At age 67, jazz pianist McCoy Tyner is still trying to figure out who he is. This is good news for music lovers.
Tyner said he has always been driven to explore his identity through music. That has been a constant in a 50-year career that began in a Philadelphia R&B band and includes historic collaborations with jazz great John Coltrane as well as a successful solo career.
"You have to exercise your creative mind," Tyner said in a recent telephone interview. "When I write my music, I'm exploring the question of who I am. After all these years, there's still much to be done. I'm just lucky that I can continue to travel and record, and that there are music lovers who encourage me to continue exploring."
Tyner, who will perform at Duke Oct. 19, is still making his mark in jazz as a collaborator, soloist and songwriter. His last album, "Illuminations," brought Tyner his fifth Grammy Award in 2005.
"I never thought of myself as an innovator," he said. "I'm not trying to do things just for the sake of doing something different. But working and writing is about the most important thing in my life. Often I find myself trying to reach back to an old song and find something new in it."
He was 17 when he met Coltrane. The two men were both Philadelphians with small-town North Carolina roots: Coltrane, who was then performing with Miles Davis, was born in Hamlet and raised in High Point; Tyner's parents were raised in Murfreesboro in Hertford County.
"I was playing in a R&B band in Philadelphia, but because I was a teenager, I couldn't go into a lot of places and perform," said Tyner, who was able to get a job in the house band at a local club called the Red Rooster. "Coltrane heard me and invited me to perform with him in a concert, and the relationship just grew from there."
Tyner performed with Coltrane on the saxophonist's legendary albums such as "A Love Supreme" and "My Favorite Things." One of the keys to the collaboration was Coltrane's ability to communicate his deeply personal music to Tyner and the other performers.
"He was like an older brother to me," Tyner said. "That was the kind of relationship we had, and the kind of way he talked to me about music."
Breaking out into a solo career in 1965, Tyner has led trios, septets and big bands. He has been influenced by music from Asia and Africa and has written lush string arrangements. The thing that ties everything together, he said, is his belief that "music is the mirror of the soul."
"After all these years, I'm still happy if people find some joy in my music," Tyner said. "If that happens, I guess I've served a purpose."