What, Me Worry? McCoy Tyner and the Pentatonic Scale
It may be the most ubiquitous scale in the world and arguably the oldest. Anywhere in the world, when someone carves a flute, plucks a string or twangs a piece of metal they inevitably stumble into some variation of a 5-note-pentatonic-scale. It sounds good. It offers simplicity, yet potential for tension and relaxation. You can use it to create chants, melodies and twist it to suit your fancy. The blues, early jazz, then rock, are all about the pentatonic, with a few altered notes for good effect. But kids, in the early 1960's, something happened to pentatonic and its name was McCoy Tyner. The change was rooted in necessity-an uneasy adaptation to 'free' jazz, as I'll describe below. But 45 years later, reverberations from the changes wrought by the gifted Tyner are still ringing and for me, a re-evaluation, fresh ears and new adaptations are called for. Back in the 1960's, the question McCoy had to ask himself was: What do you do if you're playing a fixed-pitch instrument with someone(Coltrane) who has left the diatonic and chromatic restrictions of Western music behind; who has essentially bid adieu to the harmony that underlay jazz for the last-say-50 years. The answer, of course, is to find a way to fit in.
McCoy's approach, his strategy, his solution, was to alter his playing so that the harmony he played was based on "perfect" intervals-4ths and 5ths-and yes, in this most sophisticated of musics, the musical scale this most accommodated was our old friend, the 'primitive' pentatonic scale. In McCoy's"open" harmony, almost anything could happen. Notes "not on the horn," as they say, could be at least partly accommodated. There was a transitional period when it seemed to work for Coltrane and other times when he asked McCoy to lay out. As the texture of Trane's music grew even denser, just changing the harmony wasn't enough and McCoy used another creative approach: shift the weight of the piano from melody and harmony to percussion. Pedal tones were one good way to do that-you could really land on those suckers-but it meant harmony was still in the mix. McCoy pushed percussiveness as far as he was comfortable, but he was not Cecil Taylor. Eventually, the fabric of Trane's music grew so dense that accompaniment as usually understood became superfluous.
Ok-I've strayed. Pushing the piano's percussive envelope is a question for another time. It's the widespread leakage of McCoy's harmonic approach into the general language of jazz that feels off; like the kid who's too old, but shows up at the playground anyway and doesn't fit in the swing; kinda like Jelly Roll Morton's "Spanish Tinge" run amok. Come to think of it, let's play a Latin tune; Blue Bossa, maybe.====================================================================================
Tyner In Amber, or: Jazz in the Kali YugaThe old saw is that an artist has to be "of his time." This is particularly an active principle in the world of painting, which puts "newness" near the top of the value scale. For me, a better idea is "rootedness;" the illusory quality that makes art seem both of its time and timeless.
How do you know what has or lacks this quality of rootedness? Maybe start by noting when you don't see, hear or feel it. Watching great young musicians who have worked thousands of hours mastering this incredibly complex harmonic and rhythmic music jazz (yes, I left out melodic-that's a different post)), I marvel, even wallow vicariously, in their technique, but I say to myself: poor bastards. This is not their time. It's not, as some of my friends say, an issue of education or exposure and it's certainly not to insult the honest effort of jazz musicians. I'm simply saying that the tools they draw on-such as those developed by Tyner-appear to be impotent in the face of the power, energy and momentum of this epoch-whether or not you call it the Kali Yuga. Like all of us, these musicians are suspended in a magnetic field; one that seems to consign their music to the margins, but which is simply dancing its way through destruction to re-emergence.
I know a piece as ambiguous as this will be subject to wide misinterpretation. Some will say: "is he telling us jazz musicians should sell out? No. Frankenstinian attempts to graft on the kind of music that many people do like are ludicrous. Or: "are you saying the Jazz Blog Industry should shut down?" Shoot no-I'd be out of a non-job. And if you say to me: "Alright, smart guy, what resources and tools are you then asking musicians to draw on," I can only say: self-awareness, which is no kind of answer at all. Then again, I'm just the guy who's standing in a dark room, with enough insight to know he's in there, but who is too stupid or riven by habit to know how to do anything except continue to confuse a rope for a snake.10 comments:
- Tom Hall said...
