Approaching Standards
Monday June 6th, 2011 with Bill Krause
The Real McCoy (Part 1)

Today we’re going to feature one of the great jazz pianists whose career spans more than 5 decades. He debuted with the famed “Jazztet” around 1960. That same year he joined his friend John Coltrane for the classic album “My Favorite Things”, and remained at the core of what became one of the most seminal groups in jazz history, The John Coltrane Quartet. His style of piano is easily comparable to Coltrane's style of saxophone. Both utilized similar scales, chord structures, melodic phrasings, and rhythms. His playing is distinguished by a low bass left hand, with a powerful emphatic attack. His unique right-hand soloing is recognizable for its staccato, quality. His melodic vocabulary is rich, ranging from raw blues to complexly superimposed pentatonic scales; his unique approach to chord voicing has influenced a wide array of contemporary jazz pianists. Today McCoy Tyner is considered to be one of the most influential jazz pianists of the 20th Century.