(The Minnesota Star Tribune)
Piano legend McCoy Tyner to headline 2017 Twin Cities Jazz Festival
The former anchor of the John Coltrane Quartet will play St. Paul's Mears Park as part of the free outdoor summer event.
March 21, 2017 at 10:07PM
One of jazz's all-time greats, pianist McCoy Tyner, will headline this summer's Twin Cities Jazz Festival.
The powerhouse keyboardist who helped drive John Coltrane to his greatest heights, Tyner (pictured above) remains a commanding presence at age 78, as he proved in gigs last fall at the Dakota Jazz Club. He'll play the free stage in St. Paul's Mears Park at 8:30 p.m. Saturday, June 24.
The roster for the 19th annual festival sticks pretty closely to the jazz tradition, after flirting with New Orleans R&B (2015 headliner Dr. John) and pop/hip-hop (2016 act Michael Franti) in the past couple years.
The lineup also includes a trumpet great – New Orleans-steeped talent Terence Blanchard. (It wouldn't really seem like TCJF without a taste of NOLA; last year it was piano professor Ellis Marsalis in the headline slot.) An Art Blakey-schooled veteran who's been a solo artist and frequent film composer (see: Spike Lee) since 1983, Blanchard (pictured at left) also was a recent visitor to the Dakota with his funky E-Collective. (8 p.m. Thursday, June 22 Mears Park.)
There's a rising star on tap, too. Anat Cohen (right), the Israeli-born, New York-based clarinetist and saxophonist who has concocted a beguiling blend of jazz, classical and Latin American traditions – including choro, an old musical style sometimes called the New Orleans jazz of Brazil. (8:30 p.m. Friday, June 23, Mears Park.)
And, finally, there's a local hero: Bobby Lyle (left), the keyboardist who launched his career in Twin Cities nightclubs as a teenager and became a leading light in the jazz-funk-rock era, playing with Young-Holt Unlimited, Sly & the Family Stone, Ronnie Laws, George Benson and the late Al Jarreau – not to mention serving as musical director for Bette Midler. (6 p.m. Saturday, June 24, Mears Park.)
The three-day festival in Saint Paul's Lowertown will include two other free outdoor stages – those acts will be named later – as well as performances at more than 20 clubs and other venues.
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