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McCoy Tyner: Quartet

By Jeff Stockton
January 12, 2008
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It seems grossly unfair that the debonair, elegant elder statesman on the cover of Quartet, a document of the concerts McCoy Tyner and his band gave on Dec. 30th-31st, 2006 at Yoshi's in Oakland, would still be trying to live up to the reputation for excellence he established with the John Coltrane Quartet some forty-plus years ago. Perhaps tellingly, three of the seven selections come from The Real McCoy, the first solo album Tyner made for Blue Note in 1965. In fact, the whole program sounds vaguely familiar, modal tunes or blues that have a spiritual, questing component, propelled by the leader's poundingly dense pianistics.

But if there is another tenor man working today better suited to this music than Joe Lovano, they have yet to make themselves known. Lovano's technical proficiency, innate sense of melody and willingness to take the tunes just a little bit outside, establish a tension within Tyner's compositions that results from command and risk in equal measure. Christian McBride's bass soloing can be as rapid and dense as Tyner's piano chords, but he never loses pace or his sense of swing. And drummer Jeff "Tain"

Track Listing

Walk Spirit, Talk Spirit; Mellow Minor; Sama Layuca; Passion Dance; Search for Peace; Blues on the Corner; For All We Know.

Personnel

McCoy Tyner

piano

Joe Lovano

drums

Christian McBride

bass

Jeff Tain Watts

drums

Album information

Title: Quartet | Year Released: 2008 | Record Label: Half Note Records

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