McCoy Tyner – 11 December 1938 - 6 March 2020

If McCoy Tyner had achieved nothing else in his long career than the five and a half years he spent from July 1960 until December 1965 in the John Coltrane Quartet, he would still be recognised as one of the most distinctive and influential pianists in jazz. But what he also accomplished before and after that period put him among the handful of musicians whose devotion to the acoustic instrument in a variety of styles and contexts shaped the course of jazz piano for over half a century.

Many present-day British listeners will have experienced Tyner playing live in trio format, maybe with his long-running group of the 1980s and 90s with bassist Avery Sharp and drummer Aaron Scott, or perhaps his more recent line-ups with bassist Gerald Cannon and drummer Eric Gravatt. The latter group was particularly effective as the basis for a 2007 septet show at the Barbican with Byron Wallen and Jason Yarde included. But this was just part of a busy latterday career that also saw Tyner fronting his big band and a very effective mid-sized Latin jazz group, the Afro-Cuban All Stars.

Growing up in Philadelphia, and a teenage friend of the pianists Bud and Richie Powell, Tyner (who attended the Granoff School of Music in his home city) began working in local bars and jam sessions with the likes of Lee Morgan and Spanky DeBrest. He also hosted sessions in his mother’s hair salon, the local ladies having their hair set to the sounds of contemporary jazz. He joined the Cal Massey band, a launch pad for many of his contemporaries including Jimmy Garrison, Jimmy and Tootie Heath and — from time to time — Coltrane. From there, he was recruited by local saxophonist Benny Golson, and when this band morphed into the Jazztet with Art Farmer, Tyner was a founder member.

“I had a verbal commitment that I would join Coltrane’s band whenever he formed it,” he told me. “I stayed with the Jazztet about six or seven months and made Meet the Jazztet, a record I really liked, but my heart was with playing with John.” In the course of a number of interviews over the years, McCoy always acknowledged Coltrane’s encouragement of him as a writer, including his reworking of ‘Greensleeves’ for the quartet. “That band was my university, my school, my chance to develop,” he said, recalling that Coltrane constantly urged him to “keep moving”, whether as an accompanist, a writer, or in terms of the band taking the music forward.

McCoy recorded for Impulse! during that period under his own name, and after leaving Coltrane, signed with Blue Note, making a string of distinguished albums as leader and sideman, before moving to Milestone. His career underwent a revival after he signed to Telarc in 1999, including his dazzling solo album Jazz Roots from the following year where he ably pays tribute to all his pianistic influences.