It's The Pianists That Made The Jazz Great

For me, the high period of jazz was between about 1945 and 1970 - roughly between Charlie Parker's first be-bop album and Miles Davis' Bitches Brew. I'd like to sing the praises of the pianists, all of whom I can't name, but some of whom I can. Wynton Kelly, McCoy Tyner, Bill Evans, Chick Corea, Joe Zawinul, Herbie Hancock, Bobby Timmons, Cecil Taylor, John Hicks, Thelonious Monk and Horace Silver. To name but maybe a third of them.

I'm going to frame this. Think about when, say, Miles or Coltrane or Cannonball or Shorter or any of the other superstar virtuoso frontmen stop and the pianist takes a solo. Do you notice any real change in the quality of music? McCoy Tyner could complement Coltrane's fierce soloing, just as Wynton Kelly could swing with his very own joy, contrasting Miles' more brooding, intense playing. You notice the difference in style, in voice, but not in quality. Or to put it another way - these guys could keep up with the best extemporising musicians of the twentieth century. You and I and your music teacher and the kid who won the Leeds Piano competition would not have a chance. Some were composers in their own right: Zawinul, Timmons, Taylor, Monk. Some had the technical skill and background to head all the way over to European avant-garde music: Taylor, Hancock, Corea.

I'm actually going to say this: without these pianists and others, the jazz of that period would have been good and sometime great. With them, it was great and sometimes timeless.

Would Kind of Blue have been the same without Bill Evans' floating chords? Here they are in Blue In Green.


Would You Gotta Have Freedom be what it is without John Hicks' piano?


Would My Favourite Things be one of my favourite things without Tyner's chords?


And here's Cecil Taylor being, well, pretty mid-Twentieth century avant-garde, except with a touch of swing and blues...