I've been listening to a lot of McCoy Tyner lately, so I thought I'd write about his performances on the wonderful John Coltrane minor blues called "Mr. P.C." (written for the bassist, Paul Chambers). I've heard about ten different versions of the tune played by the quartet on various recordings over the years, without ever feeling anything other than astonishment. In fact, it might be the best way to appreciate the artistry of the group, as both the theme and the harmonic structure are very easy to hear. The wealth of ideas, the speed at which they're being found, the powerful sounds that each musician variously harnesses and unleashes always at the service of the whole - it's remarkable stuff. Here's a wonderfully played version (but, unfortunately, not the best recording) in two parts: 1. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xz2PzXuxwts 2. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umgJi6QXNEg&feature=watch_response

And Tyner, who found a vocabulary with which he could match the dynamic range and power of the others, is still doing it. Here's a link to his upcoming tour dates: http://mccoytyner.com/schedule.html.

Duke Ellington is a musician that should be listened to for many reasons. But one aspect of his artistry that gets too little attention, in my opinion, is his piano playing. His approach to the instrument is unique - he treats it like a miniature version of his orchestra (or band, if you prefer), and plays it in a way that reflects his composing and arranging skills, as opposed to most pianists who are thinking primarily as improvisers.

Ellington's music always makes me think of the contrast between the words theory and practice. Music theory is a well-named discipline: it deals with ideas about how music works, but it results in questions more often than answers, and to put it simply, there is much more to learn than is already known. Ellington's music is based on the concept of practice - the fact that he wrote and arranged vast quantities of music over a period of six decades - and that he was always looking for the most specific and beautiful way of solving each musical challenge. There's a freedom and originality in his music that distinguishes it from virtually everything else. Here's "In a Sentimental Mood" from the essential recording Duke Ellington & John Coltrane (1962), which I think will better illustrate what I'm trying to say: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCQfTNOC5aE

Yesterday was the second time that I've mentioned Wes Montgomery in passing, and it occurred to me that since he is among the most important of jazz guitarists and one of my favourite musicians I had better dedicate a post to him, pronto. To the guitar, he occupies the same sort of position that Sonny Rollins or John Coltrane does in terms of the saxophone: Although none of these names were there at the very beginning of either jazz or bebop, as was the case for Charlie Christian and Charlie Parker, they stand shoulder to shoulder with any musician in jazz.

Montgomery's playing is striking in many regards - his soloing in octaves, his seemingly infinite vocabulary, the logic of his solo constructions, his thrilling interaction with his bands - but perhaps above all is his unique way of playing and placing swing eighth notes. I use the word "placing" because of his amazing ability to play behind the beat, and to make not only his own but every member of the band's contributions sound larger, heavier and more beautiful. Perhaps the best place to hear these qualities is the album called, Smokin' at the Half Note from 1965 with the Wynton Kelly trio. To give you an idea of its importance, Pat Metheny once called it the album that taught him how to play, and he certainly wasn't alone in that experience. Montgomery has probably had a larger influence on later jazz guitarists than anyone. Here is "If You Could See Me Now", the track that contains what Metheny called his "favourite jazz guitar solo of all time": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvf7DWerPy4

McCoy Tyner was twenty-one when he joined John Coltrane's quartet in 1960. He was to become the perfect pianist for the group, and one of the most influential and distinctive in jazz history. His iconic contribution to Coltrane and to jazz, although not his only one, was the concept of organizing chord voicings in fourths, as opposed to thirds which had been the norm before him. This gave his sound a modern, muscular and brash quality that supported both Coltrane's playing, which was primarily based on elaborate chord substitutions, and Elvin Jones' poly-rhythmic drumming. Like other musical pioneers, his ideas have been emulated by so many musicians that appreciating their importance by listening to the original recordings takes some effort. The best way to do this is to listen to other records in the same genre and from the same time before listening to the pioneering one. To compare a recording from 1960 to one made in 2010 is not going to work in this regard, in other words, because the later one has the advantage of being able to use everything that came before it, including perhaps even the one in question.

One of the albums that best captures Tyner's importance to the Classic Quartet is 1961's My Favorite Things. Here are the links (parts one and two) for the title track: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQsvMf8X0FY&feature=related / http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qt9iLDmaQwk&feature=related . You can either check out other small group jazz recordings from approximately the same era, or you can trust me: There aren't any that sound like this one. (Tomorrow, one of Tyner's recordings as a leader.)

I think I'll continue on the topic of great jazz albums for a couple of days, and today, I'll write about the only recording that the incomparable John Coltrane, as a leader, did with a singer: John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman (1963). Knowing what we do about Coltrane - that he was constantly searching for the essence of music - it's interesting to listen to him in this context, as well as to try to figure out what led him to the experience and what he took from it. His quartet at the time, which included McCoy Tyner on piano, Elvin Jones on drums, and Jimmy Garrison on bass is often considered the greatest small group in jazz history. Their adventurousness and skill is at such a level that listeners can occasionally be overwhelmed with the music's intensity. I haven't met many people that saw the group live (they were around from 1962 to 1965), but one memorable description of the experience stayed with me: Seeing the group at close quarters in a small Montreal club, said a musician acquaintance, was like "standing up in a roller coaster". I didn't doubt it a bit: I've listened to a lot of their music and it's on its own in terms of intensity. (Here's a link to a live version of "My Favorite Things", for a sample: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PpuR98N40I .)

