McCoy Tyner - The Greeting

[Chrome]

I got this CD at the local Border's Outlet for $5.99 and was quite surprised to hear the energy in everyone's playing. It's a 1978 live date from San Francisco and features:

George Adams - Flute, Sax (Soprano), Sax (Tenor)

Charles Fambrough - Bass

McCoy Tyner - Piano

Joe Ford - Flute, Sax (Alto)

Guilherme Franco - Percussion, Conga, Berimbau

Sonship - Drums, Orchestra Bells

The music is very much of its time, very late 1970s, and the exuberance of everyone involved really comes through.

I'm just getting into Tyner, and had always thought of him as intense in a kind of introspective way. On this CD, though, he's just seems more outgoing ... still intense, but more "fun" ... the crowd seems really into the music, and I can picture the musicians smiling as they played.

Great solo piano version of Naima, too.

[montg]

With someone named Sonship playing the orchestra bells, this does sound very 70s.

There's an interesting thread on Mccoy Tyner, and others, in the 70s here:

jazz in the 70s

[JSngry]

I'm not sure what "very much of its time" really means, but this is one of my favorite Tyner albums, period. Adams & Tyner were a natural fit, and it's a shame their time together was as limited as it was.

For those keeping score at home, "Sonship" = Woody Theus, one of the great (and relatively unheralded) drummers.

[sidewinder]

Woody Theus also recorded with Woody Shaw for Contemporary and was a participant in Horace Tapscott's 'Ark' for some years. He's listed in the Tapscott bio 'Songs of the Unsung'.

[Chrome]

When I wrote "very much of its time," I just meant that it had a sound I associate w/1970s piano-led jazz. Kind of free/fusion-y type of thing going on ... I'm (obviously) not a musician, but Tyner sounds very "sparkly," if you will, with the notes flying out of the piano like shards of light off a Fourth of July sparkler, yet not sounding too "boppy," and then you throw in the flutes/saxes whirling around and the percussion and, voila!, it's "very much of its time."

[JSngry]

Hey, no problem. Seemed in the 70s like he had a new album out every day and a half or so, and after a while, that just got to be his sound, if you know what I mean. To me, that kind of thing is just the "sound of McCoy", it's the McCoy that I first experienced contemporaneously, and his work of the last 20-25 years has largely sounded "retro" to me by comparison. Great, but a step back into a more "general" territory in terms of ensemble sound.

No matter. It's a killer side, period!

[chris olivarez]

I don't really afffix a date to this album because to me it seems timeless.