McCoy Tyner's Milestone sessions

[jmjk]

Inspired by Late's Jazz in the 70s thread earlier this month, I felt it was time to explore beyond the Impulse and Blue Note McCoy, and check out his 70s recordings for Milestone. I'm digging Sahara right now, as a matter of fact.

Anyone have any favorites from this period that you'd like to discuss?

[Claude]

"Sahara" is one of McCoy Tyner's best Milestone sessions. I like his Koto playing But the one I love the most, for its energy, is Enlightenment, recorded live in 1973.

Edited September 1, 2003 by Claude

[Eric]

Wow - you are in for a treat. I have been listening to this stuff for 20+ years and come back to it often. Many highlights including:

Echoes of a Friend - solo date, devoted to Trane, mixture of Trane and McCoy compositions if memory serves.

Enlightenment - this is live and outstanding. The intensity comes very close to the classic Coltrane quartet. Azar Lawrence burns on sax and there is a great solo piece here too. Thunderous!

Song for My Lady - basically a quintet with Sonny Fortune and Charles Tolliver. Nice tunes, great playing.

Song of the New World - a larger group - also with Fortune. The word that comes to mind here is "swirling". Great stuff.

Atlantis - similar to Enlightenment, although that record is superior to my ears. Still wonderful though.

Trident - a trio with Elvin and Ron Carter. Probably the best McCoy trio record out there. Tyner, Trane and Monk tunes.

Together - a little later, a little less intense than those mentioned above. But ... it has Freddie Hubbard and Bennie Maupin. Once again, killer tunes.

I will let someone else take it from here. There are 6-7 others which are very strong.

Eric

[Guy Berger]

"Sahara" is one of McCoy Tyner's best Milestone sessions. I like his Koto playing But the one I love the most, for its energy, is Enlightenment, recorded live in 1973.

Enlightenment is a great release, but I get ear fatigue listening to the whole thing at once -- sometimes McCoy is pounding you into submission.

Sama Layuca (w/Gary Bartz and Bobby Hutch) is also a great one.

Guy

[king ubu]

Good idea to discuss this!

The only ones I have so far (I picked them up recently for very few $$) are "Sama Layuca" and "13th House", a big-band affair. I like both of these quite a lot.

The music has on the one hand sort of a post-Coltrane-consciuosness, while, on the other hand, it seems yet far more individual and Tyner's own thing than the (nice, but not great, in my opinion) Impulse dates.

Tyner is still going very strong, however. Heard some broadcasts of him solo and in a trio with Al Foster.

ubu

[vibes]

I don't have any of these, but have always been interested in them. Where is a good place to start?

[Jim Dye]

I really like Supertrios. I find myself going back to that one quite often. There is a great version of The Greeting that always kicks my ass.

I enjoy most of McCoy's Milestone work. Some are stronger than others, but you really can't go too wrong with any of them. Especially the earlier stuff.

Edited September 1, 2003 by Jim Dye

[Eric]

What Jim said. I would go to the AMG site and make selections based on tunes and sidemen, with a bias towards the earlier records. If I could only have one, it would be Enlightenment.

Eric

[BFrank]

I have always been a fan of "Enlightenment" and "Atlantis" myself. They are very high intensity live sessions, but I think he was still trying to define himself after Trane.

I love "Supertrios", too. Both sessions are really killer - defined more by the different drummers than anything else. In fact, it's a real drumming "tour de force", IMO. Both Tony and Jack were really on during these dates.

[Parkertown]

And most are available on emusic.com, FYI.

[Free For All]

Remember the Milestone Jazzstars group that toured around 1978? Sonny, McCoy, Ron Carter and Al Foster. I always enjoyed that group and the recording they did. Anyone catch that group live?

I also like the 4X4 side- the one w/Freddie, Arthur Blythe, Bobby Hutcherson and John Abercrombie. I thought there were some nice moments on that one.

McCoy's Milestone recordings encompassed the decade of the 70s, which was the time (in college) I really started listening, hanging and jamming (and skipping the odd class here and there ) so these sides are near and dear to my heart.

