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Nights of Ballads & Blues
Studio album by McCoy Tyner
Released	Early July 1963
Recorded	March 4, 1963
Studio	Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ
Genre	Jazz
Length	38:48
Label	Impulse! A-39
Producer	Bob Thiele
McCoy Tyner chronology
Reaching Fourth (1962) Nights of Ballads & Blues (1963) Today and Tomorrow (1963)

Nights of Ballads & Blues is the third album by the jazz pianist McCoy Tyner, released on the Impulse! label in 1963. It features performances by Tyner with Steve Davis on bass and Lex Humphries on drums.

Reception

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic
DownBeat
The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings
The Rolling Stone Jazz Record Guide

The jazz critic Harvey Pekar said in his August 29, 1963, review for DownBeat, "Tyner's playing has many virtues, but one in particular is his tastefulness. There is nothing trivial about his music; he is, to quote an often used phrase, a 'musician's musician.'" The AllMusic review by Stephen Cook states that the album "qualifies as one of the pianist's most enjoyable early discs".

Reviewing the album in 2017, Marc Myers of JazzWax said: "For some strange reason, in late 1962 and the first half of 1963, Tyner was asked by producer Bob Thiele to record more straightforward jazz albums as a leader... Tyner's playing is exciting and exceptional on all of the tracks... On the album, he exhibits a reserved elegance and tenderness that reveals the other side of his personality—a lover of melody and standards. In this regard, there are traces of Oscar Peterson in his playing. Perhaps Thiele was using Tyner to take a bite out of Peterson's vast and successful early-'60s share of the jazz market."

Track listing

1. "Satin Doll" (Ellington, Mercer, Strayhorn) - 5:40
2. "We'll Be Together Again" (Fischer, Laine) - 3:40
3. "'Round Midnight" (Monk) - 6:23
4. "For Heaven's Sake" (Elise Bretton, Edwards, Donald Meyer) - 3:48
5. "Star Eyes" (De Paul, Raye) - 5:03
6. "Blue Monk" (Monk) - 5:22
7. "Groove Waltz" (Tyner) - 5:31
8. "Days of Wine and Roses" (Mancini, Mercer) - 3:21

Personnel

• McCoy Tyner - piano
• Steve Davis - double bass
• Lex Humphries - drums

References

1. "Four-Star Albums: Jazz". Billboard. Nielsen Business Media, Inc. July 20, 1963. p. 12 – via Google Books.
2. ^ DownBeat: August 29, 1963, Vol. 30, No.24
3. ^ Cook, S. AllMusic review. Accessed February 19, 2009.
4. Swenson, J., ed. (1985). The Rolling Stone Jazz Record Guide. USA: Random House/Rolling Stone. p. 194. ISBN 0-394-72643-X.
5. Cook, Richard; Morton, Brian (2008). The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings (9th ed.). Penguin. p. 1425. ISBN 978-0-141-03401-0.
6. "McCoy Tyner: Ballads & Blues - JazzWax". www.jazzwax.com. July 18, 2017. Retrieved March 8, 2020.

• 1963 albums
• McCoy Tyner albums
• Albums produced by Bob Thiele
• Impulse! Records albums
• Albums recorded at Van Gelder Studio