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On the Passing of Lyle Mays

4/19/2020

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On Monday, February 10, Nicole and I had finished putting the February 11 edition of the Sentinel & Rural News together and Nicole was getting the last of the pages sent to the printer. As I waited for her, I was looking through my Twitter feed and ran across the terrible news that Jazz pianist/keyboardist and composer Lyle Mays had died at the age of only 66 years. 
Only last year, Jazz journalist CJ Stearn from New York City had interviewed me for his Jazz Talk program and we spend a good deal of the two-hour discussion about Lyle Mays and his work with Pat Metheny. Lyle was a longtime collaborator with Metheny. He was an innovative keyboard player whose expansive textures and touching solos on grand piano provided a key element of the Pat Metheny sound. Indeed, he was a cornerstone to that sound. Mays was also co-composer of many the Pat Metheny Group anthems for four decades. 


A Wisconsin NativeLyle was a native of Wausaukee, Wisconsin. He studied Jazz at North Texas State University when it, along with the University of Miami, was accounted as the best Jazz schools in the country. He played for the North Texas State University Lab Band and was composer-arranger of the Grammy-nominated album Lab 75. In fact, a friend of mine’s son is studying Jazz at University of North Texas (as it is now called) and said that they are still performing the charts created by Lyle 45 years ago.
Lyle later toured with Woody Herman’s Orchestra for eight months (1975-1976). Then he met Pat Metheny.


Lyle Meets Pat MethenyThey first met at the Wichita Jazz Festival in 1975 and Lyle later appeared on the Metheny’s 1977 album, Watercolors. 
I had come to Jazz through the 1975 Keith Jarrett album, the Köln Concert. I grabbed all the Jarrett albums I could and was—and still am—hooked on piano Jazz. But through my growing familiarity with Jarrett, I came to know many other Jazz artists with whom he performed and recorded and then who recorded with them and so on. It led me to an album by a guitarist named Pat Metheny (who had attended University of Miami) called Bright Size Life. It was a trio album with the great Jaco Pastorius on bass and Bob Moses on drums. I enjoyed the album a lot but there were no keyboards on that album. That was 1976. 
The next year brought the release of Watercolors with Metheny on guitar, the amazing Eberhard Weber on bass, the equally amazing Danny Gottlieb on drums and a kid named Lyle Mays on piano and keyboards. Lyle became the reason that I stayed a fan of the Pat Metheny bands for so many years. I saw Pat Metheny in concert four times from 1979 through 1990 and I went in order to see Lyle.
Lyle contributed as a player and co-composer to a remarkably productive string of Pat Metheny Group albums, including 1978’s Pat Metheny Group, 1979’s American Garage, 1981’s Off Ramp, 1983’s Travels, 1984’s First Circle, 1987’s Still Life (Talking), 1989’s Letter From Home, 1992’s Secret Story (although Lyle is rarely present), 1993’s The Road To You, 1994’s We Live Here, 1996’s Quartet, 1997’s Imaginary Day, 2002’s Speaking of Now and culminating with 2005’s The Way Up, a sprawling through-composed jazz tone poem co-written by Mays and Metheny divided into four sections. Mays and Metheny also lent their trademark sound to the sweeping soundtrack to the 1984 film The Falcon and the Snowman, which featured David Bowie’s vocals on “This Is Not America.”
Contributions to the Pat Metheny GroupWith Lyle on keyboards, especially on piano, the group’s sound became joyful but reverent. On the 1980 album As Falls Wichita, So Falls Wichita Falls, the song September 15 was dedicated to the inimitable Jazz pianist Bill Evans who had died on September 15, 1980. It was the best thing I had ever heard. It was sweet and sad and to this day I still am moved beyond words by the beauty of that piece.
But in 1984, the Pat Metheny Group released the album First Circle. That album contained a track called Praise. Pedro Aznarprovided wordless vocals overtop the exquisite keyboards of Lyle and the beautiful guitar of Metheny. I think I wore out three copies of that vinyl record.


