The McCoy Tyner Quartet is the kind of jazz band that other bands write tributes about, and tonight Bermudians music lovers will get a chance to hear them live at the Ruth Seaton James Centre as part of the Bermuda Festival.

The blues-based piano music of McCoy Tyner had its humble beginnings in his mother?s hairdressing salon where Mr. Tyner often held jam sessions with other young musicians.

Mr. Tyner, 64, now has one of the most ubiquitous improvised piano playing styles in modern jazz music.

?I want to get as much beauty out of the instrument as I can... and to be as spontaneous as possible,? said Mr. Tyner in 1962. ?To me, living and music are all the same thing... I play what I live.?

He was born in 1938 and educated in Philadelphia?s fertile jazz and rhythm-and-blues scene of the early fifties. As a young pianist he fell under the spell of blues and bebop. As a teenager he met his hero and Miles Davis sideman, John Coltrane.

In 1958 Mr. Tyner left Philadelphia to perform and record with The Jazztet, the legendary group founded by Art Farmer and Benny Golson.

Two years later, Mr. Coltrane helped to recruit Mr. Tyner for what would become one of the most celebrated and controversial groups in modern jazz.

In the early sixties, Mr. Tyner?s became well-known for his unique jazz piano vocabulary that critics said transcended the status quo styles of the time, providing a unique harmonic underpinning and rhythmic charge.

He performed on popular recordings like ?My Favorite Things? and ?Africa/Brass?. He also recorded under his own name, debuting with Inception in 1962 and progressing through a number of titles such as ?The Real McCoy? and ?Time for Tyner?.

Mr. Tyner remained steadfast in his committment to acoustic piano despite the growing popularity of fusion and electronic keyboards.

In recent years he put out the album ?Land of Giants?.

Nancy Ann Lee of ?Jazz & Blues Report? wrote of the album, ?To have such accomplished piano masters as pianist McCoy Turner and virbraphonist Bobby Hutcheson sharing the front line and spotlight is precisely what makes this straight-ahead album sizzle.?