Les McCann, primal groove force, co-founder of jazz soul and a singer for whom gravity only existed as a recommendation, is dead.
They’ve just dug up a few very old recordings at Resonance Records: three club concerts, two from the Penthouse Jazz Club in Seattle, one from the Village Vanguard in New York, 1966 and 1967. The pianist Les McCann wasn’t there yet Jazz soul star that he would soon become. But he had already trained every last fiber of that primal power that would soon push him unhindered and regularly into the charts – the pop charts, mind you.