Anthology

McCoy Tyner is a jazz pianist best known for his working relationship with John Coltrane, whom he played with between 1960 and 1965, including A Love Supreme.

After leaving Coltrane’s group, Tyner produced a series of post-bop albums released on Blue Note Records from 1967 to 1970 that often took the Coltrane quartet’s music as a point of departure and also incorporated African and East Asian musical elements.

During this period, Tyner experimented on other instruments such as koto, flute, percussion and harpsichord.

Tyner’s work from the 1970s is often cited as examples of vital, innovative jazz that was neither fusion nor free jazz.

Trident (1975) is notable for featuring Tyner on harpsichord (rarely heard in jazz) and celeste, in addition to his primary instrument, piano.

Tyner is considered to be one of the most influential jazz pianists of the 20th Century, and his playing can be distinguished by a low bass left hand, in which he tends to raise his arm relatively high above the keyboard for an emphatic attack; the fact that Tyner is left-handed may contribute to this distinctively powerful style.

Tyner’s unique right-hand soloing is recognizable for a detached, or staccato, quality. His melodic vocabulary is rich, ranging from raw blues to complexly superimposed pentatonic scales; his unique approach to chord voicing (most characteristically by fourths) has influenced a wide array of contemporary jazz pianists, most notably Chick Corea.