Les McCann

Leslie Coleman McCann was born in Lexington, Kentucky, on September 23, 1935. He grew up in a musical family with four brothers and one sister, most of whom sang in church choirs. His father was a fan of jazz music and his mother was known to hum opera tunes around the house. As a youth, McCann played the tuba and drums and performed in his school's marching band. As a pianist, he was largely self-taught. He explained that he received piano lessons for only a few weeks as a six-year-old before his teacher died. McCann attended Los Angeles City College, which was highly influential to his musical career. At the age of 17, he joined the U.S. Navy in San Diego.

During his service in the Navy, McCann won a singing contest, which led to an appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show. After leaving the Navy, McCann moved to California and played in his own trio. He declined an offer to work in Cannonball Adderley's band so that he could dedicate himself to his own music. The trio's first job was at the Purple Onion club in 1959 accompanying Gene McDaniels. The main part of McCann's career began in the early 1960s, when he recorded as a pianist with his trio for Pacific Jazz. In 1969, Atlantic released Swiss Movement, an album recorded with saxophonist Eddie Harris and trumpeter Benny Bailey earlier at that year's Montreux Jazz Festival. The album contained the song "Compared to What"; both reached the Billboard pop charts. The song, which criticized the Vietnam War, 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. His music was influential for its use of electric piano, clavinet and synthesizer. In 1971, McCann 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 more than 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, and continued to release music until 2018. He also exhibited his work as a painter and photographer.

McCann died from pneumonia in a Los Angeles hospital on December 29, 2023, at age 88.