(NOTE: This story contains some profane language that may not be appropriate for young readers.)
It was barely a month ago that I was sitting in the dressing room at Birdland FaceTiming with Les McCann just before hitting the stage to celebrate my recent release, which is a tribute to Les and his beautiful original compositions. Two hours earlier we’d been chatting by FaceTime in my hotel room when I told Les that I had to go because it was time for me to take a shower so that I could make it to the gig on time. “How are you going to play funky if you take a shower?,” he asked, and we both laughed. Now, post-shower and just a few minutes before showtime, Les was beaming, totally thrilled with palpable excitement when I told him the show was sold out. “Joe,” he said. “You da man.” “No, Les,” I responded. “You da man.” To which Les exclaimed, “We da man!”
“I wish I could be there with you tonight,” Les told me. To which I replied, “Me too. But I’ll be thinking of you and playing your music.” “Our music,” he quickly corrected me.” “Our music,” he repeated, more seriously this time. “We’re a team. Say it.” “Our music,” I said back to him. “Amen,” he said.
And that was Les: my piano hero turned mentor, soul brother and best buddy who, despite being nearly sixty years older than I—and a bonafide music legend—would always go out of his way to make sure that I knew that he felt that our journeys are deeply intertwined and connected.
Once we were doing an interview together and were asked about when and how we first met.
I told the interviewer all about that day at the Blue Note in 2012 when a 23 year-old me got to open for Les; he approached the piano and, in lieu of a greeting, told me to “play me some blues, boy.” While I was worried about what I, a white, Jewish millennial could offer Les, one of the greatest blues players ever, I did my best, trying not to let fear enter my mind. After a minute or two, Les said, “Amen,” and I breathed a sigh of relief. When I finished playing, Les asked my name.
“Joe Alterman,” I replied.
“Alterman,” he said, before asking, “You a Rabbi?”
“No,” I told him, through my laughter, “but I am a…”
“Hebrew?” he interrupted.
Through my laughter again: “Yeah.”
“Well, from now on, you’re my He-bro.” And that, I told the interviewer, was the start of our beautiful friendship.
Les, however, told the interviewer that the two of us had met in a previous life, recognized each other that day at the Blue Note, and were now back together. He also predicted that in one of our future lives we’ll be hanging out listening to music and something will come on that will catch our attention and we’ll look at each other and say, “Damn, who is Joe Alterman and Les McCann?"
Ever since that day in 2012 when we connected in this life, barely a day passed in which we didn’t speak. Just like the deep resonance I grew up feeling to his music, I resonated just as deeply to the person behind it. It was like having the most beautiful big brother. I was “Little Joe,” Les was “Big Mo,” and we shared everything with one another—from the ordinary to the extraordinary, the deeply spiritual to the hilarious— both silly and raunchy, sometimes all at the same time.
I remember shortly after meeting he asked me how often I practiced. “Six hours a day,” I told him, almost bragging—very proud of that fact at the time. “Way too much!,” was his immediate response, which caught me off guard; you don’t expect your piano hero to tell you you’re practicing too much! “You need to go out and live more so that you have something to sing about when you get to the piano,” he told me.
He continued, “And when you practice don't just practice songs all the time. Practice how you're going to play a song. Practice why you're going to play a song. I don't mean to make it intellectual, but it's about teaching you fingers and your heart to work together. The mind is just trying to be in control of everything, but music, and especially people who love their music, it comes from the heart.”
To me, Les was both a wise old man and the most playful child all in one. In fact, just recently I was telling him how he reminded me of how I saw the Dalai Lama; an enlightened being who never lost his childlike wonder and enthusiasm. “I like that,” Les said.
Les has been bedridden for at least five of the twelve years I’ve known him; we spoke around six hours each week during all of those years and he complained maybe three times total. In fact, I can only think of a handful of times he didn’t say things were either “beautiful” or “just a touch above perfect” when I’d ask how he was doing, despite his being bedridden, unable to play the piano and living in a rehab center where he shared his room with a variety of interesting characters. Les certainly made the best of a bad situation; he used his time in bed to train his mind to focus on that which he wanted to think about.
Not unlike an enlightened being such as the Dalai Lama, Les is the only person I’ve ever met who really had control of his mind and could think about what he wanted to think about when he wanted to think about it. He had a beautiful philosophy about the meaning of life and he loved to share it with me often, and he always saw the bright side in everything. Once, when I visited him in the rehab center and had to use the restroom, I got lost in the halls of the facility trying to find it. When I finally made it back to Les, I told him what had happened and he just started laughing. “Hah! You have to find a bathroom when you need to go! I just go.”
