# Scenes: Les McCann in his element made it real: If not beyond compare, the pianist and singer truly was one of a kind: Video, Photos

- Link: https://jazzblues.eu/2024/01/12/les-mccann-in-his-element-made-it-real-if-not-beyond-compare-the-pianist-and-singer-truly-was-one-of-a-kind-video-photos/
- Published: 2024-01-12T00:02:22+01:00
- Author: https://JazzBlues.EU

**Pianist and vocalist Les McCann passed away on Friday. Known mainly as a soul 
jazz musician, his rich artistic history includes musical experimentation, political
engagement, photography, and painting. **

In 2008, I went to Telluride, Colorado for a summer jazz festival, where I spoke
on a panel titled “The Jazz Life” and filed some radio coverage. On a walk through
Telluride, I wandered toward Popcorn Alley, a historic street with brightly painted
buildings that once comprised the mining town’s “sporting district.” If something
was illegal or disreputable, it happened on Popcorn Alley: gambling, murder, and
most of all, prostitution.

On Popcorn Alley’s northwest corner, I noticed a large Black gentleman—he must have
been 300 pounds—holding court from his wheelchair.

That looks like Les McCann, I thought.

That is Les McCann, I realized.

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Mr. McCann was scheduled to perform at the jazz fest that evening. I’d been informed
earlier that he wasn’t giving interviews in Telluride, so I approached him only 
to say hello and offer some quick appreciation for his music. When Mr. McCann and
I got along well, his handler offered me a chance to record a little on the spot.
Busy Popcorn Alley was not an ideal recording setting, nor was I carrying proper
equipment. I only had a small recorder on me. Still, I couldn’t pass up an opportunity
to tape this soul jazz legend on the street.

The handler instructed me to keep it light: no music interview, he emphasized. I
did my best to follow his instruction with a jocular conversation, though Mr. McCann
and I did end up discussing music and art’s profound meaning to him. In the course
of our discussion, he hailed women to his side, engaged with kids, and accepted 
praise from fans.

Instead of a traditional interview, I captured something just as essential: Les 
McCann as a true character improvising the moment. In a 2015 conversation with Chris
M. Slawecki, Mr. McCann referred to himself as a people person:

“I was born to be a people person. And I thank God because I am able to do what 
I really love doing. When I go to the market, I’m talking to everybody in the store.
The light I see in my eyes is the same light I get from other people who I know 
are happy in their life; or if I need to give someone a song, I’ll do that too. 
That’s just what I am.”

This nine-minute clip is an example of that interaction: Les McCann holding court
in a public setting, giving people life and gaining new life for himself in return.

When Les McCann died last Friday, at the wryly appropriate age of 88, a particular
window of experience closed on the American musical scene. As was justly noted in
the initial round of coverage, including a fine NY Times obituary by Andrey Henkin,
McCann was “an early progenitor of the bluesy, crowd-pleasing style that came to
be known as soul jazz.” His recording career spanned 60 years, give or take, and
countless hours of earthy exuberance. It also yielded a handful of chart successes,
including one hit so incandescent that it still threatens to cast all else in shadow.

I’m referring of course to a song that McCann laid down with tenor saxophonist Eddie
Harris at the Montreux Jazz Festival on June 21, 1969, in a performance later included
on the Atlantic album Swiss Movement. As noted in a brief but spot-on assessment
on his Substack, “This is [the] rare occasion when I can write the following cliché
about music I really love: The opening track, “Compared to What,” absolutely captures
some of that 1969-era zeitgeist.”

My own obit for McCann … I chose to drop into the wave: the piece opens with an 
unabashed focus on “Compared to What,” because I think its runaway success illustrates
something about the artist as well as his audience. As I wrote in the obit:

The song’s temperament, outraged and despairing, captured something crucial about
the era; so too did its rhythmic drive and righteous, consuming fervor. When Atlantic
Records released “Compared to What” as a single, it spent four weeks on the Billboard
Hot 100; _Swiss Movement, _the live album on which it appears, held a spot on the
Billboard 200 for 38 weeks.

Rather than make an obligatory nod to the juice of McCann’s outsize hit, I wanted
to stop and really consider it for a moment. I couldn’t find a reliable tally, so
in order to clock the duration of _Swiss Movement’_s tenure on the Billboard 200_,
_I plugged in the dates for each week’s chart during that period. As an armchair
diversion, keeping Iverson’s zeitgeist remark in mind, I paid special attention 
to the No. 1 album during each of those 38 weeks. When _Swiss Movement _entered 
the chart at #183, the week of Dec. 13, 1969, the presiding chart-topper was The
Beatles’ _Abbey Road, _which held on to that slot through the week of Jan. 10, 1970—
a total of 10 weeks at No. 1.

