Alfred McCoy Tyner (December 11, 1938 – March 6, 2020 Philadelphia, PA) was an American jazz pianist and composer known for his work with the John Coltrane Quartet from 1960 to 1965, and his long solo career afterwards. He was an NEA Jazz Master and five-time Grammy Award winner. Tyner has been widely imitated, and is one of the most recognizable and influential jazz pianists of all time.

Tyner played professionally in Philadelphia, becoming part of its modern jazz scene.In 1960, he joined The Jazztet led by Benny Golson and Art Farmer. Six months later, he joined the John Coltrane quartet, which included drummer Elvin Jones and bassist Steven Davis. He worked with the band during its extended run at the Jazz Gallery, replacing Steve Kuhn. Coltrane had known Tyner for a while growing up in Philadelphia, and recorded Tyner’s composition “The Believer” on January 10, 1958, which later became the title track of Prestige Records’ 1964 issued album under Coltrane’s name.

The band toured almost non-stop between 1961 and 1965, recording many albums widely considered jazz classics including My Favorite Things (1961) for Atlantic Records and Coltrane “Live” at the Village Vanguard (1962), Ballads (1963), John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman (1963), Live at Birdland (1964), Crescent (1964), A Love Supreme (1964), and The John Coltrane Quartet Plays (1965), for Impulse! Records.

While in Coltrane’s group, Tyner recorded albums in a piano trio. In late 1962
and the first half of 1963, Tyner was asked by producer Bob Thiele to record more straightforward jazz albums as a leader. These included Reaching Fourth (1963), Today and Tomorrow (1964), and McCoy Tyner Plays Ellington (1965).

In a 2017 review, Marc Myers of JazzWax said “…the finest of these straightforward piano recordings was Nights of Ballads & Blues. Tyner’s playing is exciting and exceptional on all of the tracks… On the album, he exhibits a reserved elegance and tenderness that reveals the other side of his personality—a lover of melody and standards. In this regard, there are traces of Oscar Peterson in his playing. Perhaps Thiele was using Tyner to take a bite out of Peterson’s vast and successful early-’60s share of the jazz market.”