When South African jazz lovers heard that McCoy Tyner performed in Angola in August, they pressurised the events management company that brought the pianist to the diamond-rich country. They wanted to see the legendary artist live in South Africa. The organisers of the Cape Town International Jazz Festival – who were also the ones responsible for bringing him to the neighbouring country – have obliged. The 71-year old pianist will perform in Cape Town as part of the festival that takes place on 3-4 April. ‘After the announcement that McCoy Tyner will be part of this year’s line-up our phones have not stopped ringing, with people congratulating us for signing the pianist for the festival,’ says festival director, EspAfrika’s Rashid Lombard.

That there is such excitement is no surprise. It is no understatement that Tyner is a doyen of jazz piano. Known for his distinctive blues-based and lyrical piano style, the left-handed US artist has single-handedly defined the vocabulary of jazz piano over the last forty years. Through albums such as Sahara (1972), Enlightenment (1973) and Trident (1975), Tyner is one of the first jazz musicians to consciously re-introduce African and East Asian inflections into the genre. In addition to the piano, in these recordings he added a traditional Japanese stringed musical instrument known as a koto, a harpsichord and a celesta as his other instruments of choice. While renowned for his trio works, in the 1980s, Tyner was at the forefront of re-arranging jazz charts for big ensembles. He even experimented with a fusion of his music with a string orchestra.

Read more in the February 2010 issue of CLASSICFEEL