Soul jazz pioneer Les McCann dead at 88
Soul jazz pioneer Les McCann died at the age of 88. The musician has released over 60 records since his debut in 1960 and has been kept endlessly relevant thanks to samples by the likes of Snoop Dogg, Notorious BIG, and several others in the hip-hop movement.
Over the course of his career, McCann creatively paired jazz with soul and funk elements to create a new hybridised genre. This culminated in his 1969 protest anthem, ‘Compared to What’, which saw him sing, “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.”
Thanks to his groovy compositions, he later became a heavily sampled artist in hip-hop. This inclination of the genre was indicative of the beat-driven melodies he created in his innovative works. His own early musical inspirations were derived from gospel music played at the local church, which he had been attending in Lexington, Kentucky, with family since birth in 1935.
He later found fame in 1956 after winning a talent contest in the Navy to appear on The Ed Sullivan Show. In the career that followed, he would receive a Grammy nomination for his work with ‘Compared to What’, and he remained boldly prolific thereafter, collaborating with the likes of Eddie Harris and Benny Bailey.
Reacting to the news, jazz musician Gerald Albright wrote: “I’m truly saddened at the loss of my dear friend, Les McCann,” he wrote. “Spoke to him only a couple of weeks ago, and his spirit was uplifting, and he was still the jokester that I’ve always known. Playing in his band was truly fulfilling. There were no limits, freedom jazz, good times. RIP.”
Meanwhile, John Lurie, Nicholas Craven, and others have cited him as an inspiration upon his passing. It has also even been revealed that he was responsible for discovering Roberta Flack, among many other of his notable contributions to music.
He passed away on December 29th of pneumonia in Los Angeles.
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