Eldar vs. Tyner: Clash of the Block Chord Titans - A Potential Experiment

Mrs. S, who if pressed to pick a favorite jazz pianist would pick Billy Taylor, often says she also likes McCoy Tyner, but every time I put on a Tyner CD, she goes, "Oh, sounds like Eldar!" Now I must admit that by the simple fact that both of these guys use all ten of their fingers practically all the time, they share some degree of similarity, but personally, I can tell right away when I'm listening to Tyner and when I'm listening to Eldar. Maybe it's familiarity or expectation, but I wonder if there isn't something fundamental in the selection of the chord or the inversion or the voicing that I'm picking up on subconsciously in order to know whether I'm listening to Tyner or listening to Eldar. It's a classic philosophical conundrum that could probably be solved with some transcriptions and/or heavy listening. I'm just not really sure it is worth pursuing. I usually pick the music we listen to in the evenings, so I always know what we are listening to. It may be as simple as that. Maybe I can use the iPod shuffle function to produce a listening experiment, but again, I have too much familiarity with the music. Maybe when my next club CD (Time for Tyner) comes, I'll pick up the Eldar CD that's been on my Amazon wish list forever and ever and let Mrs. S load them up before I listen to them or learn the track names, then let her play some songs at random and see if I can tell the difference just by listening to their playing styles. The results might be noteworthy.

Worked on So What with my instructor last night. Still have some rhythmic challenges to overcome on the bass line, but as Newt pointed out, we don't have to worry about that too much, since if I ever perform the song (someday), the bass player will have that line anyway. We did a run through of Easy to Love as well. The only revelation I had last night: A flatted fifth is a whole tone above the third. (Never thought of it that way before.) That should make it easier to pull those chords out in the middle of songs, I think.

Added May 23:
Controls for the experiment
Results
Analysis