My mother was a strange woman. As a child, she loved to listen to my grandfather playing (a little painstakingly) Chopin, Schumann and the like. But as an adult, she had little time for music. She professed to liking the Rolling Stones, perhaps because she yearned to paint Charlie Watts' portrait. She liked James Last, the bearded German master of all things musically anodyne. And although she had very little time for jazz in general, this stirring piece of funky jazz was her favourite piece of music. Ever. I never quite figured. Yes, it's one of the most exciting live jazz performances available on YouTube and yes, it's what you might call soul-jazz, so I guess it was the soulful element that made her come over in a quiver every time she heard it. Being an eager little beaver, I made her a C-90 cassette compilation of other soulful songs in a similar vein that I thought she might like – Aretha Franklin, Etta James, Bill Withers and others of that persuasion – but I don't think it really clicked. I gave up after that brief glimmer of a connection.
Was it, I wonder now, Eugene McDaniels' lyrics ('inspired by the right wing push towards globalisation,' he suggests, and written with Les McCann in mind, even though he and the pianist weren't speaking at the time) that struck such a chord? Was it last-minute guest Benny Bailey's thrilling trumpet playing? Or Eddie Harris' highly individual electrified tenor sax tone? Who knows? In any case, it became the number one jazz hit of the time and allowed McDaniels to hide away from the 'goddamn nation' in Maine and continue writing throughout his life.
It's a remarkable testimony to the symbiotic bond that musicians can experience when they're in the zone. Both Les McCann and Eddie Harris were Atlantic recording artists, and both had already appeared at that year's Montreux Jazz Festival under separate cover, but neither really knew the other. Les McCann, a soulful pianist in a similar mould to Bobby Timmons, Ramsey Lewis, Ray Bryant and others, 'didn't know Eddie that well but knew his reputation.' Saxophonist Eddie Harris, the more established Atlantic artist who had released some big-selling albums for the label, 'really didn't know who [McCann] was.'
Someone at the label had the idea of putting them together with a view to a live recording. Both artists thought it was a good enough idea, but the circumstances were far from propitious. Benny Bailey who was domiciled in Switzerland was invited along, but the music wasn't even his cup of jazz; too commercial. Scheduled to appear first on the final evening of this third edition of the festival, no one knew what numbers to play, let alone rehearse them. And just to put the old tin lid on it, the pianist was well and truly stoned after his first bout earlier of reefer madness. Yet, somehow, the creativity spontaneously combusted that evening in 1969 on the stage of the Montreux casino (the building that would burn down two years later and provide Deep Purple with all the smoke on the water they needed for a hit).
The creator and lifelong archivist of the festival, Claude Nobs, recorded every single performance during his tenure – which lasted right up until a late-night ski accident in 2012 – so we have this remarkable record of 'Compared To What', along with the other numbers that Atlantic released under the somewhat unfortunate title of Swiss Movement. Certainly, the casino moved that evening. Watching it now, it's apparent at the beginning that Les McCann is, shall we say, a little distracted. It could be the sound: there was a paucity of microphones and Eddie Harris had to share with Benny Bailey. Harris, who played the piano himself, also revealed that he had to stand near the leader in order to pick up the chords that McCann was laying down. Backed by Leroy Vinnegar on bass and Donald Dean on drums, the pianist – who was feeling happy and self-confident after recently shedding a lot of weight – settles into an infectiously funky vamp, then starts to shift through the keys and move up an octave, whereupon things really start to cook. Right after Harris' first of four solos, McCann sings the first verse with the kind of authority and gusto you might associate with a truly great soul singer like Ray Charles. Then Harris delivers a swaggering, raunchy solo before Benny Bailey almost explodes onto the scene. And so it goes for eight minutes or so, constituting the first track of what would become a classic live recording that would put both the festival and the musicians very much on the map. And didn't the Casino crowd just love it!
It's indicative of the artistic temperament's tendency towards perfectionism that right after the show McCann fretted that he had loused up. Had he played perfectly, then it's quite likely that the record wouldn't have been the smash it became. 'Compared To What' became his calling card; he admits that it 'had a very positive effect on my career – we had to play it up to four times a night everywhere we went after the record came out.' Benny Bailey, too, became inexorably linked with the number for his two blistering solos. On stage that evening, there's the hint of a wry grin on his face, as if he recognised that this commercial stuff actually wasn't half bad. He admitted many years later that people back home in the U.S. 'wouldn't have known me if it hadn't been for that album – so it proved very beneficial as far as my reputation was concerned.'
Despite my efforts, I don't think the rest of the album made much of an impression on my mother. But 'Compared To What' somehow ticked all the boxes. It's not perfect – you can hear a few hesitations and bum notes along the way – but the circumstances were far from perfect and, in any case, perfection can be as dull as ditch-water. Yet it remains one of the most soulful performances ever captured on audio and video tape in the category of jazz, soul or any other music. Ahmad Jamal, whose performance of 'Poinciana' I featured a while back, said 'Man, that is one of the greatest records I ever heard.' He should know.
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