McCoy Tyner
Nights Of Ballads & Blues

There are albums that stand as paradigms of a style, sometimes even of a genre. There are trailblazing albums that mark a decisive turning point. And there are also artists who, even at 18, are masters. Like Monk, for example, who at that age wrote one of the wonders of jazz, 'Round Midnight, queen of the standards, harmonically complex ballad yet incredibly captivating: you hear it in ten thousand interpretations and, magically, it is always different. McCoy Tyner is, along with Evans, Monk, Flanagan, and few others, one of these giants, still holding the fort today despite age and illness. He quickly rose to the pinnacle of pianism and became a legend, prominently influencing the development of bebop in the following (and fundamental) years. His pianism is solid, harmonic, erudite, and lyrical together, formally impeccable. The Californian possesses a prodigious technique, able to comfortably accompany, without intimidation, one of the most acrobatic and demanding jazz musicians of all time, John Coltrane, to whom his artistic fortune is inextricably linked. "A Love Supreme" is a turning point album also thanks to the perfect interplay between sax and piano.

The reviewed CD is, in my opinion, a work of absolute perfection. We are in 1963, and the "jazz trio" form is epitomized in music. It is a small, precious manual for future generations. A successor of Bud Powell and Art Tatum's teachings, Tyner performs eight tracks that mostly draw from the standard repertoire. A superb 'Round Midnight stands out, masterfully executed in absolute orthodoxy and stylistic rigor. The album seems like a work in acts, as the tracks are masterfully linked and musically connected: it feels like listening to a single piece with brief interruptions, without this being considered a flaw. The sound is always kept in a traditional and strictly tonal key. We are far from the imaginative game of voicing in fourths, the daring "in & out," or the modal improvisation of his later works (especially with 'Trane's quartet), but it is pure elegance, soft, crystalline. Almost always, the rhythmic accompaniment is played with brushes, the bass sinks into a cushy sound, and the melody is whispered, polished, always perfectly intelligible and without edges. Tyner paints in black and white, with the shadows of the moon. We could define them as nocturnes in Afro-American key, the quintessence of jazz-ballads, where meditative sentiment and romanticism are stripped of frills and translated, through the sparse and dry language of emerging post-bop, into eight modern watercolors. An album worth five "candles" for those seeking universal music.