McCoy Tyner is my favorite jazz pianist and in many ways will always be the player who means the most to me. I first heard him in a store in Philadelphia in January of my second year at New College. I can't remember what track it was. All I remember is hearing a some one beating the crap out of the piano and feeling like I was hearing jazz for the first time. At this point I had spent lots of time with Armstrong, Ellington, and Calloway. I even owned a copy of A Love Supreme, so I know I'd heard Tyner. But somehow this was different. I asked the clerk what he was playing and found it was The Real McCoy. I snatched it up immediately (along with a copy of Roach's M'Boom, which turned me onto Roach and Monk).

I'm not sure I can add much to the volumes written on Tyner's playing. He uses the entire keyboard and is absolutely fearless about being up front. He plays bi-tonalities that manage to keep you uneasy but never lost. A master of the semi-tone, he fits more notes in a bar than most and yet things never feel crowded. My love for him tripled when my thesis adviser played a recording Tyner made with Grappelli. An unlikely combination, it's the most delightful record I've ever heard. Tyner is Tyner and Grappelli is Grappelli, but they make space for each other come together in ways that make me smile every time (the record is called One On One and I can't recommend it enough).

Over the weekend I picked up Tyner's newest disc: McCoy Tyner, Guitars. I was especially excited because the disc featured my favorite guitar player, Marc Ribot, on a bunch of tracks. Unlike One on One, there's a full band playing on most tracks, but it's all about the pairings. Ribot, Scofield, Fleck, Trucks, and Frisell. Everyone brings something unique. There are standards (a bunch Tyner helped make famous with Coltrane), abstract improvisations with Ribot, and Tyner and others' originals. The disc also comes with with a dvd of three or four hours of video of the sessions. I haven't checked it out yet, but I'm excited to see these guys play together. Pick it up if you see it around.