LOS ANGELES (CelebrityAccess) – Jazz titan Les McCann, known for his partnership with Eddie Harris on the protest song “Compared to What,” died Friday (December 29) at a Los Angeles hospital. His death was confirmed via McCann’s manager, Alan Abrahams, and the cause of death was pneumonia. He was 88.
“He brought something from the Black church to jazz,” said Abrahams, a producer of gospel albums.
McCann, born in Lexington, KY, on September 23, 1935, grew up in a musical family with his father, a fan of jazz music and his mom, a fan of opera tunes, which, according to Wikipedia, she hummed around the house. He taught himself to play drums, piano and tuba while growing up in the Bluegrass state. After entering the U.S. Navy, he won a singing contest, which led to an appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show.
After joining the Navy, he moved to L.A., where he began his musical career in the 1960s. While there, he met and started making songs with saxophonist Eddie Harris – the duo’s breakthrough came during the 1969 Montreux Jazz Festival – where Miles Davis gave McCann his approval.
They released the live album Swiss Movement from that very jazz festival, and the protest song of the Vietnam War titled, “Compared To What,” also recorded by the great Roberta Flack, became a hit and took the album to gold status.
The piano player and singer, per NBCPhilly, was an architect of the soul-jazz sound and helped jazz connect with counterculture’s protest music. McCann’s material has been sampled profusely over the years by Warren G., Slick Rick, Notorious B.I.G., Dr. Dre, A Tribe Called Quest and others.
Quincy Jones said, “Les McCann has been a musical force of nature since he burst on the scene in the early 60’s. Whenever I heard him live or on record, he always did the unexpected.”
RIP
