Trident

The 1970s proved to be McCoy Tyner’s decade. In the years after leaving the John Coltrane Quartet in 1965, his career went in fits and starts, to the point where he gave serious thought to leaving the piano bench to sit in a taxi cab 8 hours a day. Tyner’s to jump to Milestone for 1972’s Sahara was a commercial and critical breakthrough and 1976’s Trident is his crowning achievement, though one hiding behind a gray cover and what seems to just be a trio date. But what a trio it is! Elvin Jones, Ron Carter, and Tyner exhibit spontaneous swapping of melodic-harmonic-rhythmic duties and hairpin turns of phrase that defy belief. Tom Jobim’s “Once I Loved,” Coltrane’s “Impressions,” and Monk’s “Ruby, My Dear” toggle between unassuming and tour-de-forces at a moment’s notice. Between them, the three had thousands of recording dates, yet this is somehow the lone instance of them as a trio.