Sight Reading
"Musical thoughts and afterthoughts"
Marco Bertoli
Nome: Marco Bertoli
Italian journalist, translator and music writer for italian Musica Jazz magazine, based in Milano, Italy.
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McCoy Tyner: Plays John Coltrane
Naima / Moment's Notice / Crescent / After The Rain / Afro Blue / I Want To Talk About You / Mr. Day.
McCoy Tyner (piano), George Mraz (bass), Al Foster (drums). New York, September 23, 1997.
IMPULSE 589 183-2
The Impulse! label celebrates John Coltrane's 75th birthday by issuing this set, recorded live at NY Village Vanguard on September 23, 1997 (birthday of the great saxophonist).
McCoy Tyner, the Village Vanguard, Impulse! and five of Trane's most famous tunes are included, plus two songs inextricably connected to him. Such an imposing list of influences could possibly lead astray the most sober of critics.
But things stand differently. What we are dealing with here is an overt hommage, an honest proposal of a viewpoint allowing the listener to pick up subtle details. One minute into the record though, I'd put away any such worries. Because this is a wonderful set, an hommage completely worthy the dedicatee. Moreover, this is a fervid affirmation of McCoy Tyner's musical mastery.
"McCoy has an exceptionally well developed sense of form", a famous Coltrane's quotation goes, "Both as a soloist and an accompanist. Invariably in our group, he will take a tune and build his own structure for it". Along the same lines, we marvel at how Tyner subjugates every composition he happens to be playing to his own harmonic rules. Such remarks help to focus on Tyner's musical personality and historical position. In posing himself here as "Coltrane's pianist" (a noble but also potentially embarassing label that Tyner always wore with pride), the pianist defines his own style in close relationship with the material which shaped it.
Of the seven compositions on this CD, Moment's Notice (from "Blue Train", 1957) is the only one Tyner never recorded with Coltrane; the extra meaning we hinted at above, comes from a dialectic confrontation between past and present. The "hommage" to Coltrane, thus, doesn't sound occasional, but an uninterrupted flow of a natural expression, bearing the mark of biological necessity.
An example of this can be heard in Naima, which opens the set. The typical piano solo prelude is followed by a slightly askew statement of the theme, alternating between a linear approach and brisk harmonic interpolations; the rhythm section enters and asymmetric fragments of the tune appear, only to be absorbed all of a sudden by dark block-chords and fast modal fragments up high on the keyboard. The harmonic rules Tyner "subjugates" his material to, have become staples of formal pattern. Coltrane's theme, originally as epigrammatic and static as an haiku, is injected with an inner drama, the bridge rhytmically dense and harmonically contrasting, the out-chorus, contemplatively oscillating between I and IV degree, a whirling closure, much more "conclusive" than in any of Coltrane's renderings.
Besides, Moment's Notice is worked out using pedals, now explicit, now implicit, in the form of harmonic anticipations or delays. The keyboard is fully and intensely exploited through all its extension, now glittering, more often dark. The tune, intended by Coltrane as an hurdle-race through fast and frequent chord changes (hence the title), is recast as a solid whole. The second chorus sees Tyner mimicking, single-notedly, Coltrane's hectic phrasing.
It's just an episode. Throughout the whole set, Tyner's renditions of Coltrane's compositions are constantly pianistic. Listen carefully to After The Rain, a piano solo of rare intimacy, and I Want To Talk About You. In this last track, Tyner's unique talent as a balladeur shines brightly, freeing Billy Eckstine's song of any hint of corny romanticism to wrap it up in his own brand of grandiosity. In this amazing performance, Tyner alternates single-note choruses with block-chords, ending in an uncharacteristically humorous coda.
Bassist George Mraz's playing is outstanding throughout the set. Bass duties are notoriously tricky in backing a pianist whose left hand is as strong and authoritative as Tyner's. In order to avoid redundant doubling of the bass line, Mraz, when not majestically walking the 4/4, breaks into short and ever inventive ostinatos. He fully deserves the ample solo space the pianist grants him.
Al Foster is a drummer of a different kind than Elvin Jones, an inevitable comparison, or even Tony Williams or Alphonse Mouzon, just to mention two of Tyner's famous one-time sidemen. Clear, bright, accurate, Foster provides here a very apt expressive contrast to the leader, cutting for himself an exceptional exploit in Afro Blue, a singing solo, introduced by a chorus of marvellous metric ambiguity. The whole track is a lecture given by the three men on the thousands of possible ways to play in 3 time.