We had a lot of fun together. Les would regale me with incredible stories from his amazing career, and I’d ask him advice and tell him all about my gigs and escapades. Although we both knew that Les would probably never get out of his bed again, we used to make plans for our one-day duo show together. We’d create set lists, I’d make lyric books, mail them to Les, and we’d rehearse over the phone. One time, Les had a particularly funny idea for the show: “You do the work, I’ll take the bows.”
Via FaceTime, I’d take Les on hikes with me and walks around the various cities I’d visit, alternating the direction of the screen between my face and the scenery—and whenever I’d turn the camera back towards my face, he’d always make some hilarious comment about how painful that transition was. We’d make plans for Les’ dream restaurant; “Give Me Some Skin,” he wanted to call it—and it would only serve meat skins.“Fish skin, chicken skin sandwiches, vegetable skins, pig skins,” he’d tell me, often adding, “and skim milk.”
We had a ball getting on FaceTime, and me surprising someone by handing them the phone and saying, “Meet Les McCann.” Catching big fans of Les' off-guard was always a hilarious interaction for me and the ever-playful Les, and I always appreciated the times when those funny moments would turn into something deep, reminding me of the fun, yet deeply serious nature of this music I feel honored to play and share a love for with Les. One time I was FaceTiming with Les and introduced him to two musicians whom I was playing that night. Both my necktie and that of one of the musicians was tied tightly, but one musician’s tie was very loose. Les looked at him and said, “You look like you just got home from work and are ready to crack open a beer. You’ve got to fix your tie and show some respect for this music. People have died for this music."
He once told me that "Jazz is not about entertaining an audience. It’s about expressing who you are on a very deep level. It’s like what Reggie Workman said, ‘Jazz is a matter of life and death.'”
Sometimes I’d bring him on stage with me by FaceTiming him and laying the phone next to the piano. He’d always be smiling and cheering me on, and it was always so special and fun to look over and see the joy he felt in watching and listening to me—which meant so much to me. When I first discovered Les’ music as a teen, my life was changed forever. I was a big blues and bluegrass-fan who happened to fall in love with jazz piano, and there was something in Les’ Kentucky-influenced, country-tinged sound that hit me hard and resonated deeply. An incredibly exciting, inspiring and refreshing moment in my life, for that reason and also because, at the time, there were a lot of things I was being told not to do on the piano, but Les was doing nearly all of them and he sounded so good! In being true to himself, Les gave me the confidence to be true to myself.
While I was at first excited that we met so that I could learn to play like him, Les quickly made me realize that trying to sound like him was missing the point - as was everyone telling me not to do all of those things on the piano that Les sounded so good doing! “There’s always going to be the naysayers,” he said. “But what you've got to do is say, ‘I hear you, but this is my story, my movie, not yours. This ain't about you.’”
One of my favorite quotes of Les’ is in the booklet to his great album, But Not Really, and it reads: “Man, whatever is said about me in this album, please don’t compare me to anyone. I’m me. I play music the way I feel it, in my own style, You dig me? Thanks.” And one of the first things Les ever told me was that “there's only two things in this life: love and fear. There's no jealousy, hate, etc. It all falls under one of those two categories. Everything we do here on Earth is a challenge to fear or to love,” and I was always so impressed by how Les reframed and viewed many painful past memories as learning experiences - and often hilarious ones.
One time I was confiding in Les about some negativity I’d just learned from what some musicians were saying about me behind my back. Les, who was used to the kind of hate I was then first-experiencing, told me, “When you get haters, that’s a good sign. It means you’re on to big things soon.” A few days later he called me all excited to share that he’d just remembered one of the worst reviews he got, and he couldn’t stop laughing as he told it to me: “Les McCann sounds like a fireman trying to burn down a building.”
Shortly after we first met, I was working on an assignment in school where I was supposed to write a melody over a given set of chord changes. The melody I heard in my head clashed theoretically with one of the chords and, knowing I’d get a bad grade if I turned it in as I heard it, I called Les. His immediate response was: “You need to go work on a farm for a little while. This shit doesn’t matter.” His attitude and laughter about his past haters was a wonderful reminder that this shit, too, doesn’t matter; my movie has nothing to do with anyone but me.
Shortly before we met, I was opening for Hiromi at the Blue Note in New York. Another hero pianist, Ahmad Jamal, was in the audience, and it was the first time I’d performed for one of my heroes. It was exciting that he was there, listening intently to my set, but I spent nearly the entire performance in a state of crippling anxiety. For much of the weeks that followed, I felt embarrassed, shattered and confused. I had let—or, more accurately, I hadn’t been able to keep—my fear from getting in the way of the music which had, in my eyes, ruined the evening’s performance.
