McCoy Tyner: Atlantis tour: El Mocambo: Toronto.
When I heard McCoy Tyner was playing in Toronto, over 100 miles away, I phoned to make reservations. I played a Strat and Marshall, but I had 10 McCoy Tyner and 15 Elvin Jones albums. I jammed along to them, always feeling live, never memorizing anything. I had to see him. I brought my girlfriend, bassist and drummer, saying if we didn't take time off I would quit, being rude this one time. I owned the truck and P.A. We were highway hairblown and unkempt, fifteen feet away and I could see the keyboard. You could see all the conservatory types and jazz cats, the whole room almost white shirts, black pants, ties and jackets, around 200 people. After the band took the stage, wearing dashikis and looking afro, they were introduced and started to play.
McCoy had a little stringed box he started picking and strumming, and the whole room got quiet to listen, the band sounding tentative, getting louder. McCoy gradually withdrew this instrument from the mike and started playing piano. What can I say? They worked up a sweat right away. What was new to me was one sax player starting to bubble up a low to high riffage and the other saxist picked up the high end and kept it going like a round, and the whole band developed some swirling sound that was a sonic effect. Incredible! I was surprised the bassist was playing a Fender Jazz bass through an amplifier, but that didn't matter. They were great. They quieted down, getting silent, and I started to clap. Alone. People stared at me. McCoy was looking at me. Others started clapping and it turned into applause. After the set, McCoy turned and walked a few feet to the end of the bar and I saw the bartender pour him an orange juice. He was standing alone.
This made me smile to myself. Eating lemon and lime slices and maraschino cherries was my fruit of the day in bars, unless there was too much mix and I could get an orange or tomato juice. I went over to shake his hand and we started talking. I decided not to mention John Coltrane. He said he just finished a yearlong hiatus, living in New York driving a cab, tending the orange tree in his backyard, and was having problems breaking strings in club pianos, not hauling his piano over the border. My drummer came over just to shake his hand, and we talked for twenty minutes. He laughed when I said I could only jam along for five or six minutes before I ran out of riffs, and he said if I ever get all the way through, especially with hit pop vocals, give him a call. McCoy, I'm ready! His eye was caught, he said he had to play again and shook my hand one more time. Eyes were on me as I went back and we got very nice non-alcoholic service after that. It could have been expensive. What a generous and truly gracious man. We stayed as long as we could.
Over twenty years later, I was making a sign in another city, and visited a performance space owned by friends. A guy in a slick, shiny green suit was sitting at the end of the bar, and my friend said he was a bass player from Buffalo looking for a gig. I looked, looked, and it was Juini Booth, McCoy's bassist. I said out loud, do you know who this is? This is one of the top five bassists in the whole world. My friend said, John, is that true? I said it louder again. I went to the stage, not asking, and grabbed an acoustic guitar, and without a strap, squatted down in front of Juini and began fingerpicking a cadenza with a Gm7sus5+15. Not warmed up, running out of steam, I looked up, and the room was quiet. Juini said you don't have to play all the strings all the time, and showed me flattening two strings. He denied ever playing a Fender through an amp, but I insisted, and he remembered this rental after his bass was stolen in New York. Two months later he gave a solo performance upstairs and I visited as much as I could when he gave friends lessons.
Two years later, I got a phone call. It was Juini in Buffalo, visiting his mother, asking if I had a car and would drive him to The Toronto DesMaurier Jazz Festival, saying he'd put me on the list. I borrowed a new one. We parked and were standing on the sidewalk when we heard Juini, Juini, and a face was looking out a window in a tinted stretch Mercedes. It was Pharoah Saunders and his band. We hopped in and drove around the block a few times, looking at the crowds and uh, not breathing the city air. Pharoah was the headliner that Friday, and we went backstage for the buffet, fresh fruits and pastries and drinks. All day, every venue, Juini and I tripped around until we found ourselves sitting with Pharoah at the executive lounge where the round circle jamming went on until after four. I was asked to play twice, but I didn't even think to bring my guitar. I was offered a beautiful f-holed jazz acoustic with two humbuckers, but I'm a hard-core lefty. Aaaah! It still hurts.
McCoy Tyner. I still hear his thunder when the thunder rumbles across the night sky, and I feel his meditation after the rain. Niama, still my favorite solo piano. Beethoven, with the cloudburst in the middle of The Fifth Symphony, comes close, but McCoy didn't have pieces of paper in front of him. Passing on some of the jazz lifestyle, precious! How truly rare that enchantment is.