- So Steve, what you're basically saying is that jazz sucks, right?
(sorry - I couldn't resist)
But thank you for justifying all the hours I DIDN'T spend learning how to play Giant Steps.
I'm not sure that rootedness is the best word for that "illusory quality that makes art seem both of it's time and timeless.", but I certainly like the idea of moving away from "newness" as a dominant value.
And whatever it is, I think it's not illusory, (well, unless it's all Maya), but very real.
You pick on Tyner's pentatonics in your example, but I think it really points to a larger issue in jazz (pedagogy). The problem is not the tools (such as pentatonics) but confusing the tools with the music - the idea that mastering more (and more complex) tricks and tools is the same as learning how to create music.
I believe the key to all creation is improvisation. The rootedness you are speaking of is the rootedness of a person fearlessly improvising themselves, in that moment, as a musical expression (and I mean self in the widest sense).
It's not Tyner's pentatonics, but Tyner, in that moment, improvising an expression of his being-in-the-world, using pentatonics. It's not James Brown saying "Ungh. Hit me!". It's James Brown, in that moment, improvising an expression of his being-in-the-world. And on and on.
I believe musical learning, like all other real learning we do should start with that moment of improvisation, and move outward, rather than starting with the tools someone else used in their moment, and trying to go inward. - Tom-Touche...Actually, thanks very much for your comment. It presents one cogent, reasonable way to move forward. It does leave the question open of the extent to which-or the process by which-the history of the music is absorbed by young musicians,
Inre 'rootedness,' or whatever one may call it-yes, it's real, but it's damned sliippery to particularize. - Tom C said...
- After reading this article I can only speak for myself. If a jazz musician has his roots in the Blues, I’ll listen to him, or her. If they don’t, I’m no longer interested. I know that’s rather simplistic, but it’s been good to me for nearly 60 years of listening to Jazz. It doesn’t matter whether they’re from the 1940s or last month. The rule never changes and I can lead a much less complicated life.
Tom Curry
Jazz From The Top - Zumix Radio
www.reallypissedoff.com - Steve Provizer said...
- Tom-the blues is a great touchstone. There are times, tempos, situations when the musical aesthetic is so different that other criteria seem to be called for.
- gerardcoxblog said...
- Many young pianists, in an earnest effort to sound modern, consult the time-worn touchstones of Bud Powell, Herbie, McCoy, and Chick.
Some don't manage to escape a patchwork identity based from these same influences. Others however, manage to take these pianists' languages and to weave them, along with their own personal language, into a compelling voice. Not something dramatically new on the order of a Cecil Taylor, but if you are playing tonal music and music that complies to regular meters, this is no simple feat.
I would cite as examples, Geri Allen, Marc Cary, the late Kenny Kirkland, and Stephen Scott.
They're all very distinctive players but they all come from this well of influences. Scott has also brought Ahmad Jamal's influence to bear on what he does, and few piano players have really tried to reckon with that language. - Mary Anybody said...
- As a jazz student, you find yourself in a world of its own, with its own rules and hierarchy. Basically, high up on the ranks you find the people who can play what the old cats could play, and it takes time to realize that even though it's necessary to know the history of the music we're playing, the characteristic of a jazz musician should be his need to go forward, even if not everybody understands it or it doesn't relate as much to the jazz school commons.
But it's hard to find out how much of the jazz history you have to absorb to understand jazz, in order to find a way for yourself after.
Yours truly, one of the poor bastards, I guess :) - Steve Provizer said...
- The idea of "moving forward" mentioned by Mary begs the question of which musical genre a young person is likely to choose as a platform to accomplish that. Jazz has a dense, hundred-year history, with stars and a canon. That has its appeal, but is intimidating.
