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Terrific Tyner. Timid Tyner. Tepid Tyner. Titanic Tyner. Alliterations keep surfacing as I repeatedly play
Illuminations, a new McCoy Tyner quintet made particularly solid by the inclusion of Gary Bartz on reeds, trumpeter Terence Blanchard and drummer Lewis Nash. Terrific—on “Angelina,” the “Latin-thing” sparkles; tepid—the title cut is a stereotypic hard-bop number that moves but never commands; titanic—whenever Tyner moves into his cascades of notes, with the bebop-spawned “The Chase” [listen for an intro derived from “Salt Peanuts”] showing that Tyner owns the keyboard and runs from Bud Powell to dazzling modernist imagery; timid—“Come Rain or Come Shain” lacks luster and imagination.
Maybe I demand too much. When Tyner delves into “New Orleans Stomp” he is a solid performer and shows he can stride and strut, but then again “so what?” And when he caresses the “West Philly Tone Poem” he merely sounds “nice.” From most musicians this would be a solid outing—from this giant of the piano the work is too uneven and without the catalysts and captivation of his best work. Listen to this selectively.
~~~
McCoy Tyner:
Illuminations (Telarc)
Release Date:
22 June 2004
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last update 15 October 2004