[SEK]

As the '60s were coming to an end, I first started to pay attention to McCoy's records under his own name, starting with the remarkable music he recorded for Blue Note (I didn't get into his records that he made for impulse! till a few years later). Meanwhile, those Milestone records began to appear.

"Enlightenment" was/is a monster. I still get elated by "Walk Spirit, Talk Spirit", and listening closely to that entire live recording, from beginning to end, can be quite demanding. But, in my opinion, "Enlightenment" remains a highpoint in intensity and beauty in McCoy Tyner's career.

My other Tyner Milestone favorites from that period include:

"Sahara" (which could also be my favorite record with Sonny Fortune)

"Echoes of a Friend" (a majestic solo tour de force dedicated to Trane)

"Trident" (featuring the incomparable Elvin Jones, and Ron Carter with some of his best bass playing of that decade)

"Sama Layuca" (an exciting and somewhat exotic session, with Bobby Hutcherson playing very well for the '70s - or for any time, Gary Bartz - impressive as ever, Azar Lawrence, John Stubblefield, Buster Williams , Billy Hart , and percussionists Guilherme Franco and Mtume)

"The Greeting" (a wonderful live recording from the late '70s featuring George Adams and Sonship Theus)

[Tom Storer]

I saw the Milestone Jazzstars during that 1978-ish tour at a very comfortable performance space in the Albany, NY, region, and have vivid memories of it. Rollins roaming the stage like a tiger, Carter the picture of elegance, Al Foster smiling dreamily, McCoy attacking the keyboard... it blew me away. A musician friend who came with me said of Rollins, "You want to kiss him for that phrasing!"

One of my favorite Tyner records is "Trident," which I got when I was in high school. I wore that one out. There was another one I had in vinyl and absolutely loved, but it's long gone and I'm not sure of the title. The LP cover was yellow, and had a photograph of, I think, an African scene.

[randyhersom]

I think the yellow album you speak of is Extensions.

I too got to see the Milestone Jazzstars tour and enjoyed it thoroughly.

Horizon is a very underrated McCoy Tyner Milestone date. John Blake is wonderful on violin.

What a body of work!

[kh1958]

Dimensions (it's not on Milestone) is a wonderful McCoy Tyner recording from 1983 or 1984 featuring John Blake (and Gary Bartz). This was the first McCoy Tyner band I got to see live, on several occasions, and they were tremendous.

[mikeweil]

Basically I dig the last Blue Note sessions more, Expansions, Extensions, Asante and the stuff on the Cosmos twofer LP, half of which is still due for CD.

On the Milestones I find his piano playing a little overpowering. Orrin Keepnews' striving for different contexts in which to present an artist sometimes kept McCoy's working bands out of the studio, or altered their playing style. 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.

Sama Layuca is another favourite. But I have yet to check out the live albums.

[Free For All]

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. check out the live albums.

Eric Gravatt is great. He brought some great energy to the otherwise uneven Inner Voices. He also did some great work w/Weather Report on several sides including the seminal Live In Tokyo. I wonder why he hasn't been more visible- is he still playing? I hope he hasn't moved to Vermont.

[J Larsen]

Not much to add to this thread, but I love McCoy's Milestone output as well. For me, Trane's Impulse years and Tyner's Milestone years are two of the greatest runs any jazz artist has ever had. BTW, you can download just about all of Tyner's Milestone cds at emusic.

Edited September 3, 2003 by J Larsen

[JSngry]

HArd to believe that at the beginning of the decade, Tyner was a cult figure who was scuffling for gigs. Driving a cab and playing w/Ike & Tina Turner. Down Beat interviews were always full of players talking about how McCoy Tyner was a "secret" and stuff like that.

Hard to believe, ain't it? But that's how it was. The man's career was in the proverbial lull.

The first Milestone, SAHARA, was the big "breakout" album for him. All of a sudden, McCoy tyner had been "rediscovered", and Milestone built up a SERIOUS head of steam for him. Seems like he had an album out every 6 months (or so) all through the 70s. Honestly, at the time, they were coming so fast and furious that I began to get a bit jaded on them after a while. So did the critics - Stanley Crouch (yeah, I know...) derided Tyner as "the pentatonic Oscar Peterson" around '78 or so, and a lot of other reviews took on a kind of "oh, another McCoy record. It's good. So what? NEXT" vibe to them.