Here are all of the subsequent No. 1s in this period, which tell _some_ kind of 
story about American culture as the ‘60s lumbered into the ‘70s.

 * Led Zeppelin, _Led Zeppelin II _(7 weeks at No. 1)
 * Simon & Garfunkel, _Bridge Over Troubled Water _(10 weeks at No. 1)
 * Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, _Déjà vu_ (1 week at No. 1)
 * Paul McCartney, _McCartney _(3 weeks at No. 1)
 * The Beatles, _Let It Be _(soundtrack) (2 weeks at No. 1)
 * _Woodstock _(soundtrack) (4 weeks at No. 1)
 * _Blood, Sweat & Tears 3 _(2 weeks at No. 1)
 * Creedence Clearwater Revival, _Cosmo’s Factory _(9 weeks at No. 1)

The album that knocked CCR off its perch was Santana’s _Abraxas — _another beneficiary
of the Woodstock Effect, alongside the film soundtrack, CSNY’s _Déjà vu,_ and the
third album by Blood, Sweat & Tears. But Les McCann and Eddie Harris had gracefully
exited the chart by then, having already achieved what precious few jazz acts ever
manage: an album of enduring popular appeal.

The next album you could say this about actually overlapped with _Swiss Movement:
_Miles Davis’ jazz-rock hallucination _Bitches Brew _entered the Billboard 200 the
week of May 16, 1970 (see CSNY, above). It hit its peak position of #35 during the
week of July 4, 1970 (see _Let It Be, _above), and held on for a total of 29 weeks.
The sound of Miles and Joe Zawinul’s alchemy on _Bitches Brew _— and, let’s be honest,
the album’s commercial reception — led McCann to concoct his own brew, producing
another, less-heralded but often funkier album, _Invitation to Openness, _with Yusef
Lateef on flutes and reeds, Cornell Dupree and Jody Christian in the chordal mix,
and a drum corps featuring Bernard Purdie, Alphonse Mouzon _and_ Donald Dean.

Thinking about those aforementioned chart toppers with _this _music in the background,
I can’t help but think of the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival — the contemporaneous
concert series often affectionately called “the Black Woodstock,” and indelibly 
captured in the award-winning recent documentary Summer of Soul_. _If I told you
Les McCann has a scene in that film demolishing “Compared to What,” you might catch
the fib — but maybe not without a moment’s hesitation first.

Partly this is because McCann, the song’s message, and his irresistible groove just
feel so perfectly in tune with the pulsing energies in the film. Partly it’s his
lifelong insistence on playing music for the people, with an implied understanding
of what, and who, that means. Over the last several months, I’ve been listening 
to a lot of _Never A Dull Moment! Live From Coast To Coast (1966​-​1967), _which
finds McCann doing his thing to perfection in a pair of first-rate jazz clubs. It’s
a beautiful illustration of his grounded exaltation at the piano, and his unbeatable
instinct for tension and release.

By pure happenstance, today also saw the publication of the Francis Davis Jazz Poll,
in which I’ve cast a ballot for each of its 18 years. If you’re interested in critical
consensus, I’d encourage you to check out the poll; thanks to the diligent numbers-
cruncher Tom Hull, you can cross-list the results with individual ballots. (Mine
corresponds to the Top 10 that I filed to NPR Music a few weeks ago.)

It’s not my aim to drag jazz criticism here (again, I am a member of the guild),
but the timing of this poll got me thinking about critical blind spots — the sort
of structural biases that, however harmless in intention, end up undervaluing someone
like McCann. He certainly didn’t suffer obscurity during his active years, but neither
did he receive all that much thoughtful consideration.

Partly inspired by Henkin’s perceptive Times obit, I plugged McCann’s name into 
the NYT archive, which only turned up a few desultory reviews. One, by John S. Wilson,
was published on July 18, 1970, when Swiss Movement was still hanging onto the chart.
Taking in a Jazz in the Garden concert at MoMA, Wilson centered his remarks on how
the music was received: “Mr. McCann’s quartet poured out its rhythm with such communicative
joy that they had the whole garden rocking and clapping.” (Where’s that bootleg,
I wonder?)

