By Duane Shinn
 Bill Evans was born on the 6th of August, 1929 in Plainfield, New Jersey. He started learning to play the piano when he was six years old. In 7 years, he added two more instruments to his repertoire. His first gig was when his brother Harry had to be substituted for Buddy Valentino's band. He was familiar with the music it was the same kind of music that he was practicing at home. He continued playing boogie-woogie there on in clubs in and around New York City.
He was awarded a scholarship to Southeastern Louisiana University where he played to an audience Beethoven's Third Piano Concerto in a recital in 1950. He left the institute with a degree in piano performance and teaching. While in college, he founded the Delta Omega Chapter of the Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia - a fraternity for people with an interest in music.
After graduation, he served in US Army after which he returned to New York and continued to gig. He set himself up as a sideman for bands playing Third Stream jazz - an |
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By Duane Shinn
 Alfred McCoy Tyrner, better known by the last two words of his full name - McCoy Tyner, was both on the 11th of December, 1938. His mother pushed him towards his love for the piano, by sending him for piano classes when he was 13 years old. The piano classes got him hooked to the instrument in a couple of years by the time he turned 15. His early inspiration came from the playing of Bud Powell with whom he was neighbors. His playing was distinguished from the other sounds that people have drawn out of the piano.
He had a very distinctive way of playing the bass notes with his left hand, which he positioned higher than the normal posture of piano playing allowed him to so that he could lay heavy emphasis on the notes that he played with that hand. His right hand's style of playing too had a similar catch -the staccatos and arpeggios that he played with his right hand contributed to this unique sound of playing. These two factors and his method of chord voicing, which has a |
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