With 80 albums and a good sprinkling of Grammy awards, and to top it all off, in 2008 he received the Presidential Merit Award from the Grammy Foundation, McCoy Tyner is certainly a heavyweight in the Jazz world, so Granada’s XXXII edición del Festival Internacional de Jazz was proud to have this top jazz musician on the closing night of the festival.
Born in 1938 in Philadelphia, he became a part of the fertile jazz and R&B scene of the early ’50s. His parents imbued him with a love for music from an early age. His mother encouraged him to explore his musical interests through formal training.
At 17 he began a career-changing relationship with Miles Davis’ sideman saxophonist John Coltrane. Tyner joined Coltrane for the classic album My Favorite Things (1960), and remained at the core of what became one of the most seminal groups in jazz history, The John Coltrane Quartet. The band, which also included drummer Elvin Jones and bassist Jimmy Garrison, had an extraordinary chemistry, fostered in part by Tyner’s almost familial relationship with Coltrane.
In 1965, after over five years with Coltrane’s quartet, Tyner left the group to explore his destiny as a composer and bandleader. Among his major projects is a 1967 album entitled The Real McCoy, on which he was joined by saxophonist Joe Henderson, bassist Ron Carter and fellow Coltrane alumnus Elvin Jones. His 1972 Grammy-award nomination album Sahara, broke new ground by the sounds and rhythms of Africa.
In review of Tyner’s latest album “Quartet,” Thomas Conrad of JazzTimes wrote “‘Quartet’ succeeds not only because everyone plays so well, but also because they play so well together. The pairing of Tyner and Lovano is synergistic. The McBride/Watts rhythm section, for intelligent propulsion, is state-of-the-art. ‘Quartet’ succeeds once more because of its excellent sonic quality. It was recorded by engineer Phil Edwards at Yoshi’s in Oakland, Calif., over New Year’s Eve weekend 2006. Almost always, even the best-sounding jazz albums require you to make a choice. You can have the visceral in-the-moment reality of a live recording, or the full bandwidth resolution of a studio session. This one has both.”
As for the Granada Jazz Festival itself, it has been going for 30 years and has hosted such superb musicians as Miles Davis, Oscar Peterson, Charlie Haden, Art Blakey, Tete Montoliu, Dizzy Gillespie, Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, Chano Domínguez and an impressive et cetera…
Finally, our apologies for not posting news on this festival until the penultimate day of the jazz week – we need shooting. God knows that our stats showed that somebody was constantly googling for “jazz festival xxiv costa,” which is the Almuñécar jazz festival – it never twigged that the person might have been after the Granada jazz festival. Ah well; better late than never.
Anyway, the festival runs from last Saturday before closing tomorrow. Roy Haynes Fountain Youth Band was the bill name for that Saturday, Ray Lema African Jazz Trio played Sunday and then after a 3-day break, on Thursday Dave Holland & Pepe Habichuela billed. Stacey Kent played on the Friday and yesterday it was Christian McBride
Again, our apologies for not giving more timely warning of this great jazz festival.
(News: Granada, Andalucia)