Jazz Articles about Les McCann

About Les McCann

The Jazz Life

Les McCann and Me: Laughter, love, and the friendship that changed my life

by Joe Alterman
May 12, 2026

It was barely a month before Les McCann died that I was sitting in the dressing room at Birdland FaceTiming with him just before hitting the stage to celebrate my recent release, which was a tribute to Les and his beautiful original compositions. Two hours earlier, we'd been chatting by FaceTime in my hotel room when I told Les that I had to go because it was time for me to take a shower so that I could ...

Album Review

Les McCann: Never A Dull Moment! Live from Coast to Coast 1966-1967

Read "Never A Dull Moment! Live from Coast to Coast 1966-1967" reviewed by Stefano Merighi

by Stefano Merighi
October 31, 2024

Vi sono sempre stati musicisti di jazz per i quali la musica è immediatezza, semplicità, gioia di vivere, empatia senza fronzoli. Les McCann era uno di questi. Il pianista del Kentucky, morto alla fine dello scorso anno, ha sempre privilegiato una comunicazione diretta con il suo pubblico, basata su quell'irresistibile mix di swing, soul con venature gospel che ne hanno messo a fuoco il marchio di fabbrica. Eppure, negli anni '70, anche Les ha subito una fascinazione per ...

Liner Notes

CTI Acid Jazz Grooves by Various Artists

by Arnaldo DeSouteiro
June 19, 2024

The CD you are holding in your hands is a very special compilation. It's the celebration of CTI as one of the most “sampled" labels on Earth! For the past ten years, many CTI tracks have been cut up, sampled, scratched and looped to create new songs for a new audience. Many of the selections on this album (all of them produced by Creed Taylor and engineered by Rudy Van Gelder) represented the basic inspiration and major influence in the ...

Interview

Les McCann: Never Say No Again

by Chris M. Slawecki
January 2, 2024

"Be who you are and not who you ain't. Because when you are who you ain't, you're not who you are." Keyboardist, vocalist, bandleader, songwriter and photographer Les McCann really talks like this. About his music, about musicians, about his career--about everything. I learned this during the following interview, scheduled to discuss Omnivore Records' March 2015 reissue of McCann's improvisational landmark Invitation to Openness, generally out of print since its original 1972 Atlantic Records' release; this reissue was ...

Interview

A Conversation With Les McCann

by AAJ Staff
January 2, 2024

Les McCann has a new release on Joel Dorn's 32 Records entitled How's Your Mother?. I had an opportunity to chat with the pianist/vocalist from his home about the release, his humble beginnings in Kentucky, his distaste for the current trends in music, and about the highly successful album with Eddie Harris, Swiss Movement, recorded live at the 1968 Montreux Jazz Festival. All About Jazz: Growing up in Kentucky, what made you want to play jazz music?

Radio & Podcasts

New Releases + Some Soul, Electric Funk and a Hot California set of '50s Cool

by David Brown
September 20, 2022

This week new releases from Chad Taylor and James Brandon Lewis, a soulful set of Ramsey Lewis (RIP), getting funky with the Electric Eddie Harris, Les McCann and Yusef Lateef, then a shift to a hot California set of '50s cool, and more. Playlist Thelonious Monk “Esistrophy (Theme)" from Live at the It Club-Complete (Columbia) 00:30 Don Byas Quintet “All The Things You Are" from Americans ihn Europe vol. 2 (Impulse! ) 02:00 Chad Taylor Trio “Subterfuge" from ...

Radio & Podcasts

Free Association - Vol. 2 with Michael Blake

by Ludovico Granvassu
March 18, 2020

Free Association is a series of collaborative mixtapes curated by Mondo Jazz in association with musicians and selectors of various origins. Free Association mixtapes develop as a conversation. The first selector sends a tune cherry-picked to suit, and ideally surprise, the second selector who then, in turn, returns the favor. An hour or so into this exchange, after unexpected turns and joyful revelations, the two look back at the results of this game of ...