Les McCann: 'Invitation to Openness' and 'Layers'

He took soul jazz to the next level

The recent death of Les McCann has me listening to some of his records again. McCann was a solid, self-taught jazz pianist who became one of the top performers of the soul jazz subgenre in the sixties. Working with a trio and sometimes larger groups, McCann put soul jazz on the map along with other jazz musicians including Cannonball Adderley, Ramsey Lewis, and Horace Silver. He continued to develop along similar lines to the R&B artists of the time, adopting electric piano and synthesizers as well as a laid back groove that hinted at funk and dance music. Little wonder that his records have been prime material for hip hop DJs, rappers, and producers to sample.

There's no question, though, that the song McCann is most readily identified with is his signature song, "Compared to What." Certainly he did everything he could to embed the song in the public's consciousness. Joel Dorn, McCann's producer during his tenure at Atlantic Records, made this comment in the notes for the Hyena Records release of Les is More after reviewing a paper bag full of cassette tapes of McCann's live performances:  “Oh, and did I mention that Les closes every set, every set, with ‘Compared to What’? After I heard it about a hundred sixty-two times, I was ready to confess to unsolved murders."

McCann didn't write "Compared to What." That distinction goes to Gene McDaniels, who was McCann's former employer and had a hit record himself with "100 Lbs. of Clay." McCann was the manager of a young singer named Roberta Flack at the time, and he encouraged her to record the song on her first record. It was the opening track on First Take, also produced by Joel Dorn and released on Atlantic.

That same year, McCann and saxophonist Eddy Harris were both booked to play the Montreux Jazz Festival with their respective combos. The two weren't slated to perform together, but

it was put together by festival organizers and they performed a set that was recorded and released on the record Swiss Movement. That record led off with a performance of "Compared to What" that was essentially the same as McCann's usual set closer, with heated solos by Harris and trumpet player Benny Bailey. It also featured the soulful "Cold Duck Time," a track that didn't escape the notice of jazz radio programmers across the country.

So, yeah, that was Les McCann in a nutshell: funky soul jazz piano, R&B vocals, inspiration for hip hop artists, "Compared to What." But McCann released a couple of albums in the early 1970s that no one would have identified as his records if they were taking a Downbeat blindfold test.

Following the success of Swiss Movement, McCann moved to the electric piano, an instrument that helped shape jazz and popular music more than anything since the electric guitar. In 1971, he assembled a group of thirteen musicians in Atlantic's New York studio with Joel Dorn at the controls, as always. As a producer Dorn considered it his job to record the music as faithfully as possible rather than to impose a particular sound or style. In this case, McCann had only the barest of guidance for the extraordinary group of musicians he collected in the studio, a technique much like that employed by Miles Davis from In a Silent Way on.

What results is "The Lovers", the twenty-six minute free fusion improvisation that takes up Side One of the release Invitation to Openness. At times it's reminiscent of the quieter aspects of Miles' Pangea/Agharta band, at others it is similar to early Weather Report. Grooves come, assert themselves, then dissolve into a free, spacey jam that is the opposite of the noise that many listeners expect to hear when there is free improvisation going on.

Among the musicians that work to create something amazing from McCann's basic electric piano musings are: Yusef Lateef, playing not only saxophone and flute but a wide variety of reed instruments that greatly expand the group's sound. David Spinozza, who collaborated with Paul McCartney on Ram as well as recording with John Lennon and a variety of other popular performers, was one guitarist. The other was Cornel Dupree, who had recorded with Aretha Franklin, Donny Hathaway, and King Curtis among others. Corky Hale plays harp, and Jodie Christian, a founding member of Chicago's AACM, also plays electric piano. The group is heavy on drummers and percussionists, with Aphonse Mouzon, Bernard Purdie, Donald Dean, William "Buck" Clarke, and Ralph McDonald.

"The Lovers" is one of the most well built group improvisations ever recorded and released, taking its place alongside such masterpieces as Miles Davis' "He Loved Him Madly" and some of Don Cherry's work. It takes its time establishing a groove, and then it sticks to it while the intensity of the soloists builds and wanes.

The two tracks from the second side have a more recognizable soul jazz vibe with some Latin rhythms for the percussionists to work on. "Beau J Poo Boo" is an adaptation of an earlier acoustic McCann chart that features Lateef on a solid flute solo. "Poo Pye McGoochie (and his friends) find McCann playing some cool synth lines as Yusef Lateef blows some tenor sax. These two tracks are less boundary-pushing than "The Lovers," but they still demonstrate a commitment to experimenting with the edges of jazz, soul, and R&B.

McCann next released Talk to the People, a record that demonstrated his affinity with modern soul and R&B music, particularly the influences of Marvin Gaye, whose "What's Going On" is covered by McCann, and Stevie Wonder, whose footprint is all over the keyboard work on the instrumental "Shamading." But his next record, Layers, was again an unexpected ground breaker on which McCann sought to play all of the parts of the arrangements he imagined for these composition using the new generation of ARP synthesizer as well as overdubbing himself on the Fender Rhodes electric.

After laying down rhythm tracks with the percussionists and bassist, McCann and engineer Rob Liftin would return to the studio and turn the lights out while McCann laid down track after track on the ARP, filling in spaces and colors and creating orchestrations that were really impressive in 1971. The Minimoog had only recently made the synthesizer a performance instrument, and Polyphonic synthesizers were still a few years away. Liftin and Dorn patched together two sixteen track machines to make a 32 track recording studio for Les to overdub all of the parts he wanted to separately.

This was the same time as There's a Riot Goin' On, Talking Book, and Music of My Mind, and Les McCann was working with keyboards and synthesizers in the studio, overdubbing to create a new sound just as Sly and Stevie were doing. And it seems as though McCann had more ideas in mind for future releases. In his contribution to the liner notes of Layers, Dorn wrote "This LP in many ways is a direct extension of Les' Invitation to Openness album. We already have the album on the drawing board and it is an extension of Les' vocalizing on 'With These Hands.' But, by the time you read this, that LP might be done and we might be working on the next one. When it rains it pours, and right now Les is pouring."

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