Les McCann born 23 September 1935

Les McCann (September 23, 1935 – December 29, 2023) was an American jazz pianist and vocalist. He is known for his innovations in soul jazz and his 1969 recording of the protest song "Compared to What". His music has been widely sampled in hip hop. 

Leslie Coleman McCann was born in Lexington, Kentucky. His siblings (a brother and three sisters) all sang in church. His father was a jazz fan and his mother liked to hum opera arias. He began taking piano lessons at six, but after only a few weeks, his teacher unexpectedly died. McCann continued teaching himself the piano while getting formal musical training in elementary and high school. He played tuba in the marching band and drums in the orchestra. 

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 and, during his service, won a singing contest that resulted in an appearance on the nationally syndicated Ed Sullivan Show in 1956. After being honorably discharged, he moved to Los Angeles and formed a trio. McCann turned down an invitation to join the Cannonball Adderley Quintet in order to focus on his own music. 

The group's first gig was playing the Purple Onion in 1959 supporting Gene McDaniels, who hired them to back him on tour after that night. After leaving McDaniels' employ, McCann signed a solo deal with Pacific Jazz. In 1960, Les McCann Ltd. Plays the Truth and The Shout appeared. His soulful, funk style on piano was influential on emerging musicians, resonated with veterans, and was popular with live audiences. 

                                     

He recorded a dozen albums for Pacific Jazz between 1960 and 1967, including Les McCann Ltd. in New York with Blue Note stars Stanley Turrentine and Blue Mitchell, and Les McCann Sings with the Gerald Wilson Orchestra. Despite the latter's release in 1961, McCann's singing was only occasional both live and on recordings; he didn't begin using vocals as a key part of his act until the middle of the decade. 

During his time with Pacific Jazz, McCann issued collaborative albums with the Jazz Crusaders, Richard "Groove" Holmes, and several others. 1963's Plays the Shampoo at the Village Gate, netted a number three single with the title track. Though pianist Ramsey Lewis was already recording, McCann's 1963 album influenced the latter's mid-'60s live recordings such as The In Crowd and Dancing in the Street. 

McCann moved over to Limelight in 1965/1967 on the way to Atlantic in 1968. 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). 

Swiss Movement won airplay internationally and charted. Another volume, Second Movement, appeared to critical acclaim, but didn't sell as well. 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. 

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 when his last album as bandleader, 28 Juillet arrived, as did the self-released holiday recording “A Time Les Christmas.” 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. 

McCann's recordings have been widely sampled in hip hop music, mostly in the 1990s and 2000s, by nearly 300 acts. These include A Tribe Called Quest, Cypress Hill, De La Soul, the Notorious B.I.G., Sean Combs, Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Nas, Mary J. Blige, the Pharcyde, Eric B. & Rakim, Mobb Deep, Gang Starr and Raekwon. McCann was inducted into the the Kentucky Music Hall of Fame in 2008.           (Edited from Wikipedia & AllMusic)