McCoy Tyner: Time For Tyner (Blue Note Tone Poet series) [BLUE NOTE]

Why you'll love it

This Tone Poet edition was mastered by Kevin Gray from the original analogue tapes and pressed on 180g vinyl at RTI, in a gatefold jacket. It pairs two driving Tyner originals with a side of reimagined standards.

This edition

• Blue Note Tone Poet series
• 180g vinyl
• Mastered by Kevin Gray from the original analogue tapes
• Pressed at RTI
• Gatefold jacket
• Stereo mix
• Pressed in the USA

About the album

A few years after leaving the John Coltrane Quartet, McCoy Tyner was busy proving he was a leader in his own right, and Blue Note gave him the room to do it. He cut this session at Van Gelder Studio on May 17, 1968, with Duke Pearson producing and Rudy Van Gelder at the desk. He'd already shown on The Real McCoy that he could lead a date, and here he pushes further, from modal fire to ballad calm.

Bobby Hutcherson's vibraphone sits beside Tyner's piano, with Herbie Lewis on bass and Freddie Waits on drums. Side A belongs to two Tyner originals, the rolling, modal "African Village" and the lively "Little Madimba." Side B turns to standards, "May Street" followed by "I Didn't Know What Time It Was," "The Surrey with the Fringe on Top" and "I've Grown Accustomed to Her Face," played with enormous chords and a lighter touch than you'd expect.

Joe Harley supervised the reissue, and the sound is as close to sitting in Van Gelder's room as most of us will get. The title, it turns out, was a prediction rather than a request.

Also at Kops: more McCoy Tyner on vinyl · browse Classic Jazz

Tracklist

Listen

On Blue Note (cat# B0034363-01), a reissue of the 1969 album.