Les McCann featuring Lou Rawls - Essential Works 1960 - 1962

Leslie Coleman McCann is probably best known as the Sixties jazz pianist who had most Soul. If you think that’s an exaggeration, all you have to do is drop everything and find a copy of Compared to what, which he recorded with Eddie Harris, in concert at Montreux, on June 21, 1969. Because that was a monument of what they call soul jazz. But even before that concert, Les McCann’s trio with Herbie Lewis and Ron Jefferson had imposed a new style: it typified the joy and pleasure to be found in playing, and listening to, the sheer groove in their music. At a McCann gig it was impossible not to be part of that joy or have the same desire to share it. You couldn’t resist stamping out the beat. The 1960-62 recordings on this album were a turning point: they helped jazz tumble into a new world. If today’s jazz has integrated soul music entirely, it’s because musicians like Les McCann spent the early Sixties bringing down the walls that separated genres.