# McCoy Tyner in conversation with Michael Bourne. Groundbreaking pianist of 20th century Jazz, dies at 81: Video, Photos

- Link: https://jazzblues.eu/2020/03/08/mccoy-tyner-in-conversation-with-michael-bourne-groundbreaking-pianist-of-20th-century-jazz-dies-at-81-video-photos/
- Published: 2020-03-08T14:17:29+01:00
- Author: https://JazzBlues.EU

**McCoy Tyner, who died on Friday at 81, has been a steadfast presence on the air
at WBGO since our inception.**

His album _Horizon _was made in 1979, the year WBGO was founded, and it quickly 
joined the ranks of McCoy Tyner recordings in our library. And of course, he’s featured
on myriad albums by his peers, from John Coltrane to Freddie Hubbard to Newark’s
own Wayne Shorter.

In 2008, Tyner received the Miles Davis Award at the Montreal International Jazz
Festival. In addition to this honor – presented to “a great international jazz musician
for the entire body of his or her work and influence in regenerating the jazz idiom”—
Tyner took part in the festival’s Invitation Series, appearing in a small array 
of different ensembles.

[[

They covered Tyner’s start as a pianist, when he would practice on an instrument
in his mother’s beauty salon: “That was the largest room in the house, so it was
ladies getting their hair done, and we had a jam session right next to them.”

They talked about Oscar Peterson, whom Tyner was involved in honoring: “He set such
a precedent for piano, it’s amazing. I used to watch him and say, ‘How did he do
that?’”

And they reflected on saxophonist Ravi Coltrane, whom Tyner knew as a small child:“
He’s amazing. Sometimes I look at him, and he looks so much like his father, the
way he stands – but he’s not trying to emulate his father, note for note.” (Coltrane
performed in a trio with Tyner at that year’s festival.)

McCoy Tyner, a pianist whose deep resonance, hammering attack and sublime harmonic
invention made him a game-changing catalyst in jazz and beyond, died Friday, March
6, at his home in New Jersey. His death was confirmed by his manager. No cause of
death was given. He was 81.

Tyner was the last surviving member of the John Coltrane Quartet, among the most
momentous groups in jazz history. Few musicians have ever exerted as much influence
as a sideman. His crucial role in the group’s articulation of modal harmony, from
the early 1960s on, will always stand as a defining achievement: The ringing intervals
in his left hand, often perfect fourths or fifths, became the cornerstone of a style
that endures today.

But Tyner was always a more multidimensional musician than the sum of his mannerisms
would seem to suggest. And he had a long, consequential post-Coltrane career as 
a composer and bandleader. Among his dozens of albums are a handful regarded as 
classics, like _Reaching Fourth, The Real McCoy _and _Atlantis_. A number of his
compositions, including “Passion Dance” and “Peresina,” have entered the common 
repertory.

“On all the recordings with Coltrane, and indeed on all his work of the ’60s, McCoy’s
crisp, lightning-fast right-hand lines, set against the sheer power of his left,
are a revelation,” jazz historian Lewis Porter, one of Coltrane’s biographers, wrote
in an email to NPR Music on Friday. “He came out of the tradition (he mentioned 
Thelonious Monk as one of his favorites), but he was one of those few who forged
an absolutely unique style.”

Because Tyner’s work with Coltrane catapulted him to the first tier of accompanists,
that style can be heard on some of the landmark jazz albums of the ’60s. Among them
are _Page One_, by tenor saxophonist Joe Henderson, and _Open Sesame_, by trumpeter
Freddie Hubbard – a pair of auspicious debuts on Blue Note — and _Stick-Up!_ by 
vibraphonist Bobby Hutcherson.

Tenor saxophonist Wayne Shorter enlisted Tyner on a close succession of Blue Note
sessions in the mid-’60s. One of these yielded the classic _JuJu, _which also had
Elvin Jones on drums and another Coltrane associate, Reggie Workman, on bass. The
title track to JuJu, which opens the album, bears Tyner’s stamp from the first downbeat,
with a cresting wave of chords in a shrewdly indeterminate key.

![McCoy Tyner at the 2008 Montreal Jazz Festival.](https://i0.wp.com/www.wbgo.org/
sites/wbgo/files/styles/medium/public/202003/88056455_2974717385905184_373816249588645888_o-
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Alfred McCoy Tyner was born Dec. 11, 1938 in Philadelphia, the oldest child of Jarvis
Tyner and the former Beatrice Stevenson. The oldest of three siblings, he began 
taking piano lessons at 13. His mother, who ran a beauty salon out of their West
Philadelphia home, installed a piano there, because it was the largest room of the
house.