But today's topic, the album mentioned above, shows a very different side to their playing, as they support Hartman's inspired singing and extrapolate from the melodies. And what melodies they are: "They Say It's Wonderful", "Autumn Serenade", "Dedicated to You", "My One and Only Love", and the byzantine Billy Strayhorn masterpiece, "Lush Life", all songs of extraordinary beauty, were recorded on the first take (!). Only Rodgers and Hart's "You Are Too Beautiful" needed a second. I've always considered it a shame that it was their only recording together, but it could be looked at another way: It couldn't have been topped. And it still hasn't. Here's "Lush Life": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7d6_LUDa_Zw .

John Coltrane's "Countdown" is a song that superimposes elaborate substitute chord changes onto the Miles Davis jazz standard "Tune Up". The concept behind these substitutions come from Coltrane's famous "Giant Steps", which was an original composition that was built upon major seven chords a major third apart, a large (and unusual) leap in a harmonic progression - hence the title. (It's interesting to note the similar harmonic movement in the bridge of Rodgers and Hart's "Have You Met Miss Jones?", which may have been Coltrane's inspiration.) Both "Countdown" and "Giant Steps" are still considered to be pieces that challenge even the best improvisers.

The album discussed yesterday, The Brad Mehldau Trio Live (2008), contains a spectacular version of "Countdown", which features Mehldau's almost unbelievable ability to solo coherently with both hands simultaneously. I know that jazz pianists spend a lot of time cultivating the independance of the hands, but I've never heard anyone else do it quite like this. It's a thrilling display of technical virtuosity, which is an appropriate tribute to the piece's composer.

On another note, Mehldau has, erroneously, been compared many times to Bill Evans. Aside from the fact that Mehldau has also led a trail-blazing piano trio, his playing has very little in common with Evans', and he has said so in print several times. Comparisons like these can be distressing to musicians, because they can create doubt as to whether the audience is getting what they're doing. (Some of the problems arise with under-qualified writers saying almost anything to fill a column or review. I'll be writing more about this soon.) In fact, it's a sign of erudition in a listener to be able to determine which earlier musicians were direct ancestors to a younger one's style. And to listen to improvising musicians with this in mind gets us pointed in the right way - toward the importance of tradition and the role of study in jazz. So, a question: who do you hear in Mehldau's playing?

One interesting theory regarding jazz history has it that instrumentalists and composers have alternated in moving the music forward. It goes something like this: In the twenties, it was an instrumentalist (Louis Armstrong); in the thirties, a composer (Duke Ellington); in the forties, another instrumentalist (Charlie Parker); in the fifties, a composer (Thelonius Monk and/or Miles Davis - take your pick); in the sixties, an instrumentalist (John Coltrane); in the seventies, a composer (Charles Mingus, although he started much earlier). It's an oversimplification obviously, but it is an interesting one. In rock and roll's formative decade, the most important composer (songwriter, if you prefer) was also the most important instrumentalist: Chuck Berry. Yesterday, I wrote a little about his lyrics, today his contributions to the guitar.
Chuck Berry is rock and roll guitar. Every rock guitarist must come to an understanding of the way he plays to have any authenticity in their sound. The deeper they go into his work, the more successful they become. (Yesterday, I mentioned that neither the Beatles or Stones would have existed without him - I forgot to mention The Beach Boys.) It is fascinating to listen to early Berry recordings because he is so far ahead of his band rhythmically. You can often hear them learning as the song goes along. (Part of the reason for this is how each player interprets the three vs. two of blues, jazz or rock - more on that to come - but essentially Berry was a few years ahead of his band at this point.) His rhythm playing is the quintessential sound of rock and roll. His introductions were (and are) amazing in their power and originality. His solos had all the wit, excitement and intelligence of his performing. But perhaps most importantly, he also showed, definitively, that the way forward for rock was to be found in studying and extrapolating from the blues. As a matter of fact, with retrospect, it's probably appropriate that his work be considered alongside (I mean equal to) the blues in its importance to and influence on rock and roll.

Howdy. Further to yesterday's discussion: The ability to maintain tempo, even as intensity rises or falls, is much more difficult than it sounds. It's a bit like the way that draftsmen can draw very straight lines freehand - much practice required. The greatest musicians in any style are always the ones with this quality. Glenn Gould, Jimi Hendrix, James Jamerson, John Coltrane, Ringo Starr. You can hear it in the music. The spaces between the notes are beautiful, thrilling, awe-inspiring. The difficulty in finding musicians capable of playing like this has unfortunately led to pop music essentially being played by machines. This might pass for a while - i.e. the time it takes for teenagers to buy a product en masse, make people famous, etc. but ultimately music made this way will not have the staying power of music played by humans.
So back to the Stones - to their credit, they know how good Charlie is, and at their best, they play with him. When they run into trouble, they don't. Sometimes, the band starts very strongly and then gets a bit out of control ("rushes", in Musician) as the track goes along. Sometimes they don't lock in with him at all.
On the Stones' website, there's a video of Charlie talking about jazz drumming, where he discusses, almost apologetically, the fact that what he knows he learned from copying, and he speaks with the humility found in all great musicians. But this is how all serious musicians learn. One of the paradoxes involved in music, and the other arts as well, is that the more copying someone has done, the more originality they end up contributing. (For a literary parallel, read T.S. Eliot's "Tradition and the Individual Talent".) This also leads to the aforementioned humility.
Suggested listening: "Bitch", "A Day in the Life", "Little Wing", "My Favorite Things","Ain't No Mountain High Enough" (Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell), The Goldberg Variations 1981 (cf. 1955).