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McCoy Tyner - My Favorite Things [Echoes of a Friend] 1972

"McCoy Tyner is one of the most important pianists in jazz history. His 40+ year career is remarkable for its diversity and consistent high quality. I consider this recording his crowning achievement. Not only is "Echoes of a Friend" my favorite Tyner recording, I consider it to be one of the finest solo piano recordings I have ever heard. This is not easy listening music. If you like Kenny G., this is not for you. This is intense, passionate music played by a virtuoso musician. Think 'Art Tatum meets Igor Stravinsky' and you'll have some idea what this CD is like. Along with Coltrane's 'First Meditations (for Quartet)', this is some of the most astonishing spiritual/religious music ever recorded. (And this is coming from an atheist!) Buy this CD, turn out the lights, lie down with your head between the speakers, and prepare to have your consciousness altered." (Amazon.com reviewer)


Reviewer, Matt P, Progreviews.com:
McCoy Tyner and Keith Jarrett were among the forebears of the "not quite jazz/not quite anything else" style of solo piano recitals often played today by a number of younger artists (Brad Meldhau, for instance). Tyner stayed closer to his jazz roots than did Jarrett, however, and on his first solo piano album, Echoes of a Friend, Tyner looks back to his former bandmate John Coltrane for inspiration. Three of the five tunes are from Tyner's days in Coltrane's quartet. Two of them are Coltrane originals ("Naima," "Promise,") and one may as well have been, so indelibly did the Coltrane quartet stamp Rogers & Hammerstein's "My Favorite Things." "The Discovery" and "Folks" are Tyner originals.

The well-known "Naima" and "My Favorite Things" are definitely given a once-over here, as Tyner de-emphasizes the melodies of these songs, hiding them among the chords. Overall, I think that the music is excellent. Tyner's style is reminiscent of what he had been moving toward over the previous few years and which came to fruition on his most recent albums, Sahara and Song For My Lady. Without a band behind him, Tyner wisely eases back somewhat on the unwavering aggression that had imbued his playing for stretches on those albums. There is still plenty of muscle and power on Echoes of a Friend, yet his playing is also romantic and orchestral. His performances provide a very interesting perspective on the Coltrane material — the familliar melodies are often lost amid effusive virtuostic passages, yet despite the modernist treatment there is always a tenderness that breathes within Tyner's playing as well as a spirit that infuses it. Ironically, given the album's title, I find that the spirit is most in evidence on Tyner's own material — especially the seventeen-plus minute "The Discovery," which tinkers with the non-western modalities that had captured Tyner's interest since the start of the seventies. Given that this album was recorded in Tokyo, the style is certainly appropriate.

Reviewer Tyler Smith, Amazon.com:
"Echoes of a Friend" offers one of the finest tributes to the memory of John Coltrane that this listener has heard. Who better to extend the musical accolades than Tyner, who of course served in Coltrane's famous quartet for the last six years of the great saxophonists life?
This album was recorded five years (1972) after Coltrane's death, and Tyner's musical progress is evident, especially on his version of "My Favorite Things." Recording it was a bold move, given the intense identification of the piece with Coltrane. Tyner had of course played on the Trane's original version in 1960 and on nearly all of the saxophonist's subsequent reinventions of the tune. Tyner stays away from the familiar hypnotic waltz-time refrain he had played on the original. This version is at times thunderous, almost orchestral in its density, and its rhythms, melodies and overtones are far more complex than any version I heard him play with Coltrane. It's a masterpiece.

Another great inclusion is "The Promise," which he recorded with Coltrane on the "Live at Birdland" release. The composition was, for me, one of Coltrane's best, although it's rarely if ever mentioned when Coltrane's best writings are discussed. Tyner captures the tune's dark melodicism, but he takes the tune at a slightly different pace and again layers powerful chords over lyrical passages he creates with his right hand.

One of Trane's enduring legacies is that he urged musicians always to look for their own voice. There have been many musicians since his death who have found ways to imitate his sound. Tyner showed with this release (he was only 32 years old at the time) that he had truly absorbed the message, incorporating the best elements of Trane's music with his own unique sound on the piano.