Hip hop is a much younger genre-both in terms of history and demographics, as is rock and roll.
Making your mark in any genre is not easy, but all other considerations aside-and there are many-jazz seems like a particularly daunting place for a young musician to operate in order to forge a personal musical identity. - Steve Provizer said...
- On a lighter note, Mr. Anonymous writes:
"stuck in amber, it comes down to just faithfully being your quirky old self without looking over your shoulder all the time to see who's following or laughing at you. by the time the dust settles, you'll be too dead to know the difference if there is any to begin with." - Mary Anybody said...
- I just love sarcasm, thanks for that!! Plus, it has a you-can-do-everything-if-you-believe-in-yourself touch.
Both combined: it makes my day!
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And yea, misuse over time of tools is one aspect. I also think the Great Man problem is part of it. We mortals are so susceptible to falling under the sway of the great ones-and this relates to the big conversation on the Alice C. post-Ya wanna get the inspiration, but like an adolescent who has to break away (kill) his parents, the metaphorical-musical surgeon's knife must be wielded.
McCoy's placement and attack are of course paramount and I believe that is the energy that inspires most listeners.
observations of interest
Both McCoy and Bill Evans use a lot of pedal. McCoy uses it to project and he hits the piano harder than most players I ever saw. I also noticed that when McCoy played, he would raise his left hand over his head and come down on the piano like the wing of a bird descending. That interested me far more than pentatonics.McCoy's left hand was the one thing most imitators could not seem to grasp. But McCoy's use of the pedal is largely for projection. For Bill Evans the pedal was used to allow phrases and tones to bleed and blend into each other much like the way Chopin players like Horowitz and Rubinstein use the pedal.
It's cool if you can't relate to Tyner's concept or style. Just keep it at that though. Don't make a convoluted argument about "solutions" because all you're really talking about is your own taste.
There are people who have extended his concept BTW, though I doubt you're that familiar with them. Marc Cary, James Hurt, and Stephen Scott have all adapted his approach in interesting ways. Cary is thoroughly "pentatonic" but extremely musical about it. Hurt brings an air of unpredictability to it all, and Scott refracts it through some of the most badass rhythmic sensibility around. Of course there's also Mulgrew Miller, though I'm sure he's passe in your book also.
I loved that photo on the cover of the Farmer/Golson group where a young McCoy first shows up and his band suit doesn't fit well so his pants are hiked way up over his socks as he leans into the Piano.
As a kid I marveled at those Sus 4's. You could get a punchy sound with the Tonic fattened by the 4 and 5 in a mini cluster while the right hand could float.
But once those groups with Ali and Pharoah happened or a furnace like Ascension, what's any pianist to do really? The mighty Cecil would be a mere canary fart in that sawmill.
And after leaving, he gave us years of stirring fun ensemble writing, maybe not as relentless as the Coltrane roar but edifying and compelling in the way something like Point of Departure is.
I like it anyway. That and 2 bucks 'll get you coffee.
Gerard doesn't like the solutions notion, but let me ask: If you were Trane's piano player, and your continuing in the group was in question, would you have gone gently into the good night-or might you have devised some strategy that would have kept you a viable presence?
There were two main issues as far as I've gathered: 1) sheer volume-- McCoy has said he couldn't even hear himself play....and 2) static harmony-- you have a piano player comping in large part to outline chords. But if there's only two or three chords to comp....you may as well have a Cecil Taylor just pounding and playing knotty fills everywhere. I think any piano player, McCoy included- would have found diminishing returns for his/her comping duties in that situation.