I’m not sure whether I ever had a good opportunity to cover Les McCann during my
years as a reviewer at the Times; he had a stroke in the ‘90s, and dropped off the
scene for a while. If I did have the chance, I blew it. There’s cold comfort in 
knowing that a lot of others passed on reviewing him, too. (Looks like we always
end up in a rut…) One thing I’ve tried to do in recent years is take a good hard
look at my taste profile, in an effort to preempt this sort of thing and, as it 
were, try to make it real.3

It only feels fitting to give McCann the last word, and I’d like to do so with a
hat tip to my friend and colleague , who posted this lovely remembrance today on
her Substack, Call & Response. It features audio of a brief but meaningful exchange
at the 2008 Telluride Jazz Festival, which is a real delight.

McCann was, rather famously, an irrepressible raconteur, a playful flirt, and a 
genial Buddha; all of this comes across in the clip. At one point, Michelle asks
whether he ever gets tired of playing “Compared to What,” and he doesn’t wait a 
second before answering: “No.” What follows is well worth hearing.

It’s about everything. It’s about religion, about life, about God, about truth. 
It’s about how we live.

The damn stair lift isn’t working! And it’s brand new, too! Three men fiddle with
it, jump up and down on it, push the buttons over and over while jazz legend Les
McCann sits in his bulky, airline-style wheelchair in the hot sun, sweat beading
up on his bald head.

McCann waits patiently. “This happens all the time,” he says. Ever since he started
using a wheelchair after a 1995 stroke, he’s been to many a jazz club — like the
Jazz Showcase here in Chicago — where access has been a struggle.

All of a sudden, the lift works. A burly, no-nonsense-looking, African American 
man pushes McCann onto the platform.

Cure Dextra Closed System with tip advancing technology. Request samples.
 McCann
rises up.

Inside the Showcase, McCann sits sunken down in an easy chair, his wheelchair folded
and tucked away against the wall. As he’s introduced, he struggles to his feet. 
He places his hand on the shoulder of his burly assistant and walks behind him, 
hunched but steady, up the steps of the stage. The assistant leads McCann to the
bench of the electric piano.

This is the band of young jazz saxophone star Javon Jackson, featuring Les McCann.
They play the song “Cold Duck Time,” a classic tune off McCann’s classic album, 
Swiss Movement. It’s a crowd-pleaser. And later, McCann sings, and his voice sounds
as strong and soulful as ever. It’s a crowd-pleaser, too.

After the set, settled back in the easy chair, McCann admires my wheelchair. It’s
scuffed and dirty and taped up, but it’s a space age beauty compared to his basic
box. He says he’s learned a world of stuff in more than a decade living the wheelchair
life. He’s even lived the nightmare of finding himself trapped in a nursing home.
It happened early in 2008. After being hospitalized for emergency hernia surgery,
he was sent to what the doctors said was a rehab center for therapy. “The first 
night, they gave me this big old red pill,” he says. He took the pill, then he asked
what it was. “And they said, ‘Well, Mr. Johnson …’ And I said, ‘Mr. Johnson! That
ain’t my name!’”

At the nursing home, people sat around and moaned. There was very little therapy.
There was nothing to do, and of course there was no piano. After two weeks, he had
to get out. “I called my buddy. I said, ‘Back the truck up and I’ll be ready to 
go.’”

McCann didn’t tell any of the staff or residents he was leaving. He just left. He
was never happier to see home sweet home, his cramped and cluttered apartment in
Los Angeles.

The masterpieces of McCann’s career are Swiss Movement and its platinum single opening
song, “Compared to What?” McCann and his longtime musical partner, the late saxophonist
Eddie Harris, led the quintet set recorded live at the Montreux Jazz Festival in
Switzerland in 1969. The music is classic because it has a thoroughly funk rhythm
and heart, McCann plays an acoustic piano and the performance is immersed in the
spirit of straightahead jazz. McCann sings the romping and gleefully defiant “Compared
to What?” — which for me ranks near the top of the many protest songs of the era.
Here’s an example of the timeless lyrics:

The President, he’s got his war
 Folks don’t know just what it’s for Nobody gives
us rhyme or reason Have one doubt, they call it treason We’re chicken-feathers, 
all without one nut. God damn it! Tryin’ to make it real — compared to what?

McCann says of the song, “It’s about everything. It’s about religion, about life,
about God, about truth. It’s about how we live. The first time Bush won, they were
playing it on the radio in New York City and a bunch of Republicans called the station
talking about how mad they were because they thought it was about him.”

McCann broke into the music business as a singer. He won a talent contest when he
was in the U.S. Navy in 1955 and the prize was an appearance on the Ed Sullivan 
Show. He sang “It’s Almost Like Being in Love.”

