MCCOY TYNER — Song for My Lady (review)

MCCOY TYNER — Song for My Lady album cover

Album · 1973 · Post Bop

5/5 · 2011-06-23
Sean Trane

After the stupendous Sahara album, McCoy faced an awesome task to top or at least equal his recent effort, and the most amazing fact is that he easily succeeded, as if almost effortlessly so. He did so by keeping the Alphonse Mouzon, Calvin Hill and Sonny Fortune and added three players on two tracks of the album. Recorded over two sessions in the fall of 72, Song For My Lady is Tyner’s second masterpiece in a row, but it’s really the fourth essential album that everyone should own. The cool peaceful artwork is an extra bonus as well;

Opening on the 13-mins Native tong epic track with an extra violin player, Tolliver’s flugelhorn and Mtume’s wild percussions, this hypnotizing groove sends chills down the spine when Tyner lays his hands on his piano and plays up a storm and Fortune’s flute add to the charm, often drawing goose-bumps and tears of happiness. McCoy has been for the last three decades my favourite pianist, and even today, I can’t find someone with a meaner left hand that has graced the ivory and ebony notes. Indeed McCoy ‘s left paw seems to play a second lead-piano hand, and following his southpaw’s progress throughout most of his career (from Trane until recently) is simply orgasmic and flabbergasting (well if you can believe it, words fail me). A mind-blowing piece that should leave no-one indifferent. The other track (“song” if you wish) from that early September session with the added personnel is the 11-mins+ Essence which closes the album, but it opens on a percussion & horn passage, seems to jump-start too soon (Mtume’s percs are amazing), but once Tolliver blows the army bugle, the cavalry gets grooving, and we’re off to another fast-paced standard jazz, where Tolliver’s horn and Fortune’s tenor soar above, but Tyner’s underlying stupendous piano chords are where the real show lies.

From the second session (late November), we find the three shorter tracks (everything relative in those days), starting with the Thousand Eyes Night cover, almost a wild 100-MPH groove that revisits Sahara’s ambiances where Mouzon drums up a tornado to allow Fortune’s tenor sax to wail ala Trane. The title track is no less impressive, but takes a slightly calmer road (down at 90 MPH), but Tyner knows why he named the album after this song: his piano cruising is astounding, Fortune’s sax flirting with dissonance but never stepping too far. And if that was not enough, Tyner treats us to a delightful solo piece of (you guessed it) … piano. Indeed the superb Silent Tear is the icing on the cake, showing us what his two lead-piano hands can do on a single pad. Awesome stuff.

Well, Song for My Lady is not really an apt title for this monster-album, because I’m not sure your partner will appreciate the insanity and lightning-speed of these tracks, but if she ever does, don’t let her go, because she’s understood a thing or two about the beauty of life. If you’ve ever been curious about just how far a piano can send you cruising across the cosmos, I couldn’t recommend you enough Sahara and the present album. Wayayay more than essential… It’s THE thing.