McCoy Tyner December 11, 1938 – March 6, 2020
I first heard McCoy Tyner perform “live” in concert during the 1970s. Some of my college friends and I had pooled our meager resources and tried to look (and act) older than we were so that we wouldn’t have any trouble getting into a Chicago nightclub to hear Tyner and his band perform.
Our little group of jazz lovers and Tyner enthusiasts were serious about sitting as close to the club’s bandstand as possible. We wanted to see for ourselves exactly how Tyner produced the cascade of sound that was his trademark.
We weren’t disappointed.
Sitting near the piano and just behind Tyner, we could see his hands fly across the piano keyboard. His powerful attack, invigorating energy and shifting harmonies were breathtaking. And his ballads? Tyner could make you cry with his sensitive, often spiritual interpretation of his own compositions or other standards.
From that point on, I bought every Tyner album I could. And I made it my business to see him perform live whenever possible. Many years later, I served as a writer/producer for NPR’s award-winning series, Jazz Profiles, hosted by Nancy Wilson. As a result, I was able to interview Tyner, as well as musicians such as Bobby Hutcherson, Mulgrew Miller and Dianne Reeves who could talk about his outsized influence.
Excerpts from those interviews can be heard in the episode I produced for Jazz Profiles. So to honor the life and contributions of this dynamic musician, I invite you to listen to McCoy Tyner: The Pianist.
He will be missed. But his musical legacy lives on.
