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wanna hear something sad...I've been on a mccoy tyner kick for a couple months. Working out a lot of how he superimposed 4ths, 5ths, pentatonics, etc. Listen to this recording. IMO, it's the best version of moment's notice in history.
Then consider this, he worked as a cabbie to support his family. In his '70s, he got a gig doing cocktail music in a hotel lobby. At least he didn't have to drive a cab any longer...
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08-21-2020 08:28 PM
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Happy Hour must have been pretty intense! (if the version of Wave on Super Trios is any indication...)
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I think he slowed down a lot in his 70s. I know he had a really bad limp and had lost a ton of weight. Not sure what was wrong but clearly, he was not able to play the way he did on that record. A friend of mine posted some reviews of his performances and bands from the late '60s and '70s and critics were a real bitch toward him and he refused to go electric or make a pop album so I think he is the poster child for world famous jazz musician who struggled to make a living playing jazz...
Originally Posted by rictroll
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I believe he's said on a number of interviews that he didn't actually drive a cab, but considered doing it in the 70s after leaving Coltranes's band and having to raise kids. It was the 70s, and he was starting a solo career, I can see the financial strain..
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He actually did it to support his family
Originally Posted by Alter
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From the LA Times in '93
At one time, he even gave people car rides for money to support his wife and children.
“It was tough, I must say,” recalls Tyner over lunch at the Omni Park Hotel. “I was contemplating driving a taxi for a while, but I didn’t do it. And I could have left the country, gone to Europe, but I didn’t do that either."
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It is sad to see age take its toll. Originally Posted by jzucker
I saw McCoy back in the 70’s and he was such a powerhouse! And his bands were on fire.
As revered as he is, I think his contribution to music is still somewhat under appreciated.
But to your points, it is sobering to consider the hard realities behind all the beauty he created and shared.
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I saw his band with Gary Bartz at Ronnie Scott’s in the early 80s and he was just as good as ever then.
J.J. Johnson gave up on jazz for some years and worked as a draughtsman inspecting blueprints. I think I read that Al Grey (another great trombonist) gave up and worked as a postman. It’s more common than you would think.
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It’s so sad, heartbreaking. After Wayne Shorter got into medical problems in january of this year, there was already a fundraiser set up for helping him pay his medical bills, same with Kenny Wheeler a few years back, Billy Higgins, remember?
These musicians gave us so much and they are left penniless... Pains me.
thx for informing, Jack.
Poverty is an outrage and seeing these geniuses struggle to make ends meet while seeing, on the other hand, the wealth of the Bezos’, Gates’, Zuckerbergs. Talent and hard work pays off? Not!
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Yep. And to those questioning the cab thing, a friend of a friend had kids who went to school with tyner's kids and knew him personally and he was indeed driving a cab for money. When I listen to those live coltrane records in 1965, I think mccoy had reached a level of playing even beyond coltrane but the critics were incredibly harsh to him and he was never a crowd favorite. Apparently, his record producers begged him to play electric piano and get an electric guitar in his band and do the fusion thing, but he was adamant about his art.
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Yea.. loved him. Never really came back after the stroke.. Same thing with Frank Morgan, after he got out of prison in 80's I ran into him at a few west coast Jazz festival.. was smokin, then in late 90's had stroke... it's tough.
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The masses are asses, they say.
Truth is, there's just been a precious few who've played a fringe music like jazz, made no compromise in their vision, and achieved financial success...very few.
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I just find it particularly sad in his case because IMO, he was one of the top 5 or 6 best improvisers in history. Totally changed jazz. Can you imagine any modern player who wasn't influenced by his inside/outside playing, pentatonics, 4ths and 5ths? I mean think about it. Who was playing this stuff back in 1965? Originally Posted by mr. beaumont
but like i said, the critics - who barely tolerated coltrane - at least had a history leading up to his outside playing and he was deified but mccoy was completely misunderstood by critics and they trashed him.
