ABSTRACT
Pianist McCoy Tyner was an integral part of John Coltrane’s historic quartet in the 1960s and has recorded a large number of important albums as a leader. He was born in Philadelphia and started taking classical piano lessons when he was 13. He met Coltrane while both were still in Philadelphia, and he would become a member of Coltrane’s landmark quartet in the late 1950s. Coltrane released My Favorite Things (Atlantic #1419; 1960), on which Tyner’s use of fourths and fifths in his left hand and pentatonic patterns in his right hand helped transform the title cut into a groundbreaking modal experiment. Tyner was present on one of Coltrane’s masterpieces, Live at Birdland (Impulse #50; 1963), which features outstanding versions of “Afro Blue” and “Alabama.” Tyner was with Coltrane as he moved further away from tonality on the free jazz anthem, Ascension (Impulse #95; 1965).
