McCoy Tyner - Passion Dance

[GA Russell]

I haven't heard too much of McCoy Tyner's 70s recordings. I'm not sure of precisely when he started and stopped recording for Milestone, but I gather the relationship was for about that decade.

In the early 80s I found for a buck each cut out cassette tapes of Together and Inner Voices, and I have enjoyed them, although not often. I also picked up Supertrios about that time.

I think the album I have listened to the most over the past year has been Wayne Shorter's JuJu, which has Tyner on it, so I had a positive attitude toward getting Passion Dance when I saw that it would be issued as a new OJC, even though I didn't know anything about it.

Passion Dance was recorded live in concert at a Tokyo festival in 1978. It has five songs, three solo piano and two with Ron Carter and Tony Williams.

Moment's Notice and The Promise were written by John Coltrane. Passion Dance, Search For Peace and Song of the New World are Tyner originals. They all seem familiar, so I'm guessing that the three originals were released on other Tyner albums.

As I recall it was in his autobiography that I read that Miles described McCoy's playing as "banging the hell out of a baby grand piano". He certainly does that here.

I opened up the CD on Friday, and the first time I heard it I didn't like it. But over the weekend I have been playing it more, and it has been growing on me. Maybe you have to be in the right mood. Now I like it.

I was planning on getting the Tyner Select when it comes out, but now maybe I'll wait a while. A little of this goes a long way.

Anybody have any comments on Tyner's 70s playing, and how the OJCs and Milestone reissues may differ from his 60s Blue Note recordings?

[Guest akanalog]

they can get old quick sort of-tyner's milestones.

i like "trident" a lot even though it doesn't get great reviews because it was the first jazz album i heard when i was in high school and i was on a lot of LSD and i love the pictures on the back of mccoy tyner chillin' with elvin jones and ron carter. but it is a nice trio session.

"the greeting" is cool. plays some of the tunes from other albums live-everything is sped up and hyper except for the sort of weird but intersting first track which i can't really explain-sort of a happy buildng up march or something. i also like sonship a lot on drums and he is here.

"fly like the wind" is funny because it is sort of a disco jazz quartet album. ron carter has that terrible plugged in acoustic bass rubber tone and billy cobham is smashing the drums and the whole thing is hyper with evil string backing but it is entertaining if you are in the mood and i really like the title track.

"sama layuca" i always found a disappointment because it has the most interesting lineup and even liner notes by brian auger but i dunno-some of the songs are just overlong tynerfests with lots of hyper solos over a repetitive messy groove with excessive drums and percussion.

"song of the new world" is ok. i wish i could tell you more on this one right now but i enjoy it when i hear it.

"sahara" is good too. it's a little diverse since it is his first milestone so he sort of shows off different influences and instrumentation but it is good and i like jazzy alphonse mouzon.

"atlantis" i never really cared for. i don't know why. it didn't grab me.

the other live one-man what is it called-from montreux 74? i believe-is very powerful and i like it a lot. azar lawrence and mouzon in the band so this has some powerful early to mid 70s soul to it. very intentense but i don't find it boring.

"inner voices" i always thought was ok but don't love it. just interesting because eric gravatt and earl klugh are on it. i don't care for choral voices in this kind of situation.

the other one with gravatt-what is that one called?-i like a lot. it has a nice duo between tyner and gravatt and overall i think this one has some of the better songwriting on it. a little more concise and memorable compositions.

the supergroup one with hutcherson and hubbard is ok. not bad but getting a little more slick, in my opinion. away from the spiritual stuff.

did tyner dislike the white man in this stage of his playing? lots of albums and nary any pale skin on any of them for a long stretch. a religious thing?

i think probably "asante" gives a good idea of where tyner was heading with these albums. i like "asante" but it is a bit more sprawling and out then these milestones.

[Guest akanalog]

song for my lady is a good one. perhaps i meant this one isntead of song for the new world. is that even one? i think something like that with the earth on the front. song for my lady has michael white and he was throwing out some early to mid 70s soul too so he and tyner are a goo combo. he might also be on sahara

either way too many of these discs in a row will give you a headache.

i don't care for tyner solo because i dunno-it doesn't make sense to me, the way he plays solo. i think his powerful titantic style is better with rhythm section. then i understand.

[Chuck Nessa]

The first couple of Milestones are really good, but do not reflect the real quality of his band at the time. McCoy was a MF then and nobody really knows it. I remember being at a McCoy gig - next to me was Cecil Taylor and he was jumping up and down - yelling. It was a great night.

[JSngry]

Yeah, besides driving a cab, he took a gig w/Ike & Tina Turner that he could only stand for a few days. Seems unbelievable now but...

I agree that the Milestones, especially the earlier ones, are outstanding. I much prefer them to the later BNs, in fact. Sahara really was a "breakthrough". It propelled Tyner from the "cult favorite" that he had been to the icon that he is now. Just like that, it seemed. The fact that he followed it up with a series of brilliant sides certainly didn't hurt, but that one album really, really woke a lot of people up to McCoy Tyner.