But that was then, and now I just look back and think "Wow. What a run, what a substantive body of work". Some personal favorites after the initial run of truly earthshattering releases:

ECHOES OF A FRIEND - solo tribute to Trane. Intense.

THE GREETING - George Adams w/McCoy. 'Nuff said.

TOGETHER - Hubbard, Laws, Maupin, Hutcherson, DeJohnette, an All-Star date that lives up to it's potential. Slick AND interesting.

PASSION DANCE - live trio w/Ron Carter & Tony Williams. Happenin' stuff.

Not crazy about INNER VOICES, FOCAL POINT (although you guys have made me think I should revisit it), & 13TH HOUSE. Not that they're bad, they're just not BAAADDD, at least not for me.

[Guest akanalog]

i don' think anyone has mentioned FLY WITH THE WIND. i definitely would not recommend this as one of tyner's best milestone efforts, but it is sort of an interesting album to hear. it is a quartet album(with hubert laws and ron carter and billy cobham) plus strings and winds. cobham is on drums and the album is from 1976 so he and tyner together might either sound wonderful or awful to you. both musicians sort of lacked subtelty around this time but both had a great deal of intensity and power. cobham brings a loud overbearing sound to the album but really rocks hard in a straight-ahead way. his style combined with the strings and winds sort of makes some of the album sound like something not unlike disco. at least to me. it is strange and a little unpleasant though i did find the album interesting and worth listening to a few times. i think the title track is heard in better form on the later milestone album THE GREETING. that is a very good album and a good milestone to check out.

[Guest akanalog]

actually thinking about tyner's milestone albums-

it seems lilke consciously or unconsciously tyner did not use any caucasian musicians really at all on any of his albums during this perioud until john abercrombie's appearance on 4 X 4. i am not criticizing tyner's decision at all if this was a decision. but perhaps it was coincidence...

i was just wondering if anyone had insight into whether tyner actually made a decision to exclude caucasian musicians from his bands or it just happened that way.

Edited September 4, 2003 by akanalog

[Jim Dye]

i don' think anyone has mentioned FLY WITH THE WIND......

..... i think the title track is heard in better form on the later milestone album THE GREETING.

The best version of this song IMHO is on the 1990 McCoy Tyner Big Band album The Turning Point. They really nail it.

Edited September 4, 2003 by Jim Dye

[Guest akanalog]

i am not criticizng tyner's decision or calling him racist. i simply am curious whether tyner's actions were a statement of some kind or whether it was coincidence. yes it has no bearing on my opinion of the music-though in fact i might respect tyner more for taking a stand of this kind. but the reason for my curiousity is just to gain some insight into a musician who i enjoy very much. it seemed like towards the end of his blue note stint, tyner was getting seriously into islam. i don't know if this turned people off or tyner became a litlte radical...i am curious whether this could have contributed to his lack of job opportunites until his deal with milestone and then affected his decisions regarding sidemen. but yes this is all secondary to the music.

[Simon Weil]

Eric Gravatt is great. He brought some great energy to the otherwise uneven Inner Voices. He also did some great work w/Weather Report on several sides including the seminal Live In Tokyo. I wonder why he hasn't been more visible- is he still playing? I hope he hasn't moved to Vermont.

This was posted to rec.music.bluenote in 2001:

Eric Gravatt (last I heard) was living in Minneapolis/Saint Paul, Minnesota, and working as a prison guard.

He hasn't performed locally in a few years (that I've noticed), but has done some blistering sets in town during the 20 years I've lived here.

John B.

There's also a post from 1992 saying more or less the same thing. I'm a big fan of "Enlightenment" (The bass solo gets me every time) and also have "Sahara" and "Echoes of a Friend", both of which are good.

On the black/white issue, hasn't he had the same, white, drummer for years and years?

Or am I getting confused?

Simon Weil

[Guest akanalog]

i was asking my questions regarding tyner's attitude only during the late 60s and 70s. i guess it was a stupid question and no longer relevant based on a quick glance at the lineups of any of tyner's recent albums.