This yielded unanticipated benefits, as Tyner recalled in a 1963 interview with 
Stanley Dance, in _DownBeat _magazine. “Bud Powell and his brother were living just
around the corner from me in Philadelphia,” he said, referring to the pacesetting
bebop pianist, “but they didn’t have a piano in their apartment, and Bud came to
my mother’s house to play.” Powell — who, with peers like Charlie Parker and Max
Roach, had redefined the language of modern jazz in the 1940s — remained a core 
influence for Tyner, even as he developed his own unmistakable voice.

Tyner studied classical theory and harmony at the Granoff School of Music, but also
drew formative insights from personal instruction — including conga lessons with
Garvin Masseux, who was working at the time with Nigerian drummer Babatunde Olatunji.

By his high school years, Tyner was playing professionally in and around Philadelphia,
as part of a modern jazz scene that was one of the most vibrant in the country. 
Among his more fateful appointments was a band led by trumpeter-composer Cal Massey,
an associate of Coltrane; it was also through Massey that Tyner met his future wife,
Aisha, whose sister was a vocalist in the band.

In 1959, Tyner joined trumpeter Art Farmer and saxophonist Benny Golson in a group
they called The Jazztet; he made his recording debut on _Meet the Jazztet_, released
the following year. That same year, 1960, Tyner played on Coltrane’s album _My Favorite
Things_; his tolling, meditative chords on the title track, a popular song borrowed
from the hit Broadway musical _The Sound of Music_, were a key part of its allure.

The classic John Coltrane Quartet — with Tyner, Jimmy Garrison on bass and Elvin
Jones on drums — formally coalesced in 1962. For the next several years it created
at a prodigious pace, recording landmark albums like _Crescent _and _A Love Supreme_,
and setting a fearsome bar for intensity on the bandstand. Recordings like _Live
at Birdland _have been prized by generations of musicians and fans; in 2005 another
live document, _Live at the Half Note: One Down, One Up_, left another major impression,
40 years after its recording date.

Tyner stayed with Coltrane until soon after that recording, as the music grew more
cacophonous, rhythmically abstract and untethered from root tonality. His piano 
chair was passed on to Alice Coltrane, who quickly made it her own.

“I was so immersed in the music when I was with John,” Tyner told me in 1997. “The
influence was so great, and the roles we all played in that group were so powerful;
you couldn’t divorce yourself from it just because you weren’t physically there.
For a while there, all the horn players that were with me wanted to sound like John.
So I deliberately started using alto sax instead of tenor, and other instruments,
because I wanted to kind of try something different.”

The scale of Tyner’s output ranged from solo piano to big band, with some notable
midsize efforts like the seven-piece band on _Expansions_, which enlisted Ron Carter
on cello and Shorter on clarinet as well as saxophone. A similarly titled follow-
up, _Extensions, _included Alice Coltrane’s harp; _Sahara_, which followed, found
Tyner experimenting on koto and flute.

The searching Afrocentrism of these albums carried on the intrepid tone and earnest
spiritualism of Coltrane’s music, without overt emulation. The critic Gary Giddins,
reflecting on the 1970s in _The Village Voice, _once pegged Tyner “the most influential
pianist of the decade,” an assessment that could credibly be extended outside that
frame. As he settled into the stature of an elder, Tyner worked meaningfully not
only with peers like Hutcherson and alto saxophonist Gary Bartz, but also figures
from successive generations, like saxophonists Michael Brecker and Joe Lovano.

Tyner was a 2002 NEA Jazz Master and a five-time Grammy winner — most recently in
2004 for his album _Illuminations_, featuring a band with Bartz, trumpeter Terence
Blanchard, bassist Christian McBride and drummer Lewis Nash. He worked extensively
in a trio format; one longtime working band had Avery Sharpe on bass and Aaron Scott
on drums. Tyner’s final album was a piano recital, _Solo: Live From San Francisco,
_released in 2009_; _it includes compositions by Coltrane and Duke Ellington as 
well as his own songs, including “Ballad For Aisha.”

In addition to Aisha, Tyner’s immediate survivors include his son, Nurudeen; his
brother, Jarvis; his sister, Gwendolyn-Yvette Tyner; and three grandchildren.

The legacy of Tyner’s pianism can be heard far and wide, in the music of everyone
from salsa legend Eddie Palmieri to _Late Show _bandleader Jon Batiste. His innovations
in harmony, with their intimations of transcendence, form a standard proudly upheld
by contemporary pianists like Nduduzo Makhathini, whose forthcoming Blue Note debut
bears the influence unmistakably.

“I feel very honored, actually,” Tyner told me about the legions of pianists who
have emulated his style. “I really do, because I think that if I could make a statement
that makes a difference, and the influence could be preserved through the generations
to come, that means that my stay here on earth has a meaning.”

![Jazz great McCoy Tyner, seen here in a 1970 photo, died Friday at the age of 81.](
https://i0.wp.com/mediad.publicbroadcasting.net/p/shared/npr/styles/placed_wide/
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