McCoy Tyner's fourth studio album has a split personality, with three tracks featuring an intriguing sextet of all-stars, and the rest with his trusty trio, done eight months apart. Perhaps the tracks with bassist
Jimmy Garrison and drummer
Albert Heath were leftovers from a prior incomplete or aborted full session, but anything
Tyner played in this period was precious. The larger ensemble recordings present trumpeter
Thad Jones as ostensible co-leader, composer of one selection, and lead soloist. Tenor saxophonist
John Gilmore and alto saxophonist
Frank Strozier join forces with
Thad Jones to make what some might deem an unlikely front-line triad, but effective enough considering their established individualism. Bassist
Butch Warren and drummer
Elvin Jones support the six-piece band, the first and only appearance for
Warren with
Tyner while the pianist was still with
John Coltrane. The jewel in this collection is
Tyner's "Three Flowers," a keeper that his big bands played prolifically later in life. Here the sextet hits the modal 3/4 beat with a thinner harmony under the lithe, soaring, enduring, and beautiful melody line. The
Thad Jones contribution "T 'N A Blues" is an easy, basic, and short 12-bar chart with a phenomenal solo from
Gilmore, while "Contemporary Focus" is a down-the-Nile signature sound for the controlled modal power
Tyner wields, with
Thad Jones belting out his bopping solo. The trio tracks are standards done with hints of other songs to begin with.
Tyner fools you into thinking he's taking off on "Impressions" when it's actually "A Night in Tunisia"; "Autumn Leaves" has an improvised modal starting point that is quite spontaneous; and the chiming, wanton ballad "When Sunny Gets Blue" drips with all the pure emotion that
Tyner can wring out of a weepy piano. The musicianship is so strong that it's hard to deny the high quality of what is presented here.