Coltrane Plays the Blues.”To a great extent he was a grounding force for Coltrane.
From the mid-’90s on he tended to concentrate on small-band and solo recordings.He resisted analyzing or theorizing about his own work. The four comprised what became known as Coltrane’s ‘classic Quartet’, and their collective achievement over the next five years would place them among the greatest jazz ensembles of all time. from the Hamburg 1996 performance, John Coltrane's Mr. His father sang in a church quartet and worked for a company that made medicated cream; his mother was a beautician.
Mr. Tyner was in a band led by the trumpeter Cal Massey in 1957 when he met Coltrane at a Philadelphia club called the Red Rooster.
Therefore, just as I can’t predict what kinds of experiences I’m going to have, I can’t predict the directions in which my music will go.
Find more Radio articles He was an NEA Jazz Master and a five-time Grammy winner. In this file photo legendaryjazz pianist McCoy Tyner performs on the Miles Davis Hall stage during the 43rd Montreux Jazz Festival in Montreux, Switzerland, July 2009.
He first met Coltrane in 1957, when the saxophonist lived nearby and was playing with Miles Davis. In 1956 the two set plans to team up in the future, once Coltrane had started his own group and once Tyner had the chops to keep up.