JAZZ REVIEW : Tyner Backed by Hayes and Sharpe at Vine St. Bar & Grill

There may be safety in numbers, but at times there is security in solitude, as pianist McCoy Tyner demonstrated occasionally during his opening set Thursday at the Vine St. Bar & Grill.

Given a chance to express himself without accompaniment, especially when the vehicle is a ballad such as “Don’t Blame Me” or “Yesterdays,” Tyner can display unhampered the harmonic imagination, the rococo runs and fills that virtually turn these over-familiar pieces into original works.

The trio numbers were something else again. His opener, “Li’l Darlin’,” was a jarring energy trip in which the loud pedal seemed to be continuously in action while the drummer Louis Hayes and bassist Avery Sharpe maintained a furious level. Other up-tempo numbers more often than not had the same hyper-tense character; once the theme had been stated, the pianist opened up the floodgates and the notes poured out, often 16 to a bar.

Tyner still has in him an innate feeling for the blues, as became apparent during “Frank’s Back,” a hard-driving but traditionally based excursion. Here and elsewhere, however, it became apparent that much of the success of the trio is due to the phenomenal work of Avery Sharpe.

Even in these times of extraordinary bass players, Sharpe stands out. Slapping and zapping the strings, walking and chording, he turned every solo into a riveting tour de force. Hayes, featured too frequently in a solo capacity, is an intelligent drummer but sometimes too forceful; he might more effectively have used brushes instead of sticks on certain numbers.

Listening to a set by the Tyner trio is akin to sitting at the ocean’s edge during high tide, observing the waves rising and falling, wondering whether their swell may drown you, then watching them recede just in time. Ideally, a set equally divided between solo and trio numbers would yield even more rewarding results than were audible on this occasion.

The group closes Sunday.