\u201cSoul-jazz\u201d is how the powers that be have categorized the Swiss Movement<\/i> album that captured keyboardist\/vocalist Les McCann and saxophonist Eddie Harris live at the 1969 Montreux Jazz Festival and produced the hit single \u201cCompared To What.\u201d Now that I\u2019ve finally heard Second Movement<\/i>, the follow-up studio album that the pair collaborated on two years later, I\u2019m feeling ready to binge on soul-jazz the way the wife and I just did on Six Feet Under<\/i>. There\u2019s just something tremendously winning and dynamic about the way albums like these combine the urban funk of early \u201970s soul music with the free-form explosiveness of that era\u2019s jazz.<\/p>\n
It of course helps to have a world-class combo making the music. McCann is a phenomenal keyboard player with some serious groove in his veins, and Harris an amazing showman on his sax, generating thundering squalls of sound that are a thing to behold.<\/p>\n
Opener \u201cShorty Rides Again\u201d is an immediate highlight, with Harris blowing frenetic figures over a dense layer of soul-funk laid down by McCann (who mostly sticks to his beloved Fender Rhodes electric piano on this album), guitarist Cornell Dupree and the rhythm section of James Rowser (bass) and Donald Dean (drums) \u00a0Seriously: if this track doesn\u2019t make you snap your fingers and tap your feet, it\u2019s time to check your pulse.<\/p>\n
\u201cUniversal Prisoner\u201d reminds a bit of \u201cCompared To What\u201d in that its social-consciousness lyrics can feel dated at times, but there is also a kind of timeless integrity to this soul-brother-telling-it-like-it-is number. McCann\u2019s husky vocals lead the way for much of the track, with Harris waiting in the wings to cut loose during the later solo section and closing jam. The gospel-tinged \u201cCarry On Brother,\u201d despite being a Harris composition, mostly features McCann for the opening four of its seven minutes, before Harris and a chorus of background vocalists (notably featuring Cissy Houston) busts in to deliver a feverish, juking closing section.<\/p>\n
\u201cSet Us Free\u201d takes a more contemplative turn, featuring McCann and Harris in a gentle, steady dance that gradually builds, becoming more nimble and more playful with every stanza until they\u2019re into a full-on jam by minute seven, with Harris wailing high above the steaming bed of funk laid down by McCann and the rhythm section. McCann lays down a smoking solo of his own over the course of the next two minutes before Harris rejoins him at the fade. McCann\u2019s \u201cSamia\u201d closes things out with a slow, somewhat lounge-y Latin shuffle that\u2019s pleasant enough, but, in choosing pretty over fiery, slumbers more than it soars. <\/p>\n
Second Movement<\/i> might not scale the majestic heights of Swiss Movement<\/i>, but it\u2019s an eminently worthy companion document showcasing Harris and McCann\u2019s partnership in a studio setting. It was also their last full-length collaboration\u2014perhaps because, as Joel Dorn describes in the 2000 CD reissue\u2019s liner notes, the two were always a mismatched pair, McCann loose, goofy and spontaneous while Harris was \u201cserious as a bad x-ray.\u201d Whatever the interpersonal dynamics, once the tape rolled, these two made some genuine musical magic together.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":32112,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[6812],"rating":[5617],"class_list":["post-43860","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-les-mccann-eddie-harris","rating-rating-b-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/43860","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43860"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/43860\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32112"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43860"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43860"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=43860"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=43860"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}