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A testament to how many jazz record labels ripped off their artists, paying them union scale for recording sessions and keeping publishing royalties for themselves. It was in the fine print of contracts and was standard practice until musicians (mostly post-Beatles rock musicians) got lawyers to look at the contracts before signing. Ben Sidran, I believe it was, documented that Coltrane was paid $500 and change for recording "Giant Steps" as the leader, presumably Tyner got less as a "sideman." Originally Posted by jzucker
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I worked w someone that grew up w him and said when McCoy was a kid my friend and all the neighborhood kids would be out playing but McCoy would be practicing in his mother's beauty salon. This later became the scene of r & b jam sessions and later jazz w Trane, Benny Golson etc.
Anyway he said he didn't actually drive a cab but did give people rides for $ for awhile just like the LA Times article I quoted. In the end it's not all that different or important is it? A lot of great musicians worked regular jobs at some point, Oscar Moore worked in a gas station and was a bricklayer after his Nat Cole days.
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All the tracks on Giant Steps are credited to Coltrane’s publishing company, Jowcol, so I assume he got the publishing royalties at least. I think the musicians in the 1960s began to be more aware that for a few dollars fee, they could set up their own publishing, there are references to it in various biographies I have read. Originally Posted by Cunamara
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Bezos, Gates, Zuckerberg (and contemporary with or before them Jobs, Ford, Rockefeller, Carnegie, etc.) have their own talents and did their own hard work. They were not successful for no reason. But their activities allow for economies of scale to facilitate making money and they have much control over how the revenue is managed, since they all run their companies, and that results in accumulation of great personal wealth. Originally Posted by Djang
Artists dependent on the publishing industries (musicians, authors, etc.) have little to no control over much beyond making their art, unless they can manage self-publishing and distribution, and if their art is not commercially popular the odds of making even a living wage is low- and with the pandemic all but impossible since there are virtually no gigs.
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But oscar moore didn't change music like mccoy did. Every modern player from adam rogers to jessie van ruller to allan holdsworth to jonathan kreisberg to tim miller owes so much. Originally Posted by wintermoon
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Originally Posted by rictroll
When I was coming up, in the 70s, Bill Evans was alive. As powerful an influence as Evans was, it seemed that more people drew on McCoy Tyner than on Evans. Originally Posted by jzucker
Then Evans died and Tyner lived and Evans' influence became even more pervasive.
Is it time for Tyner's re-ascension?
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Not litigating points but Andrew Hill is one of my favorites. And other than being a musician’s musician never had the attention or presumably income of others. Sad indeed. Originally Posted by jzucker
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He's not under appreciated by other piano players, and student, as well as beginning piano players. In that vein, McCoy is nothing less than a God. Originally Posted by rictroll
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Here's an interesting article on McCoy: Originally Posted by 2bornot2bop
McCoy Tyner’s Revolution | DO THE M@TH
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that's the article I was referring to regarding critics, etc. Originally Posted by rictroll
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I'm not going to compare Oscar Moore to Tyner, but don't underestimate his contribution to the music, he was a big influence on Charlie Christian and a pioneer of jazz guitar in the 30s Originally Posted by jzucker
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I think it was more a function that mccoy's music couldn't be analyzed in any traditional manner. what he did with diatonic 4ths was to move them around inside and outside of the key and simultaneously play pentatonics, scale fragments and ii-v progressions from other keys. There wasn't necessarily a formula applied to what he was doing. He just moved things in and out, essentially spontaneously composing new chord progressions over top of the existings ones. What evans and even herbie and chick did were much more traditional and based on standard western harmony and rhythms. You simply can't take a mccoy tyner solo (like the '65 live version of my favorite things) and attempt to analyze the melody over the original chord progression. You have to take what he was superimposing with both hands over the chord progression and even then, it wasn't what was in the original chord progression. He was creating a new one that didn't necessarily relate in any traditional theoretical analysis to the origin. Originally Posted by Sam Sherry
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