Mixing musical genres is such a given in contemporary entertainment that one is tempted to believe that this is a new phenomenon. In actuality, this co-mingling of “tropes” or stylistic embellishments associated with specific musical idioms to create new and different effects, has been around since the first immigrants to the New World intentionally put together sounds to amuse themselves.
American jazz, at its basic level, is the linking of the bonds between African and European traditions that is periodically renewed and revitalized by the infusion of other musical forms, sometimes bearing similar roots. In the 1950s, several subgenres sprang up as a counterpoint to 1940s-era bebop. The musicians performing these “post bop” genres utilized elements from the popular music they (and their audiences) had grown up with, especially rhythm and blues and gospel. The idea was to create music that had a more universal appeal. Among the musicians leading this charge was keyboardist (and later vocalist) Les McCann, who used the church influences of his upbringing in much the same way that Ray Charles did with the mixing of sacred and secular music, as the stylistic idiom called soul began to dominate rhythm and blues in the 1950s and 1960s.
Born in Lexington, Ky., in 1935, McCann became serious about his music career while stationed with the Navy in the Bay Area. In the middle of the burgeoning San Francisco jazz scene, he became a fixture at places like the legendary Black Hawk nightclub, where he hobnobbed with and absorbed the performances of jazz greats like Miles Davis.
Moving south to continue his formal studies at Los Angeles City College after his discharge, McCann made a name performing at various coffee houses in the area, as well as at venues like the Sunset Strip’s Renaissance Club (now the location for the House of Blues), before securing a contact to produce his first album “the Truth” with Pacific Jazz Records. Eventually, he moved on to a fruitful career with Atlantic Records.
While hanging out in the studio at Atlantic, he came across an old acquaintance, Austrian pianist Josef Zawinul, who was fiddling with a strange contraption made of fiberglass, a keyboard, and an electrical cord connecting it to a wall socket.
This was McCann’s introduction to the Fender Rhodes piano, which would become phenomenally popular over the next decade, and a major factor in the keyboard master’s own future success.
Always intent on following his own muse, McCann ignored the admonishments of his established fan base which preferred the acoustic piano stylings he’d built his career upon and stepped into the world of electronic music.
“Don’t play that thing; it’s a fad!” were among the comments he heard as he made his initial forays into this new sound. But McCann became enchanted with the mellow timbre produced by the abbreviated keyboard (73 keys compared to 88 on a regular piano), and he has bounced back and forth between the two instruments ever since.
This and other electric instruments would figure prominently in a 1972 project that would reflect McCann’s inclination for spontaneity—“Invitation to Openness.”
With minimum planning or preparation, McCann and producer Joel Dorn hastily put together a group of musicians including Cornell Dupree (guitar), Yusef Lateef (reeds), and Alphonse Mouson (drums), and moved into Atlantic’s New York City studio at 60th and Broadway. McCann sketched out rough melodic and bass lines, but most of the album is a free flowing improvisation precursor to the genre blurring funk/jazz/rock fusion of the next decade.
Author and record producer Pat Thomas orchestrated a second re-issue of “Invitation to Openness” in 2004, and in the process, became aware of McCann’s hobby of photographing his colleagues between performances. Sifting through some 20,000 images in the musician’s San Fernando Valley home led to the recent release of a coffee table sized book of the same title, in tandem with this, the third re-release of the CD.
Unlike most people who take up shooting with the popular 35mm camera format, McCann had ample access to celebrities and noted celebrity household names. In addition to his images of fellow musicians are candid shots of Stokely Carmichael, Angie Dickinson, Jack Lemmon, Jerry Lewis, Redd Foxx, and even former President Jimmy Carter.
“It may be the last collection of jazz and soul musicians (of this era) taken by one person,” speculates Thomas, who edited the photos and provides a foreword.
“Invitation to Openness,” audio CD by Les McCann, re-released through Omnivore Recordings, March 3, 2015, $16.98. Re-released to coincide with the publication of “Invitation to Openness: The Jazz & Soul Photography of Les McCann 1960-1980,” Hardcover Fantagraphics, April 19, 2015, $39.99.
