Legendary Jazz pianist Alfred 'McCoy' Tyner, who was part of John Coltrane’s quartet, dies aged 81
Legendary jazz pianist McCoy Tyner has died at the age of 81. His official Instagram account announced on Friday, March 6, “It is with heavy hearts that we announce the passing of jazz legend, Alfred ‘McCoy’ Tyner. McCoy was an inspired musician who devoted his life to his art, his family and his spirituality. McCoy Tyner’s music and legacy will continue to inspire fans and future talent for generations to come.”
Born in Philadelphia on December 11, 1938, Tyner began to play piano and take lessons at age 13. As a high school student, he began taking music theory lessons at the Granoff School of Music, and at the age of 16, he was playing professionally, with a rhythm-and-blues band, across Philadelphia and Atlantic City.
He rose to fame as a member of John Coltrane’s quartet, which he joined at the age of 21, and where he remained for the next five years. Tyner’s style was a defining force in Coltrane’s music. A New York Times obituary for the musician goes so far as to assert, “When you are thinking of Coltrane playing ‘My Favorite Things’ or ‘A Love Supreme’, you may be thinking of the sound of Mr. Tyner almost as much as that of Coltrane’s saxophone.”
In a 1961 interview, 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 quit the group at the end of 1965 over creative differences. From there, after a few years of struggle, he moved to the Milestone label in 1972, where he worked with his own band, including, on several occasions, the saxophonists Azar Lawrence and Sonny Fortune and the drummers Alphonse Mouzon and Eric Gravatt.
In 2002, Tyner was named a National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master, one of the highest honors for a jazz musician in the United States.
In 2001, when asked about what he felt was the greatest reward of playing on ‘A Love Supreme’, Tyner said, “To put it simply, it was the fact that I played in a great band. Also, the fact that we functioned like one person. It wasn’t like we were four guys on stage doing his own particular kind of thing. In other words, it had to be in relationship to the total. To me, it’s a wonderful way to not only think, but behave. I think to create civility in life and society itself, to think of yourself in relationship to other people. What you do, may affect someone else. We have to be conscious of that, that we don’t function by ourselves. When you get in a situation where everyone is thinking democratically, thinking in terms of what is played and how it affects you and how your response to it affects those around you.”