According to stereogum.com, soul-jazz pianist and singer Les McCann has died at the age of 88 years old. McCann’s manager told NBC News the artist died on December 1 at a Los Angeles-area hospital after contracting pneumonia a week before his passing. McCann was born into a music family in Lexington, KY in 1935. The artist was self-taught on piano and also played drums and tuba while growing up. While serving in the Navy in the 1950s, McCann won a singing contest, which led to an appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show.
After leaving the Navy, the artist moved to Los Angeles and began his performance career in the early 1960s, where he received an endorsement from Miles Davis. But McCann’s biggest breakthrough came in 1969 with the release of the live album Swiss Movement with saxophonist Eddie Harris. The album was recorded at 1969’s Montreux Jazz Festival.
As the ’60s rolled into the ’70s, McCann became a pioneer of soul-jazz and was one of the first jazz musicians to incorporate electronic music into his career. Back in 1995 the artist suffered a stroke while onstage in Germany but he continued to perform for years despite paralysis on the right side of his body. By then, hip-hop producers had already discovered McCann’s catalog as a goldmine for samples, which resulted in a directory that lists McCann songs sampled by A Tribe Called Quest, Dr. Dre, the Notorious B.I.G., Mobb Deep, Massive Attack, ScHoolboy Q, Pete Rock & C.L. Smooth and many more.
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