The only thing I could have seen is....ORGAN. Volume definitely would not have been an issue, and you can comp fewer chords but SUSTAIN them and create interesting swells as well as movement within the sustained chords. I would not have seen organ bass lines with Trane's group-- that would have "anchored" things a bit too much. But as some kind of harmonic foil and as a kind of third horn in the ensemble-- yes, I think it would have worked. It's interesting that Alice didn't really get into playing Wurlitzer organ until later. I could have seen her applying the same kind of playing she did with that organ in Trane's band....or Larry Young. Not clean, precise Larry Young but the textural, murky, Lifetime Larry Young (Khaled Yasin...)
Organ is an interesting idea, in terms of volume and sustain. The challenge is or was, that the Smith/McGriff and co. organ trio approach had saturated the musical environment and it was so specific.The leslie/blues/funk sound carried over into even something as different as Lifetime. Of course, you do have Sun Ra.
Of course, because Trane died so young (early 40s is young in my book), there are many things to ponder about what he may have done had he lived longer. Some consider this sacrilege or in poor taste...but I think for musicians, it is only natural to speculate about what a visionary musician like Coltrane could have gotten into had he been afforded more time on Earth. Also, I think there is a lot of meaning and purpose to be found in trying to extend the concepts of a historic musician who one finds great resonance in. I don't personally subscribe to the kind of fatalistic view that "they gave everything to the world that they had, and you shouldn't try to add to it" or that their body of work should be viewed as strict beginning and end. I take the view that someone's body of work is potentially unending insofar as their ideas permeate the work of their peers and future generations.
Near the end of his life Coltrane was working with the Varitone. He was fascinated with strings (Alice tried to honor this with Infinity)...and he wanted to incorporate hand percussion into his music more.
I think he probably would have been captivated by the world of synthesis as well.
imagine just BEING MT in that environment.
There really is a way to "comp" when the density comes,.or the energy goes way up,.just check out my man Chris Forbes on my record,.the manifestation drama.You can also "comp" when the music goes harmeilodic.(again I refer to Chris.)
Even at full bore many free players have a melodic sense,.and even harmonic progression,.improvised,.the Piano can still be there with us! (course this is best done in a playing relationship built over time)
yeah,.my spelling is WHACK..
However,.those artists could create great sonic landscapes for us to play over,.and go way past what Miles did with AURA..
If Trane found an orchestrator that created an environment he felt natural in,.
hmm,..
I recall having read his verdict that "Trane and Elvin would have been totally sufficient", and that "piano, and bass would nothing add to Trane's & Elvin's sounds which wasn't already there." -- Something like that he said.
Well, no one protested. I would have asked Miles, if that's so, why has Trane hired a pianist (and a bassist) at all? (Trane fulfilled his request with "Interstellar Space"; and Elvin played a whole week in his own Nagasaki jazz club just with bass, then completely alone).
I love McCoy's playing in the John Coltrane Quartet during that time of the great albums "My Favorite Things", "Coltrane's Sound", "Afro Blue Impressions", "Ballads", "A Love Supreme", "Crescent", "Coltrane", "Olé", and "Africa/Brass".
The "...plays Ellington"-album from 1964 is a marvel, isn't it? -- His later "fireworks" don't interest me too much. Too many notes.
I'm not particularly interested in pentatonic either. But when I hear it inside, and it would make musical sense I would let it come out of course.
It seems to be natural for McCoy to play it; it's the very same with fourths: If you don't hear them, you won't play them.
Let's take Woody Shaw (thanks for mentioning him, Ian) as an example: The fourth was "his"; he owned it; and so, everything he did on the trumpet with fourths came out perfectly logical, and musical. It was a natural thing for him to play in this way; just as it was natural for Bird and Trane - and for Harry James ;), to play the blues; as it was for Sonny Rollins to play the calypso; or for Monk to play old hymns, and swing standards: They grew up with it.
The pentatonic scale is only an extension of the blues; in a way. Some would call it intellectual (okay, some practice it too often), or technical, or just put-on (like many of Freddie Hubbard's phrases); but it is a natural thing to play for McCoy.
Weren't there enough Bill Evans-, Oscar Peterson-, and Bud Powell-clones around, then ... and unfortunately now?