McCoy Tyner's Solo on Blues on The Corner

The great McCoy Tyner

OK, sports fans! I get the message. Based on my stat counter, there is considerable interest in transcribed solos. And, in my effort to try not to disappoint my readers, I have decided to keep the momentum going by digging up this McCoy Tyner transcription. It's from The Real McCoy, a classic album on Blue Note from the 60's featuring Tyner on piano, Joe Henderson on tenor saxophone, Ron Carter on bass, and Elvin Jones on drums. If you want the quintessential McCoy Tyner, this is the album to have.

Tyner has long been one of my favorite pianists: indeed, I felt as though I had to stop listening to him, in order to not sound like him so much.  However, sometimes it's more beneficial to go deeper into one's study of a particular artist, as opposed to developing a superficial imitation. With more in depth study, one can realize that "gee, I don't sound like my favorite jazz musician after all." I also felt, from an educational and academic standpoint, I wanted to see exactly what Tyner was doing, and document it, just to be thorough. It took some time-and if you see me in the vicinity of a piano, do NOT ask me to play this transcription, 'cause it's HARD.

One aspect that made my transcription of "Blues On The Corner" difficult was the left hand. It wasn't so much the notes as it was the rhythms. Oftentimes, piano solo transcriptions will omit the left hand. However, I believe the left hand gives an important look at what the pianist was thinking, and how the pianist "comps" for himself or herself. And in McCoy Tyner's case, his playing is very two-fisted. So that took extra time. Another thing that made this transcription challenging was the predominant triplet
rhythm of the piece. Sometimes, it was perplexing as to whether to notate a particular passage as swung eighth notes , or triplets, or in the case of double time, sixteenths. Finally, some of the right hand runs were so fast that even slowing the recording down to 25% speed didn't make it any easier. So only Tyner might actually know what he really played.

So here is is. As before, it's fun to listen along with the track while you follow the written music. And some of this solo really surprised me: for example, the left hand chords will be three note fourth voicings, and then all of a sudden switch to four note third voicings, which might be considered inconsistent, but it all sounds right- because all of the music has that magical "McCoy Tyner touch". Also, Tyner uses more augmented 4ths, whole tone scale, and diminished implying harmony that I realized. The pacing of the solo is great, and there is much use of motivic and harmonic development. Even just a bar or two of this solo can open up a whole world of ideas for you. Enjoy!