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McCoy Tyner's Milestone sessions


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On 9/3/2003 at 6:22 AM, mikeweil said:

The most interesting band for me was the 1976 edition with Gary Bartz, Joe Ford, Ron Bridgewater, Charles Fambrough and the very underrated Eric Gravatt on drums. They only recorded one album, Focal Point, which uses sax ensembles via overdub to good effect, but the duo of Tyner and Gravatt (Parody) shows what energy this band must have had live - no two bars are played alike. To me this album is the real gem of his Milestone years, and I regret there was no live album recorded.

Just picked this one up a few days ago and it's making a bid to become one of my favorites from Tyner's Milestone period, which I find myself going back to more and more often.  Will definitely check out The Greeting and Together after reading some comments about them in this thread and the one Big Al started.

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I´ll have to purchase this. Really great company. I saw McCoy Tyner with Joe Ford and Ran Blake in March 1980 and I still remember the first tune they played that I liked much, and couldn´t find the title of the tune until someone from here said me it´s "The Seeker" , which is on "Quartets" which I purchased as soon as I heard about it.

I also like Horizon very much, and the double album with the two trios. And of course, the "Milestone Allstars" .

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Love his work for Milestone! I have got:

Sahara

Trident

Echoes of a Friend

Supertrios

Fly With The Wind

Song of the New World

Together

I personally see his solo outing ‘Echoes of a Friend’ as his finest. Love that album. ‘Fly With The Wind’ is the one I not really like. For me the strings on that album just don’t work. 

What really irritates me is amateurish way these sessions have been reissued by OJC. His name is misspeled on two of my reissues, on the side! His name according to OJC is: McCoy Turner, McCoy Tyurner. The title of Echoes of a Friend is misspelled as Echoes of a Frien. Also: I really dislike the sound  quality of Sahara. Anyone else that recognize these problems?

Apart from this: these are wonderful recordings from a very fruitful period of this wonderful pianist. Enjoy them multiple times a month!

Edited by Pim
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My favorite of McCoy Tyner on Milestone years is Song for My Lady.  I think this one is often overlooked, but IMHO it's even musically better than Sahara or Fly With The Wind (I like both, btw).  A no-nonsense Jazz.  Especially his treatment of The Night Has a Thousand Eyes is powerful.

 

Edited by mhatta
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I tend to like the Milestone period the best, because of the conceptual nature of the albums and interesting group configurations.  These albums used to be everywhere for little money, because everyone seemed to want the Blue Note or Impulse! stuff.  The savvy consumer buys when prices drop.  

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I like that period too, but IIRC I liked hearing McCoy's working bands of that period even more than I liked the recordings. I'll never forgot the bizarre ride cymbal setup of Eric Gravatt, the cymbal almost vertical and so high that it looked like he might have trouble reaching it. Never fear; he bashed the holy hell out of that thing.

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The second major jazz show I attended, at age 18 or so, was McCoy Tyner's group at a small club in Atlanta, with many of the musicians mentioned in this thread - Ron Bridgewater, Joe Ford, Charles Fambrough, Eric Gravatt, and I think Guilherme Franco on percussion. I was about four feet from Gravatt's ride cymbal, and it was intense.

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  • 5 years later...

Up for this 20 year old thread.  Hard to believe I first posted here 20 years ago.

Anyway, 20 years later, I am still delighting in his Milestone period.  More recent favs have been Focal Point and Horizons.  But just a deep, deep well.

is there any kind of Tyner biography out there?

Edited by Eric
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1 hour ago, Eric said:

More recent favs have been Focal Point and Horizons.  But just a deep, deep well.

Yes!  So much wonderful music.

Totally agree too re: Horizons.  Along with Sama Layuca, it's probably the McCoy album that I play most often.

 

Edited by HutchFan
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1 hour ago, HutchFan said:

Yes!  So much wonderful music.

Totally agree too re: Horizons.  Along with Sama Layuca, it's probably the McCoy album that I play most often.

 

Yes, Sama Layuca has been on the summer 2023 hit parade as well! 😊  Dig it!  

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Milestones was THE Label of modern acoustic jazz during my forming years. You could be almost sure that the guys you admired most, who you saw live, were Milestone recording artists and Festival schedules read like a Milestone cataloge: Sonny Rollins, McCoy Tyner, Ron Carter, Joe Henderson etc. 
My first Tyner album was "Super Trios" , then the "Milestone-Allstars" with Rollins-Tyner-Carter-Foster. Horizon came out when I saw the sextet with that violin player in it, but the tune I liked most (The Seeker) was not on it. Finally my favourite album remained "4 Quartets" , all with Al Foster on drums. There is "The Seeker" on the side with Bobby Hutcherson. The only side I don´t like that much is the Abercrombie side, it´s somehow another kind of music, not really mine......

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Not aware of a Tyner bio - I'd read it.  Agreed on the majesty of his Milestone catalog.   'Sahara', his first on Milestone, is a desert island disc for me.  'Expansions' and 'Extensions' on BN and 'Sahara' are the ultimate Tyner for me, but he did so many great albums on BN and Milestone.  Saw him in the 70's at the Bijou Cafe, and was stunned live and on record at how he could just eat alive such powerful saxophonists as George Adams, Gary Bartz, etc.   Sonny Fortune and young Azar Lawrence seemed to do the best holding their own.  

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On 11/12/2017 at 8:01 PM, jeffcrom said:

The second major jazz show I attended, at age 18 or so, was McCoy Tyner's group at a small club in Atlanta, with many of the musicians mentioned in this thread - Ron Bridgewater, Joe Ford, Charles Fambrough, Eric Gravatt, and I think Guilherme Franco on percussion. I was about four feet from Gravatt's ride cymbal, and it was intense.