Of course, as time went by and he was releasing 2-3 albums per year, the overexposure and "sameness" issues came into question (as did a little bit of "lessening" of his working group), and at the time, yeah, that's how it seemed. But today, we have all those albums to choose from at our leisure. Its an embarassment of riches, mostly.

McCoy Tyner is one of the greats of jazz, period, and a defining one at that. If his "style" is problematic, it's not his fault.

[Michael Fitzgerald]

Do you have more on that Ike & Tina gig - I have a friend who told me about that - he may have seen them even. Was this 1969? What's your source on it?

Mike

[Guy Berger]

I agree that the Milestones, especially the earlier ones, are outstanding. I much prefer them to the later BNs, in fact.

Gotta part ways here. I rank em late BNs, early Milestones, early BNs. The Milestones are excellent at their best, but like akanalog I get a little ear fatigue. Maybe it's the production. The late BNs seem to have a bit more space. Plus you have both Wayne and Gary in the front line on two of those.

Guy

[Michael Fitzgerald]

You scared me for a minute. I thought "late Blue Notes" included stuff with Scofield etc.

Mike

[Chuck Nessa]

I agree that the Milestones, especially the earlier ones, are outstanding. I much prefer them to the later BNs, in fact.

Gotta part ways here. I rank em late BNs, early Milestones, early BNs. The Milestones are excellent at their best, but like akanalog I get a little ear fatigue. Maybe it's the production. The late BNs seem to have a bit more space. Plus you have both Wayne and Gary in the front line on two of those.

Guy

←

The "raw energy" of the first couple of Milestones made me go back and relisten to the late BNs at the time. Milestone production values were below BN but McCoy was "on fire". Too bad it didn't last.

[JSngry]

Do you have more on that Ike & Tina gig - I have a friend who told me about that - he may have seen them even. Was this 1969? What's your source on it?

Mike

←

A Tyner interview from the early 70s (post Sahara but pre-1975) in Down Beat, IIRC.

'69 sounds about right.

[Michael Fitzgerald]

Got it - down beat, September 11, 1975 p. 13 -

"I went through a very difficult period in which I had to decide whether I was going to do what I'm doing now, or whether I was going to do something else. It was a rough time, about five years."

You weren't playing?

"I did some duo things in New York at a place called Pee Wee's, and a few college gigs. I did some sideman recording dates, and I worked for awhile with Ike and Tina Turner and with Jimmy Witherspoon. I won't say it was bad music. I didn't feel bad about it. I learned a lot. I just felt another setting would have been more conducive to my style. I just wasn't working that much, and my Blue Note records weren't being released, not like they should have been. They just didn't care too much. Now they're sparsely putting out some of that material, like Asante (recorded 1970), but I don't even want to hear it. It's old."

McCoy Tyner: Savant of the Astral Latitudes

by Lee Underwood

========

Mike

[JSngry]

I agree that the Milestones, especially the earlier ones, are outstanding. I much prefer them to the later BNs, in fact.

Gotta part ways here. I rank em late BNs, early Milestones, early BNs. The Milestones are excellent at their best, but like akanalog I get a little ear fatigue. Maybe it's the production. The late BNs seem to have a bit more space. Plus you have both Wayne and Gary in the front line on two of those.

Guy

←

I think that both Wayne & Gary did much better work elsewhere than they did on those albums. Same w/Woody. Wayne's playing in particular sounds to me like that of a man who just doesn't fit in with the leader's concept, which is no slight to either man, just a recognition that the Wayne Shorter of 1968, and especially the Wayne Shorter of 1970, had a different "agenda" than the of just a few years earlier, when they collaborated exquisitely. Wayne was already fully breaken away from the jazz orthodoxy (well, he was that from the git-go in many ways, but you know what I mean, I hope), whereas McCoy was still looking for that definitive vision, which was still a few years away.

Also, I also prefer the Milestone production over the later BNs as well. The later, post-Lion, BN sides get lost in a swath of reverb (at least on the LPs, which is all I have), which does no favor to the playing and composing, which is already a bit on the nebulous side, at least in comparison to Tyner's work before and after. He seems to be searching for a direction that really suits him, and doesn't always find it. The Milestone stuff, especially the earlier things, are fully former, and equally fully "in your face", which to me reflects Tyner's "coming into his own" as player, composer, and bandleader. To be sure, though, that's a matter of personal preference.

But as long as we're ranking. let's not overlook the impulse! albums. A mixed batch, to be sure, but Inception and Reaching Fourth still go down well here.

[Michael Fitzgerald]

Two amazing bassists, two amazing drummers - those first two Impulse records are masterpieces. Nice balance of tunes, enough room to stretch - perfection. The other ones never quite lived up to that stanard.

