McCoy Tyner: Passion Dance
This is an edited transcript of Episode 16 of the Sounds Out of Time podcast. Here’s a playlist of all but one the recordings featured.
(This is an edited transcript of Episode 16 of the Sounds Out of Time podcast. Here’s a playlist of all but one the recordings featured.)
(The episode opens with a clip from the 13-minute version of “My Favorite Things” on the expanded and remastered version of John Coltrane’s Afro Blue Impressions (0:03–0:24)).
Pianist McCoy Tyner died on March 6 at age 81. The opening bars of John Coltrane’s recordings of “My Favorite Things” were my introduction to his playing, and I’m guessing that’s true for many people.
Tyner developed a style of comping chords that perfectly suited Coltrane’s modal playing in the early ’60s. He was the bridge between the bass and drums and the melody, and his playing created a space that allowed Coltrane to go wherever the spirit took him.
The two-chord phrase became his signature, and he was endlessly inventive within it. Listen to a little of his solo on the long version of “My Favorite Things” from the Live in Stockholm 10/22/63 recording on the expanded and remastered Afro Blue Impressions (8:06–8:47).
Tyner left Coltrane’s band in 1965 as Coltrane was going further and further out, and he recorded a series of albums under his own name. The propulsive rhythmic style that he pioneered with Coltrane carried on his solo work, and this was never clearer than in “Passion Dance,” from his 1967 album The Real McCoy. “Passion Dance” combines the energy of the great vamps that were his calling card with a two-part melody that’s more structured than a jam (0:06–0:46).
“Passion Dance” has some of the same kinetic energy that I associate with “Freedom Jazz Dance,” an Eddie Harris tune that Miles Davis covered on Miles Smiles (0:00–0:24).
Listen to the second half of the piano solo on “Passion Dance.” As the album title says, this is the real McCoy (2:15 -3:06).
It’s unmistakably the same McCoy whose sound helped define the classic Coltrane’s recordings the early-to-mid ’60s.
Another favorite Tyner composition of mine is “Search for Peace,” a ballad that’s also from The Real McCoy (0:28–1:08).
“Search for Peace” showcases a more contemplative side of his playing.
There was always a side of his playing that was rooted in the tradition. In 1964, while he was still with Coltrane’s band, he recorded a solo album called McCoy Tyner Plays Ellington. There are tracks such as “Duke’s Place” when you hear the same kind of chordal playing you’d expect from the Coltrane recordings (0:16–0:47).
But there are others like “Satin Doll” where he just plays it straight and elegant.
You can hear echoes of McCoy Tyner in musicians ranging from Keith Jarrett to the Grateful Dead’s Bob Weir, who has cited Tyner’s chord voicings as an influence on his rhythm guitar playing. (For example, check out this jam at 17:00 from a recent NPR TinyDesk concert with Weir.)
As jazz stretched far beyond bop, McCoy Tyner helped redefine the role of the piano. He was an original.
Listen to the full episode here.