LES McCANN

Leslie Coleman McCann (Lexington, Kentucky, 23 de septiembre de 1935) es un pianista, cantante y compositor de jazz estadounidense. Es una de las figuras centrales del llamado funky jazz.

Instalado en California, en 1959, comenzó acompañando al cantante Eugene McDaniels, aunque pronto formó su propio trío, con el que tocó a comienzos de los años 1960, frecuentemente, en clubs de Nueva York. Tras tocar en la escena del West Coast jazz, consigue un cierto éxito cuando comienza a cantar, especialmente con el tema "Compared to What". Viaja con frecuencia a Europa y comienza a experimentar con sintetizadores y sonidos eléctricos, además de impulsar a músicos como Roberta Flack o Monty Alexander y participar en grandes conciertos con figuras del R&B y el rock, como el concierto de Acra (1971) recogido en el film "Soul to Soul". A mitad de los años 1990, y tras una gira con Eddie Harris, un infarto le separa definitivamente de la escena musical.

                 

Leslie Coleman McCann (born September 23, 1935) is an American jazz pianist and vocalist.

McCann (left) with the Les McCann Trio (Herbie Lewis & Ron Jefferson), 1962

Winning a Navy singing contest led to an appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show. McCann's main career began in the early 1960s when he recorded as a pianist with his trio for Pacific Jazz. In 1969, Atlantic released Swiss Movement, album recorded with saxophonist Eddie Harris and trumpeter Benny Bailey at that year's Montreux Jazz Festival. The album contained the song "Compared to What", and both the album and the single reached the Billboard pop charts. "Compared to What" criticized the Vietnam War. The song was written by Eugene McDaniels years earlier and recorded and released as a ballad by McCann in 1966 on his album Les McCann Plays the Hits. Roberta Flack's version appeared as the opening track on her debut album First Take (1969).

After the success of Swiss Movement, McCann, primarily a piano player, emphasized his vocals. He became an innovator in soul jazz, merging jazz with funk, soul, and world rhythms. He was among the first jazz musicians to include electric piano, clavinet, and synthesizer in his music.

In 1971, he and Harris were part of a group of soul, R&B, and rock performers – including Wilson Pickett, the Staple Singers, Santana and Ike & Tina Turner – who flew to Accra, Ghana to perform a 14-hour concert for over 100,000 Ghanaians. The March 6 concert was recorded for the documentary film Soul to Soul. In 2004 the movie was released on DVD with an accompanying soundtrack album.

McCann had a stroke in the mid-1990s, but he returned to music in 2002 when Pump it Up was released. He has also exhibited his work as a painter and photographer.

On June 25, 2019, The New York Times Magazine listed Les McCann among hundreds of artists whose material was destroyed in the 2008 Universal fire.