McCoy Tyner: Extensions (UHQ-CD) [Blue Note 85th Anniversary Reissue Series]

This is a very special and wonderful CD certain to be enjoyed by jazz lovers and those with an appetite for "exotic" music. Most jazz CDs are simply a collection of songs; about the only thing unifying them is that they're all being played by the same people. McCoy Tyner's Extensions is the polar opposite. Although the term "concept album" is reminiscent of wretched excesses inflicted on an unsuspecting public by self-indulgent rockers and greedy music executives, it does apply here. The four tracks of Extensions, though wildly disparate, knit together into a perfectly integrated whole that casts a very particular kind of spell. Coltrane's ventures into the music of other continents and cultures are well known, and McCoy Tyner was right there with him. The presence of his widow, Alice Coltrane, whose harp adds an ethereal beauty to Extensions, seems both a literal and figurative homage to this sense of musical adventure and spiritual quest. Whether African or Asian, the feeling of other lands wafts through this music like trade winds; perhaps it is most accurate to say that the river Nile never seems too far away. To praise the individual players resembles gilding the lily. Tyner is arguably our greatest jazz pianist, and he is particularly on point here. Wayne Shorter is simply on fire, at times one can picture him lifting off the ground, his soprano saxophone work is especially appropriate to the feeling of transcendent searching that permeates this CD. If you can find a better jazz drummer than Elvin Jones, please tell me, his drumming churns like boiling water, simply amazing. Gary Bartz would be the headline in any other group, he and Shorter blend perfectly, while Ron Carter offers a solid foundation which is indispensable to this musical voyage. This music definitely kicks, it's got the heat and emotion one finds only in the best jazz. But it gives you more than it. Extensions offers deeply spiritual music for the journey, the journey beyond the horizon.