The Manchester Craftsmen's Guild is sponsoring more than another concert this weekend in its Jazz Hall. In McCoy Tyner, who performs two shows on Saturday, it's playing host to a living history of jazz. And the Philadelphia pianist certainly appreciates that.

"It's an amazing American art form" that has taken him all over the world, Mr. Tyner says.

The 71-year-old musician received his inspiration from his mother, a beautician who loved the piano. When he took to the instrument her clients allowed him to practice on their pianos until she got him one. Incidentally, that piano ended up in his mother's shop.

"We used to have jam sessions in the shop," he says. "That's where all my jamming started."

Eventually he caught the ear of local band leader Calvin Massey, who invited the pianist to join his band -- and it happened that one of Mr. Massey's friends in north Philadelphia was John Coltrane, who was working with Miles Davis at the time. In 1961, Mr. Coltrane would invite Mr. Tyner -- "he figured I had a future in this business," he says -- to join his quartet, which recorded, among others, the classic "A Love Supreme."

"He was such a nice man, wonderful person -- it was a great period in John's career," Mr. Tyner says. "He kinda looked at me as a younger brother."

The pianist would become a potent musical force in his own right, releasing several influential albums for the Impulse!, Blue Note and Milestones labels in the 1960s and '70s. Today, he records for Telarc.

While the very engaging player says that jazz "was always evolving," he complains that "record companies try to commercialize things." He has occasionally stepped out of the acoustic jazz form, writing a tune, "Senor Carlos," for guitarist Carlos Santana and sitting in with the fusion band Special EFX on a tune called "Buttermilk Falls" from its 1985 CD "Modern Manners." However, he never felt the need to become more of a pop musician just for the sake of record sales.

"I didn't have to prove anything because of working with John," Mr. Tyner says. Although he does possess an electronic keyboard, "I never took to electronics that much."

Not that he's hurting for gigs.

"It's nice to be busy -- when you get too busy you can chop it down a bit," he says. "I do love what I do and people like it."

Critics Andrew Druckenbrod and Scott Mervis talk about music on "The Beat," available exclusively at PG+, a members-only web site of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Our introduction to PG+ gives you all the details.