Mike

[JSngry]

Got it - down beat, September 11, 1975 p. 13 -

"I went through a very difficult period in which I had to decide whether I was going to do what I'm doing now, or whether I was going to do something else. It was a rough time, about five years."

You weren't playing?

"I did some duo things in New York at a place called Pee Wee's, and a few college gigs. I did some sideman recording dates, and I worked for awhile with Ike and Tina Turner and with Jimmy Witherspoon. I won't say it was bad music. I didn't feel bad about it. I learned a lot. I just felt another setting would have been more conducive to my style. I just wasn't working that much, and my Blue Note records weren't being released, not like they should have been. They just didn't care too much. Now they're sparsely putting out some of that material, like Asante (recorded 1970), but I don't even want to hear it. It's old."

McCoy Tyner: Savant of the Astral Latitudes

by Lee Underwood

========

Mike

←

Oh, 9-75 then. Time is compressing in my mind, it seems...

But I'm pretty sure that there's another interview somewhere (maybe not DB) from somewhat the same time where he talks about the Turner gig. Says he did it for a week or two and just quit. Couldn't handle it.

That's what I recall, anyway. And that's nothing to make book on these days...

[kh1958]

McCoy Tyner is one of the greats of jazz, period, and a defining one at that. If his "style" is problematic, it's not his fault.

←

I sure agree with that statement.

Sama Layuca, Sahara, Song of the New World, Song for My Lady, Fly with the Wind, The Greeting--his Milestone catalog is some of my favorite music from the 1970s.

[MartyJazz]

Two amazing bassists, two amazing drummers - those first two Impulse records are masterpieces. Nice balance of tunes, enough room to stretch - perfection. The other ones never quite lived up to that stanard.

Mike

←

I think TODAY AND TOMORROW (Impulse) is a must have McCoy side. Two different sessions, a trio and a wonderful sextet with a terrific front line of Thad, Strozier and Gilmore. A favorite of mine for a long time.

[GA Russell]

AK, either you're the biggest McCoy Tyner fan in the world, or you downloaded all those Milestones from eMusic! Whichi is it?

Chuck, what is the other Milestone album besides Sahara that you think is so good?

[Stefan Wood]

I would pick up Enlightenment. Live at the Montreux Jazz Festival in 1973, and he is on fire -- as well as his band.

[Guest akanalog]

i like this kind of spiritual and riff based 70s jazz a lot. it's my favorite era for jazz just about (i also like late 60s stuff). and tyner definitely has a ton of stuff available-a lot of good stuff by other artists like azar lawrence who is featured on some of these tyners isn't really out there at this time so i end up listening to a lot of this tyner stuff.

i really like mccoy tyner's blue note work also. i think "time for tyner" is my favorite album of his. i also find "extensions" and "expansions" a little disappointing. i like "asante" a lot though.

[Peter Johnson]

But as long as we're ranking. let's not overlook the impulse! albums. A mixed batch, to be sure, but Inception and Reaching Fourth still go down well here.

←

Listening to Reaching Fourth right now, and it does, indeed, go down well! A terrific album, well worth picking up! Not your father's piano trio!

[Aggie87]

You scared me for a minute. I thought "late Blue Notes" included stuff with Scofield etc.

Mike

←

Just curious....is playing with Sco a bad thing? I get the point of later BN vs. early BN, but want to know if there's something behind this comment?

[Michael Fitzgerald]

In this case, I was just identifying a period - I could have said "Revelations and Soliloquy". My point was that the late 1980s is not McCoy Tyner's finest period, in my view.

But now that you bring it up, yes, I dislike just about every Scofield album that I have heard. I think "Quiet" is rather good. I could tolerate him as a sideman in the early days, but his Gramavision and Blue Note records - I cannot bear to listen to them. his tone, style, ideas, tunes - everything is just dead, flat, boring to me. And if he's on a record (past the early 1980s), I'm likely to give it a pass.

Mike

[marcello]

the other one with gravatt-what is that one called?-i like a lot.  it has a nice duo between tyner and gravatt and overall i think this one has some of the better songwriting on it.  a little more concise and memorable compositions.

←

Focal Point

[Guest akanalog]

You scared me for a minute. I thought "late Blue Notes" included stuff with Scofield etc.

Mike

←

Just curious....is playing with Sco a bad thing? I get the point of later BN vs. early BN, but want to know if there's something behind this comment?

←

i also think scofield sucks! the guy has been out of ideas since the mid 80s.

Edited September 28, 2005 by akanalog

[Aggie87]

I don't mean to derail this thread, but are there any contemporary guitarists either of you like and can recommend?

I've been enjoying everything I've heard from Frisell, Abercrombie, Bireli Lagrene, Nguyen Le, Metheny (primarily the non-PMG stuff), Sylvain Luc, Ralph Towner, Marc Ribot, Jim Hall, and Sco.

I'm always curious to discover more.