Meeting LyleAs it worked out, I got to tell Lyle that myself in 1984 just before their concert in Waco, Texas. I was living there at the time and I knew a guy who worked at the concert hall. I convinced him (okay, I gave him $20) to let me in to see the soundcheck before the show. I got to meet Lyle who—despite the stories of him being so reclusive—was incredibly friendly. I realized that he was only five years older than me and told him of my admiration for September 15 and Praise. I even said that Praise was a song that I wished would never end. He smiled and said, “Well, I see what I can do.”
That night, they performed most of the songs from the First Circle album and more but…no Praise. They left the stage and I was extremely disappointed. I thought, “Well, maybe I’m the only one who likes it.” Then, with the standing ovation still in progress, the band returned to the stage for an encore. Metheny walked up to the microphone and said, “We usually play American Garage for our encore but Lyle wanted to save the encore for this one.” I wish we had iPhones in those days so I could have recorded it.
They started on the first chord and I—and everyone else—knew that it was Praise. That song is 4:19 on the album but, that night, it went on for over 10 minutes. When I thought they were closing out the song, Lyle circled his finger over his head and the vamping began. They played off each other incredibly and I had the time of my young life.


Lyle as Leader and Solo ArtistLyle didn’t record much as a leader, beginning with his self-titled 1985 debut and continuing with 1988’s Street Dreams, 1992’s Fictionary and 2000’s Solo: Improvisations for Expanded Piano. He was a member of the celebrated band on Joni Mitchell’s Shadows and Light tour in 1979 that included Metheny, Jaco Pastorius, Michael Brecker and Don Alias. He won 11 Grammys and was nominated 23 times. In 2016, he was inducted into the Wisconsin Area Music Industry’s Hall of Fame.


Reactions to Lyle's PassingPat Metheny posted on his website the day Lyle passed, “Lyle was one of the greatest musicians I have ever known. Across more than 30 years, every moment we shared in music was special. From the first notes we played together, we had an immediate bond. His broad intelligence and musical wisdom informed every aspect of who he was in every way. I will miss him with all my heart.”
Steve Rodby, who joined as bassist and producer for the Pat Metheny Group in 1980, also issued a statement on Metheny’s Facebook page: “I had the great privilege of having Lyle in my life for decades, as an inspiration and as my friend. As anyone who knew him and his music will agree, there will only be one Lyle, and we all will continue to appreciate his soulful brilliance, in so many ways.”
On Thursday, Metheny expanded on his thoughts of Lyle: “There was a valuable lesson I learned early on from my most important mentor, Gary Burton; when you start a group, you have an obligation to choose the best musicians you can possibly find.  And then, if you are lucky, once you have great people in place, you have an even more important obligation; to create an environment for them to do their very best.
“The mandate of the bandleader as I understood it from Gary, (and I believe he understood it from Stan Getz who got it from —… who got it from —…ad infinitum) was to offer the most talented players every opportunity to develop the things that they are most interested to the highest degree possible under your auspices; to create a platform that intersects with what your goals are as a leader, but also a zone that provides a world open to exploration and expansion for everyone. When the moment comes that that intersection is no longer in sight for either side of the equation, that is when it is time to make a change.
“With Lyle, as with Steve Rodby, that moment never came. There was always plenty to talk about. In fact, it seemed infinite…
“As I wrote earlier. I will miss him with all my heart.
In addition to everything else; Lyle, Steve, and I were friends for going on half a century, and together we shared many of the ups-and-downs of our lives together here on the planet, on and off the bandstand. I am most grateful for that above all.”
I had hoped that someday we could get Lyle Mays to the Central Wisconsin Jazz Festival. And even though we will never get to hear more from him, we are blessed that we have such a wealth of recordings that can be summoned for our pleasure and edification whenever we want.
Thanks for all of it, Lyle.​




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Farewell, McCoy Tyner

4/19/2020

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On Friday afternoon, March 6, I saw the announcement from McCoy Tyner’s family that he had passed away. He was a cornerstone of John Coltrane’s groundbreaking 1960s quartet and one of the most influential pianists in jazz history. He was 81.

