It’s Always Time for Tyner: Atlantis
“Atlantis” is a long composition (17 minutes and 56 seconds to be precise), but I strongly suggest playing it while you read my Tyner-inspired Atlantean reverie . . .
[Click here to play McCoy Tyner’s “Atlantis” on Spotify or Youtube or Apple Music or Deezer]
“Everybody has a function and a person can do but so much. My function is to play music. I’m trying to uplift and stimulate people through my music. You see, I believe a good musician is a medium. He's a medium through which truth and divine messages come. A musician is a messenger; he delivers the message.” – McCoy Tyner [Source: The Black Scholar, Vol. 2, No. 2, BLACK LABOR (October 1970), pp. 40-46]
One of the most profound spiritual experiences of my life took place in a bathtub in Dubrovnik while listening to McCoy Tyner. McCoy Tyner was one of the greatest jazz pianists and composers of all time. And I can honestly say that “Atlantis,” an epic track from Tyner’s 1974 live album of the same name, transformed and possibly saved my life.
Listen. A metal gong or wind-chime rings. An ominous clang. Is it Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique? Then, slowly but surely, the piano gently cascades in, like waves encroaching, waves enveloping, waves engulfing a lost civilization. Then the sax! Drums! Bass! More percussion! Chaos. And then beauty . . . the piano hammers back in, that left hand pounding out the melody that will propel us for almost 18 minutes of glorious music . . . as the images pour forth . . . a temple being built, a temple demolished, and rebuilt again? An island drowned . . . only to be reborn? There is a cosmic cycle at work here . . . the waves, the tides, the rise and fall of empires, from the big bang to the final collapse . . . with that throbbing pulse, the pulse of life, a pulse of beauty and energy and dynamism, crashing through, propelling us forward, into the next aeon . . . everything is gone . . . what remains? Energy. Neither created nor destroyed, merely transferred. The saxophone shrieks and wavers . . . in and out . . . the drums and cymbals clash . . . the bass quivers and darts. . . but that piano line is our guide, our light at the end of the tunnel . . . like our daimon, our genius, our guardian, carrying us through . . . and Tyner is indeed our genius, our divine messenger, the psychopomp guiding us through this daimonic jazz symphony, this convergence of harmony and noise at this crossroads of time and space . . . daimonic, dynamic, deliberate . . . the water’s rising, steadily rising . . . the pillars crash . . . and still that left hand pounds on, beating, drumming, throbbing with life, pulsing with energy . . . as societies collapse, temples fall, traditions end . . . the water’s still rising . . . will we drown or be transformed?
Let me set a scene. September 18, 2021. It’s my 43rd birthday. I am now fully vaccinated after months of trying to get any European country to give me the jab. We’re in Croatia, on the outskirts of Dubrovnik, a medieval fortress-city surrounded by stone walls. Our modern apartment is just a few steps from a sandy white beach on the Adriatic. I’ve been self-quarantined for so long. So cloistered. So afraid. Paralyzed by crowds. Paralyzed by fear. Unwilling or unable to go outside. The embodiment of agoraphobia. Perpetually indoors, confined for months. Weeks would pass between quick jaunts outside for a hesitant gasp of fresh air.
But today I am finally free. At last I am willing to take a chance. We go out to our first fancy dinner in many months. Grilled octopus and fried squid. Home-made bread drenched in early harvest olive oil. A bottle of bubbly, sparkling rosé, followed by a refreshing carafe of Pošip. Crème caramel for dessert. We return to our apartment beneath a crescent moon and the star of Hesperus, where the huge claw-foot bathtub awaits. Wildstar prepares my bath of renewal, of escape, of transcendence. He lights candles. He burns jasmine incense. Adds herbs and lavender, healing bath salts. And a warm blanket of bubbles. I am the hero, returned from battle. I am the queen, reclining on her barque. I am the voyager, resting from my weary journey. I ease into the hot water and cue the song. McCoy Tyner. Atlantis. As the water rises around me, I hear the ringing wind-chimes, the sound of the gong. Is it Berlioz? Then the piano cascades in, washing away my troubles and fears, washing away the last year and a half of anxiety and uncertainty, as that daimonic left hand guides me, my messenger, my healer, propelling me forward, waters rising . . . waves encroaching, waves enveloping, waves engulfing . . . and I am renewed, restored, reborn. I refuse to live in fear. I will go outside again.
***
I feel McCoy Tyner is shockingly neglected as a composer. His original compositions showcase his dynamic use of modal chords, pentatonic African harmonies, and a fusion of melodic influences from around the globe. His work is the natural extension of the classic jazz canon: beginning with Jelly Roll Morton and the early pioneers of ragtime, blues and stride; reaching Olympian heights with the revelatory sound of Louis Armstrong, the inexhaustible oeuvre of Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn, and the thrilling artistry of Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young, Count Basie, Mary Lou Williams and Art Tatum; soaring through the bebop rebellion of Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Bud Powell, Max Roach and Art Blakey; resonating with the vocal brilliance of Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, Sarah Vaughan and Carmen McRae; and extending further into the modern trails blazed by Thelonious Monk, Sun Ra, Miles Davis and John Coltrane. Revolutionary figures like Ornette Coleman, Charles Mingus, Sonny Rollins, Herbie Hancock, Nina Simone and Alice Coltrane would push jazz forward in a myriad of astounding new directions. I personally feel Tyner deserves a central place in this canon as the legitimate successor to Coltrane and the principal architect of acoustic jazz innovation in the late 1960s and the entire decade of the 1970s, with an astonishingly prolific career of perfect albums, diverse collaborations and nonstop excellence that continued all the way up to his recent death in 2020 at the age of 81. His playing style, meanwhile, has influenced literally every single jazz pianist who followed.
Tyner’s work as part of John Coltrane’s legendary “Great Quartet” is deservedly beloved by all jazz aficionados (namely on iconic albums like My Favorite Things, Africa/Brass, A Love Supreme, and Ascension), as is his work with Wayne Shorter (Night Dreamer, Juju) and many other exemplars of modern jazz. But the following playlist focuses on my favorite of Tyner’s original compositions from albums where Tyner was either leader or solo. Listen here:
And if you want to do a Tyner deep-dive, check out my much longer playlist – “It’s Always Time for Tyner,” which includes one track from every single McCoy Tyner album on Spotify. Happy listening!
I was not familiar with McCoy Tyner. A nice find. Thank you.