The Night Beat celebrates National Piano Month

Join Doug Crane every Wednesday evening in September as he celebrates National Piano Month on The Night Beat by highlighting a different album each week.

On September 4, tune in to hear McCoy Tyner’s “Trident.” Released in 1975 on Milestone Records, it features pianist McCoy Tyner in the company of drummer Elvin Jones (McCoy’s bandmate from the John Coltrane Quintet in the 1960s) and bassist Ron Carter (who appears at Dazzle with his Foursight Quartet on Monday, September 9 through Thursday, September 12). Beautifully recorded at the Fantasy Studios in Berkeley, California during February 1975, it was McCoy’s first trio album in over ten years, the last being “Nights of Ballads and Blues” from 1963 recorded for Impulse Records.

Musically it contains McCoy’s three songs written for the date, an up-tempo version of Antonio Carlos Jobim’s “Once I Loved”, John Coltrane’s “Impressions”, a staple of the Coltrane quartet that included Tyner and Thelonious Monk’s ballad “Ruby, My Dear”.

I bought “Trident” when I was a senior in college shortly after it was released. (Yes, I am that old.) It remains one of the albums that I most often listen to as do all of the albums we’re featuring each Wednesday.

The rest of the month includes the Bill Evans/Claus Ogerman collaboration “Symbiosis” (1974) on September 11, Ahmad Jamal’s “Blue Moon” (2011) on September 18, and Monty Alexander’s “In Tokyo” (1979) on September 25. We’ll have more to say about those albums each week. But it’s one thing to read about them, and quite another to hear them.

Doug Crane joined Carlos Lando and Steve Chavis Behind the Mic on The Morning Set to share more on his programming around National Piano Month!

Make sure to tune in to the Wednesday Night Beat throughout September beginning at 8 p.m. only on KUVO Jazz.

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