But as a pianist, he’s self-taught. He was born in 1935 in Lexington, Ky., and his
parents couldn’t afford piano lessons. Critics, especially those with a stubborn
purist streak, have sometimes been harsh on McCann. “I was probably the most put
down musician of all. They told me I was no good, I was terrible.” Maybe his critics
don’t like how his musical body of work is rooted so deeply in the dreaded funk 
groove, or the way it strays off into realms like Rhythm and Blues and mainstream
pop. Whatever. McCann’s fellow musicians often disagree wildly. Jazz piano legends
like Oscar Peterson, Bill Evans and Horace Silver have come to hear him play and
complimented him, he says. “Musicians who tell me they like what I do emphasize 
the funk. They say no one was as funky as me. They also emphasize my ability to 
play ballads the way I used to do it.”

McCann says he tries not to think about where he’s going or where he’s been in his
career or his life. “I just go to work.” He says. “I don’t predict anything. I have
no fortune telling ability. You do what you do and whatever comes out comes out.”

The stroke hit him in Germany, just as he was preparing for his evening gig at a
jazz club. “I knew something was wrong when I woke up from my nap to go to work.
I couldn’t move. I couldn’t feel anything. I couldn’t get up from the floor.” He
insisted that his band members take him to the club, but a doctor met them there
and immediately sent him to the hospital. “When I woke up in the morning, they told
me I had a stroke due to diabetes.”

He stayed in the German hospital for six weeks and he was treated like gold. “They
offered everything to me because of their love for jazz, American jazz.”

His rehab was at UCLA, where again he was treated wonderfully. He was diligent in
his therapy, but his right arm and leg were weak and practically useless. He couldn’t
play piano for nine months. But the same live-in-the moment sensibility that guides
his music helped him gain a calm perspective on living with a permanent disability.“
I knew that my life would be different. I allow it to be what it is. I can’t command
things. I can’t say, ‘This is how it’s gonna be.’ I knew that it was a time in my
life for me to learn something, which is what life is all about as far as I’m concerned.
Every event is a chance to learn something.” Even if he never played again, McCann
figured, he could still sing. He could still teach.

But slowly, the right hand and leg returned enough for him to play and get around
again. He says he’s playing at about 65 percent of his capacity. And there are still
great days when something returns and he says to himself, “Oh wow! That finger’s
working now!” He only plays electric piano now. Playing a grand would exhaust him,
he says.

McCann was lucky because his apartment building was accessible and he doesn’t use
a wheelchair inside his home. So he didn’t have to move. “When I’m home I don’t 
come anywhere near a wheelchair. I always got something to lean on. I couldn’t fall
if I wanted to. There’s stuff everywhere. Junk.”

Those few days in the nursing home were some of the starkest and most sobering days
of McCann’s disability learning experience.

“That was a very frightening experience. I realized I was in deep shit. I wasn’t
doing anything. I was just lying there every day. I’d go downstairs for a half hour
of therapy. Couldn’t even see the Super Bowl game. Nothing. It’s like being in a
prison because there’s nothing you can do. It got to the point where I would talk
to the therapists and I’d say, ‘Hey man, take me outside! I’ll pay you! Go put me
in the sun, okay?’”

There was no one to turn to. McCann’s daughter and primary physician thought it 
was best for him to give up his apartment and stay there indefinitely, he says. “
It hurt me in my heart that my daughter felt I needed to be in a place like that.
That was kind of hard to deal with because my daughter, being a doctor, her only
focus is on medical things. I tried to let her know that there’s more to my life
than medical things. I have a heart. I like to laugh. I like to have fun. My doctor
kind of agreed with her and I finally realized there’s only one person here that
counts and that’s me. I realized I had to make the move myself.”

That’s when he called his buddy with the truck. And he hasn’t spoken to his daughter
since. “This was part of the learning too. Whatever, I’ve been totally happy ever
since.”

Last year McCann traveled extensively with Jackson’s band, and he plans to keep 
doing so for as long as he can. “I’ll probably die on stage somewhere. Be okay with
me. Take me out back, dump me out in the yard. Put up a marker that says ‘Thanks
Les, good bye, whatever.’”

When he’s not on the road, he doesn’t go out much. But home is where he creates 
music and paints watercolors and watches football and basketball. So home is a place
of joy. And when he does go out, it’s often in the company of a certain “beautiful
young lady friend.”

“I’m extremely happy. If it got any better than this, I’d be throwing up,” McCann
says. “There have been days when I couldn’t move, the pain was so hard. Those are
rough days. But I know they don’t last forever. It might be like a new song that
I have trouble learning. But I know that if I work on it, I will get it.”

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