Which club was it? The last location of the Great Southeastern Music Hall on Peachtree? If that was the one, I attended that show as well.

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16 hours ago, felser said:

  Agreed on the majesty of his Milestone catalog.   'Sahara', his first on Milestone, is a desert island disc for me.  'Expansions' and 'Extensions' on BN and 'Sahara' are the ultimate Tyner for me, but he did so many great albums on BN and Milestone.  Saw him in the 70's at the Bijou Cafe, and was stunned live and on record at how he could just eat alive such powerful saxophonists as George Adams, Gary Bartz, etc.   Sonny Fortune and young Azar Lawrence seemed to do the best holding their own.  

That´s why I love pianist led bands with powerful horns so much, or pianists in general in powerful blowing settings. I´m not really a trio music freak, and that´s what I imediatly liked by McCoy Tyner: His first album or the first I had was the one with Joe Henderson and Elvin Jones, that´s music, that´s action ! 

That was also my time: VSOP was led by Herbie, wasn´t it ? I mean, Hubbard, Shorter, Ron, Tony.....BANG !!!!! 

Or the old stuff. Sonny Clark Cool Struttin, I mean: Farmer, McLean, Paul, Philly......BANG !!!! 

Or I would have liked to hear all Bud Powell in settings like the Fats-Rollins-Roy Haynes thing or with Bird, Fats or Diz. Not so many trios.......

I know most listeners like more tender trio settings, where you can relax, drink a good glass of wine and so, but I like it when it burns and that´s what McCoy always did ! 

I only heard, that in his last years he was very very sick, very thin and played only trio. I didn´t hear that. I only wondered why you play trio and carry all the load, if you gettin frail ? 

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9 hours ago, Gheorghe said:

 

I only heard, that in his last years he was very very sick, very thin and played only trio. I didn´t hear that. I only wondered why you play trio and carry all the load, if you gettin frail ? 

When I first heard him live starting in 1983, he had a regular quintet with Gary Bartz, John Blake, John Lee and Wilby Fletcher. A few years later he stitched to a trio (Avery Sharpe and Louis Hayes, later replaced by Aaron Scott). In those days he used to come through the Dallas/Fort Worth area twice a year, at the Caravan of Dreams and the Venetian Room of the Fairmont Hotel. I always assumed the reason for the switch to the smaller group was an economic one based on the expense of touring. I was also fortunate to get to see the trio several times at Sweet Basil.

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35 minutes ago, kh1958 said:

When I first heard him live starting in 1983, he had a regular quintet with Gary Bartz, John Blake, John Lee and Wilby Fletcher. A few years later he stitched to a trio (Avery Sharpe and Louis Hayes, later replaced by Aaron Scott). In those days he used to come through the Dallas/Fort Worth area twice a year, at the Caravan of Dreams and the Venetian Room of the Fairmont Hotel. I always assumed the reason for the switch to the smaller group was an economic one based on the expense of touring. I was also fortunate to get to see the trio several times at Sweet Basil.

I saw all those groups too - in my case at Ronnie Scott’s. For the first group, Joe Ford was in place of Gary Bartz on alto. Lee and Fletcher also present in the band. John Blake in his disco-friendly white suit. Next time I saw him was with the trio and I had the feeling it was Tootie Heath on drums but it may have been Hayes. Certainly, the next time with the trio was with Sharpe and Scott, who I saw a number of times. The last couple of times I saw McCoy was with Eric Gravatt, at NorthSea and Bath. McCoy looked pretty frail at that last Bath Forum concert.

On 11/12/2017 at 11:13 PM, Larry Kart said:

I like that period too, but IIRC I liked hearing McCoy's working bands of that period even more than I liked the recordings. I'll never forgot the bizarre ride cymbal setup of Eric Gravatt, the cymbal almost vertical and so high that it looked like he might have trouble reaching it. Never fear; he bashed the holy hell out of that thing.

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Spot on !  He was great.

Edited by sidewinder
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I was not initially that big a fan of McCoy in piano trio format, though I did have the ones on Milestone (Trident, Supertrios) early on and always enjoyed them.  There was quite a bit of trio work on Impulse (some of it excellent), and the trio became a much bigger factor in the post-Milestone period.  Of these later trio albums, I find Remembering John (and we know who that is) to be an absolute classic.

 

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I have the feeling that I caught McCoy in Canada at the time ‘Remembering John’ came out and bought the CD at the time, his most recent issue. Can’t recall details of the band but it must have been the trio with Sharpe and Scott, by that stage pretty stable.

Bought the ‘Supertrios’ twofer when it came out. Tony Williams’ drums were so over-powering that I was worried for the health of my speaker cones, particularly on ‘Moments Notice’.

Edited by sidewinder
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12 hours ago, Milestones said:

I love the Tyner/Williams duet on "I Mean You."  Talk about two players totally amped up.

Same here ! 

12 hours ago, sidewinder said:

 

 

Bought the ‘Supertrios’ twofer when it came out. Tony Williams’ drums were so over-powering that I was worried for the health of my speaker cones, particularly on ‘Moments Notice’.

same here ! Bought most Milesstone albums when they came out and all them kids liked me for it and I had full house here, listening to the records. Tony Williams always was a key argument for me to buy a record. 

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3 hours ago, Gheorghe said:

Same here ! 

same here ! Bought most Milesstone albums when they came out and all them kids liked me for it and I had full house here, listening to the records. Tony Williams always was a key argument for me to buy a record. 

I was banished to listening to it headphones only !

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