It has been a bad couple of weeks for Jazz pianists.

McCoy and John Coltrane
Tyner first attracted wide notice as a member of John Coltrane’s famed quartet of Coltrane, Tyner, Jimmy Garrison, and Elvin Jones. This was my favorite quartet ever. 

He influenced virtually every pianist in Jazz in one way or another. Along with Bill Evans, Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea, Keith Jarrett, and only a few others, Tyner was one of the main expressways of modern Jazz piano. Nearly every Jazz pianist since Tyner’s years with Coltrane has had to learn his lessons, whether they ultimately stayed with them or not.

Tyner’s style was modest, even reserved, but his sound was so rich, so percussive and so serious. His emotional improvisations were anchored by powerful left-hand chords marking the first beat of the bar and the tonal center of the music. That sound helped create the foundation of Coltrane’s music and, to some extent, all Jazz in the 1960s. 

He served as a grounding force for Coltrane. In a 1961 interview in Downbeat, about a year and a half after hiring Tyner, 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.”

When he left Coltrane in 1965, Tyner did not find immediate success. But within a decade, his fame had caught up with his influence, and he remained one of the leading bandleaders in Jazz as well as one its most honored pianists for the rest of his life.

Younger Years
Alfred McCoy Tyner was born in Philadelphia on December 11, 1938, to Jarvis and Beatrice Tyner, both natives of North Carolina. His father sang in a church quartet and worked for a company that made medicated cream; his mother was a beautician. Tyner started taking piano lessons at the age of 13 and, a year later, his mother bought him his first piano and set it up in her beauty shop.

While still in high school, Tyner began taking music theory lessons and, by 16, he was playing professionally with a rhythm-and-blues band at house parties around Philadelphia and Atlantic City.

Tyner was in a band led by the trumpeter Cal Massey in 1957 when he met Coltrane at a Philadelphia club called the Red Rooster. At the time, Coltrane, who grew up in Philadelphia but had left in 1955 to join Miles Davis’s quintet, was back in town, between tenures with Miles’ band. The two musicians struck up an immediate friendship. Coltrane was living at his mother’s house, and Tyner would visit him there where they would sit on the porch and talk. Tyner would later say that Coltrane was something of an older brother to him.

Joining the Trane
In 1958, Coltrane recorded one of Tyner’s compositions, The Believer. There was an understanding between them that when Coltrane was ready to lead his own group, he would hire Tyner as his pianist. Coltrane did eventually form his own quartet, which opened a long engagement at the Jazz Gallery in Manhattan in May 1960, but with Steve Kuhn as the pianist. A month later, halfway through the engagement, Coltrane made good on his promise, replacing Kuhn with Tyner. It was the best decision Coltrane could have made.

That October, Tyner made its first recordings with Coltrane for Atlantic Records that produced much of the material for the albums My Favorite Things, Coltrane Jazz, Coltrane’s Sound and Coltrane Plays the Blues.

He was 21 when he joined the Coltrane quartet. He would remain — along with the drummer Elvin Jones and bassist Jimmy Garrison — for the next five years. Through his work with the group, which came to be known as the “classic” Coltrane quartet, he became one of the most widely imitated pianists in Jazz. Coltrane is my all-time favorite Jazz artist and Elvin Jones remains my favorite drummer. Tyner was blessed indeed to be in the midst of those two along with Jimmy Garrison.

 He knew when to hammer on and when to lay off. “What you don’t play is sometimes as important as what you do play,” he told his fellow pianist Marian McPartland on her wonderful NPR show called Piano Jazz. “I would leave space, which wouldn’t identify the chord so definitely to the point that it inhibited your other voicings.”

The Coltrane quartet worked constantly through 1965, reaching one high-water mark for Jazz after another on albums like A Love Supreme, Crescent, Coltrane Live at Birdland, Ballads, and Impressions, all recorded for the Impulse label.

