Search - Eddie Harris, Les McCann :: Second Movement

Tenor sax great Eddie Harris and keyboardist Les McCann worked together on the classic jazz crossover album Swiss Movement, which contained the hit "Compared to What?" Their follow-up recording, Second Movement, however, never made it to CD. Producer Joel Dorn created Label M in order to bring this album and other neglected gems from the Atlantic Records catalog to a new audience. Harris's urgent tenor wailings mesh with funky rhythms and background vocals to give Second Movement a sanctified, churchlike feeling throughout. Combined with McCann's gospel-tinged singing on "Set Us Free" and "Universal Prisoner," the music attempts to deal with the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s and jazz's waning audience. McCann's Fender Rhodes piano and the rhythm & blues underpinnings, however, serve mainly to give the music a '70's funk feel, when jazz was crossing over into rock territory. Given the rise of jam-band jazz, it seems that the Second Movement's second coming has arrived at just the right time. --Wally Shoup