Famed Jazz pianist McCoy Tyner credits his mother?s resourcefulness and ingenuity with getting him where he is today.

He grew up in Philadelphia during the forties and started playing music at a young age. His mother ran a hair salon and he would often practice the pianos in the houses of her clients.

?Let?s just say nobody who had a piano ever walked out of my mother?s hair salon with a bad hair do,? Mr. Tyner said from his home in Manhattan during a telephone interview with . ?Then one day a piano arrived in the beauty shop.?

While his mother?s clients sat under the hair dryer, Mr. Tyner would play the piano.

?We would have a jam session in the shop,? he said. ?When I was a bit older, we use to get requests from hooligan guys in the neighbourhood and you had to play what they wanted to play or they?d call you out. That was only when I had a big band.

?Philadelphia is a big city, but it has a small town feeling. It has a closeness. People care. When I was growing up people cared for each other.?

He said his mother died a few years ago and he really misses her.

?My mom was really cool,? he said. ?She was really proud of me and I owe it all to her. She talked to me like a friend. She had confidence in me.?

Mr. Tyner said he has been to Bermuda on vacation and had a great time. He is looking forward to the warmer weather.

?I played there a long time ago,? he said. ?It is long over due for me to come back. It is a beautiful, beautiful island.?

Of his fame and popularity, he said: ?I have invented a style, something that is indigenous to me. That is what an artist should strive for, self-identification and be able to distinguished from other artists. If you dig deep enough the individuality will come.?

He said we are born with a sense of individuality and it emerges as we acquire the tools to let it out.

?You also have to have the ability to execute your ideas,? he said. You can have the greatest ideas but not be able to execute them. That is the intellectual side of it. There are various ways to look at music spiritually, intellectually, physically. If it is really good, all the things fall in line.?

During his Bermuda Festival Performance this Friday and Saturday he has an exciting programme planned.

?I am going to do some of my current stuff from my album, ?Illuminations?.

?I am going to do various songs that I have written over the years such as ?Fly With the Wind?. I will be doing some of the highly identifiable classic songs that I have written over the years. I will be doing a mixture of other things. I will be doing a song I wrote for Count Basie and also John Coltrane.?

He said he couldn?t begin to express how wonderful it had been to work with music legend John Coltrane.

?That was an experience,? he said. ?I couldn?t have had a better teacher. He was a wonderful person and a real genius. I learned so much from him. I met him when I was 17 years old. I knew who he was when I met him.

?I use to sit on my mother?s porch and play with him. He told me that when he left Miles Davis he wanted me to join his band. It eventually happened. He was such a nice guy. I was so lucky.?