Leaving the Trane
When Coltrane began to expand his musical vision to include extra horns and percussionists, Tyner quit the group at the end of 1965, complaining that the music had grown so loud and unwieldy that he could not hear the piano anymore. For the next two years he hooked up with Art Blakey’s band.

Just before Coltrane’s death in 1967, Tyner signed to the Blue Note label. He stayed with Blue Note for five years, starting with a fairly familiar quartet sound and progressing to larger ensembles, but these were temporary bands assembled for recording sessions, not working groups. It was a lean time for Jazz and for Tyner. It was a big deal to have quit Coltrane’s band. He was not performing much and, he later said, had considered applying for a license to drive a cab. By 1972, however, he had gained a higher profile and much more success. In those years he worked steadily with his own band, including at various times with other notable musicians.

McCoy's Own Path
Tyner did not use electric piano or synthesizers, or play with rock and disco backbeats, as many of the best Jazz musicians did at the time, including guys like Chick and Herbie. He maintained one of the strongest and most recognizable keyboard sounds in Jazz. He was committed to acoustic instrumentation. His experiments outside the piano ran toward the koto, as heard on the 1972 album “Sahara,” and harpsichord and celeste, on “Trident” (1975).

He formed several more bands, including big bands, and continued reaching and teaching Jazz musicians, especially pianists, everywhere.

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. He resisted analyzing or theorizing about his own work. He tended to talk more in terms of learning and life experience.

The Impact of McCoy Tyner
“To me,” he told Nat Hentoff in a remarkable interview, “living and music are all the same thing. And I keep finding out more about music as I learn more about myself, my environment, about all kinds of different things in life.

“I play what I live. Therefore, just as I can’t predict what kinds of experiences I’m going to have, I can’t predict the directions in which my music will go. I just want to write and play my instrument as I feel.”

The resounding echoes of grief were heard all over Twitter, Facebook, websites, and more over the weekend as the Jazz world tried to come to grips with the death of the teacher.

The great bassist Stanley Clark Tweeted: “A truly great one has passed. I cannot begin to tell you the depth of this great ones influence in music. Every jazz pianist has a bit of McCoy within their heart. He was the last member of the transformational, supernatural group The John Coltrane Quartet of John Coltrane, McCoy Tyner, Jimmy Garrison, Elvin Jones. Every time I’ve ever played or recorded with McCoy it was like receiving the greatest healing medicine you could ever want.”

Clark Gayton posted on Facebook: “One of the highlights of my life was going on the road with the McCoy Tyner Big Band in 1990. The lineup was ridiculous. I learned so much about music and the generations before me. Too much to get into on a post. But there was this time I lost my bags in Italy. Everything. We had a show that night, and I didn't have anything to wear. I got a call from John Stubblefield right after sound check... "You can wear a pair of my shoes tonight, man". 10 minutes later, McCoy calls my room." I heard about your situation. Come by my room. I may have something for you." I stopped by his room, and he presented me with one of his very expensive suits. "You can use this until you locate your bags, don't worry about it." I ended up wearing his suit for a week, until my bags were found somewhere. Two things, neither the shoes nor the suit fit me at all. I looked ridiculous, to put it simply. But I couldn't have been prouder! I really felt like I was one of the cats wearing that outfit. Somehow, I can't imagine that happening today. They literally gave me the clothes off their back to help me. The stories were hilarious and plenty for those 8 weeks in Europe. The band became a living being on the road. A beast. We plowed through Europe like a wild bull, and it changed my life. Thank you, McCoy. Love you much, and safe passage.”

I got to see McCoy Tyner with saxman Joe Lovano in Portland in February of 2009. I had came down with a 101º temperature but I went to the show anyway. I had gotten my tickets long before and was not going to miss seeing him—my first and only time. For the 2-hour show, I forgot about what ailed me. I still have the concert poster in the office upstairs.

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