One of the best piano records recently heard, and an absolutely worthwhile chapter in McCoy Tyner's musical history.
McCoy Tyner (piano), George Mraz (bass), Al Foster (drums). New York, September 23, 1997.
IMPULSE 589 183-2
The Impulse! label celebrates John Coltrane's 75th birthday by issuing this set, recorded live at NY Village Vanguard on September 23, 1997 (birthday of the great saxophonist).
McCoy Tyner, the Village Vanguard, Impulse! and five of Trane's most famous tunes are included, plus two songs inextricably connected to him. Such an imposing list of influences could possibly lead astray the most sober of critics.
But things stand differently. What we are dealing with here is an overt hommage, an honest proposal of a viewpoint allowing the listener to pick up subtle details. One minute into the record though, I'd put away any such worries. Because this is a wonderful set, an hommage completely worthy the dedicatee. Moreover, this is a fervid affirmation of McCoy Tyner's musical mastery.
"McCoy has an exceptionally well developed sense of form", a famous Coltrane's quotation goes, "Both as a soloist and an accompanist. Invariably in our group, he will take a tune and build his own structure for it". Along the same lines, we marvel at how Tyner subjugates every composition he happens to be playing to his own harmonic rules. Such remarks help to focus on Tyner's musical personality and historical position. In posing himself here as "Coltrane's pianist" (a noble but also potentially embarassing label that Tyner always wore with pride), the pianist defines his own style in close relationship with the material which shaped it.
Of the seven compositions on this CD, Moment's Notice (from "Blue Train", 1957) is the only one Tyner never recorded with Coltrane; the extra meaning we hinted at above, comes from a dialectic confrontation between past and present. The "hommage" to Coltrane, thus, doesn't sound occasional, but an uninterrupted flow of a natural expression, bearing the mark of biological necessity.
An example of this can be heard in Naima, which opens the set. The typical piano solo prelude is followed by a slightly askew statement of the theme, alternating between a linear approach and brisk harmonic interpolations; the rhythm section enters and asymmetric fragments of the tune appear, only to be absorbed all of a sudden by dark block-chords and fast modal fragments up high on the keyboard. The harmonic rules Tyner "subjugates" his material to, have become staples of formal pattern. Coltrane's theme, originally as epigrammatic and static as an haiku, is injected with an inner drama, the bridge rhytmically dense and harmonically contrasting, the out-chorus, contemplatively oscillating between I and IV degree, a whirling closure, much more "conclusive" than in any of Coltrane's renderings.
Besides, Moment's Notice is worked out using pedals, now explicit, now implicit, in the form of harmonic anticipations or delays. The keyboard is fully and intensely exploited through all its extension, now glittering, more often dark. The tune, intended by Coltrane as an hurdle-race through fast and frequent chord changes (hence the title), is recast as a solid whole. The second chorus sees Tyner mimicking, single-notedly, Coltrane's hectic phrasing.
It's just an episode. Throughout the whole set, Tyner's renditions of Coltrane's compositions are constantly pianistic. Listen carefully to After The Rain, a piano solo of rare intimacy, and I Want To Talk About You. In this last track, Tyner's unique talent as a balladeur shines brightly, freeing Billy Eckstine's song of any hint of corny romanticism to wrap it up in his own brand of grandiosity. In this amazing performance, Tyner alternates single-note choruses with block-chords, ending in an uncharacteristically humorous coda.
Bassist George Mraz's playing is outstanding throughout the set. Bass duties are notoriously tricky in backing a pianist whose left hand is as strong and authoritative as Tyner's. In order to avoid redundant doubling of the bass line, Mraz, when not majestically walking the 4/4, breaks into short and ever inventive ostinatos. He fully deserves the ample solo space the pianist grants him.
Al Foster is a drummer of a different kind than Elvin Jones, an inevitable comparison, or even Tony Williams or Alphonse Mouzon, just to mention two of Tyner's famous one-time sidemen. Clear, bright, accurate, Foster provides here a very apt expressive contrast to the leader, cutting for himself an exceptional exploit in Afro Blue, a singing solo, introduced by a chorus of marvellous metric ambiguity. The whole track is a lecture given by the three men on the thousands of possible ways to play in 3 time.
One of the best piano records recently heard, and an absolutely worthwhile chapter in McCoy Tyner's musical history.
(Originally published 2001, Allaboutjazz Italy)
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