Home » Jazz Articles » Album Review » Les McCann: How's Your Mother?
Les McCann: How's Your Mother?
BySkeptical? Just check out the ringing "Doin' That Thing," an original from bassist Leroy Vinnegar, who along with drummer Frank Severino makes up McCann's trio here. Note the power and versatility of McCann's touch, such that he can pound the keys with as much inexorable intensity as McCoy Tyner in those contemporary Coltrane dates, and then drop to a whisper and the most delicate of embroidery without breaking a sweat or the sunniness of his mood.
Or exhibit B: consider how McCann takes raw material as tragically schmaltzy as the pop hit from those days, "Goin' Out of My Head," and invests it with a gentle, wry swing and, toward the climax, something approaching gospel grandeur. A grandeur that remains, invested with portent, for the Latin-tinged opener to "Sunny," on which McCann and the rhythm men grow as ruminative and majestically melancholic as Erik Satie in a swingier mode.
On a more straightforwardly sunny side is the jaunty "Blues 5," the straight-out "I Am in Love," an energetic romp, and a delightfully high-gloss "Love for Sale." On the latter track and "Doin' That Thing" there's a bit of vocalese, apparently from McCann himself, but it's hardly Jarretian enough to get in anyone's way.
The title comes from the brief and joky last track, "The Shampoo," on which the group asks the title question. But nowhere does Mr. McCann, or Mr. Dorn, or anyone tell us what he's doing standing with then-Vice President Hubert Humphrey on the cover. No matter. Humphrey probably knew great swinging grooves when he heard them. This is another in a string of live dates (Bird and Diz with Mingus; Coltrane and Dolphy at the Village Vanguard; Monk with anybody, anywhere) that makes me sure I was born too late. Don't miss it.
Track Listing
Love For Sale; I Can Dig It; Doin' that Thing; I Am In Love; Goin' Out Of my head; Sunny; Blues; The Shampoo.
Personnel
Album information
Title: How's Your Mother? (Live In New York 1967) | Year Released: 1998 | Record Label: Jazz Heritage