McCoy Tyner, 81, was a jazz piano powerhouse
McCoy Tyner, a cornerstone of John Coltrane’s groundbreaking 1960s quartet and one of the most influential pianists in jazz history, died Friday at his home in northern New Jersey. He was 81.
His nephew Kolby Tyner confirmed the death. No other details were provided.
Along with Bill Evans, Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea and only a few others, Tyner was one of the main expressways of modern jazz piano. Nearly every jazz pianist since Tyner’s years with Coltrane has had to learn his lessons, whether they ultimately discarded them or not.
Tyner’s manner was modest, but his sound was rich, percussive and serious, his lyrical improvisations centered by powerful left-hand chords marking the first beat of the bar and the tonal center of the music.
That sound helped create the atmosphere of Coltrane’s music and, to some extent, all jazz in the 1960s. (When you are thinking of Coltrane playing “My Favorite Things” or “A Love Supreme,” you may be thinking of the sound of Tyner almost as much as that of Coltrane’s saxophone.)
To a great extent he was a grounding force for Coltrane. In a 1961 interview, about a year and a half after hiring Tyner, Coltrane said: “My current pianist, McCoy Tyner, holds down the harmonies, and that allows me to forget them. He’s sort of the one who gives me wings and lets me take off from the ground from time to time.”
Tyner did not find immediate success after leaving Coltrane in 1965. But within a decade his fame had caught up with his influence, and he remained one of the leading bandleaders in jazz as well as one of the most revered pianists for the rest of his life.