I eventually shared that story with Les and he told me that he had a similar story he wanted to share with me. He was about the same age that I had been at the time, and he was about to walk on stage for his first big Chicago gig at the London House, when Oscar Peterson walked in, took a seat and Les felt similar nerves that I felt playing in front of Jamal.
“I went over to say hello to him and I sat down for a second to talk to him and I told him, ‘I love you, Oscar, but I don’t know if I can play in front of you. I’m so nervous, I can’t believe it.’ Oscar looked at me and said something that changed my life. He said, ‘I didn’t come here to hear me. I came here to hear you.’ He was telling me to be myself and that calmed me for the rest of my life. It was a moment of saying that I never have to fear what I do myself again…Without that experience, I’d have probably been fearful for some time longer. I’d have had to learn that anyway, eventually, but that’s what I learned on that spot and at that moment. I never looked back after that, either.” And after hearing that story, neither did I.
Another time we were talking about Oscar and he joked, “I always wondered where he got a piano that could do all that.” Another time he said, “Oscar Peterson and Art Tatum. I can't do that but I don't want to do that. It's not me.”
He always encouraged me to continue the search for my true self through music.
Regarding the piano, he said, "The piano is just a tool. Without that piano, without those fingers, you would still be hearing music. You’ve got to hear what’s in you! And by the way, you already know this stuff. You knew all this at birth. I'm just here to remind you of it and help you tap into it.”
To illustrate this point, shortly after we met, he, understanding that I wanted him be to my mentor, asked me to write a song a day for a month, with just one catch: none of the songs could be written at the piano. As he told me: “When you sit at the piano to compose, the first thing your mind thinks is ‘what can my fingers do?’ But when you’re not at the instrument, you’re writing what you truly hear in your heart.”
He told me amazing stories about so many greats:
Mose Allison, who got mad at Les when a group of musicians visited the Pope at the Vatican and Les greeted the Pope with, “What’s happening, baby?”
Coleman Hawkins, who was sick of playing his hit song “Body And Soul” and instructed Les to say he didn’t know the tune when anyone requested it—after an irate fan called Les a “motherfucking liar” when Les said he didn’t know the tune, Coleman took a pitcher and hit the man over his head, knocking him out (“Coleman was old school,” Les told me. “He came from the day when everybody carried a switchblade and didn’t take shit off nobody.”)
Miles Davis, who interrupted a recording session to ask Les to speak with his son. “Sure,” Les said, and Miles pulled out $500, about to hand it to Les. Confused, Les asked “Where’s your son?” “In St. Louis. Let’s go,’ Miles told him—to which Les said, “Motherfucker, I am not going to St. Louis"
Herbie Mann, who stopped a record date to ask Les if he could “play like a regular piano player,” to which Les asked him to clarify what that meant. When Herbie said to “just lay the chords down,” Les asked Herbie if he knew any pianists who could play like that, to which Herbie said yes. Les said, “Well hire them. I’m leaving,” and he did.
Oscar Peterson, whose left hand was severely impaired by a stroke, and called Les after a stroke severely impaired Les’ right hand and said “Let’s go on the road together as one good pianist”
Leroy Vinnegar, who corrected the Rabbi giving the eulogy at the funeral for original Lighthouse Cafe owner John Levine; the Rabbi kept saying “John Le-vyne,” and Leroy yelled out, “It’s “Leveen motherfucker!”
Philly Joe Jones, who Les said playing with “makes you feel like you’re playing in the middle of a thunder storm. You cannot fall. All you gotta do is ride the wave”
Horace Silver, who called Les “Les McNasty” and unsuccessfully tried to get Les to sing two songs he wrote for him called “Ophelia Butt” and “Who Cut The Cheese?”
Count Basie and Ray Charles, who Les was so thrilled to have shared a triple bill with on his first concert in France (where, since “Les” means “The” in French, some expected to see a band called “The McCanns”)
Jackie Onassis, who he spent time with thanks to his good friend Doris Duke
Elvis Presley, who he met through Leroy Vinegar’s good friend Ricky Nelson
Nina Simone, whose children asked Les to marry their Mom
Ramsey Lewis, who Les was confused with in segregated Alabama in the 60’s. Les once told me: “Everyone can’t be white and everyone can’t be Black. You can’t go to a garden and see only one flower.”
I could go on and on. I learned so much from him, and I’ll forever miss his teachings and his never ending plethora of incredible stories, but I’ll miss the fun we had most.
Just a few months ago we were chatting about one of the songs I included on my tribute album to Les, “Samia,” to which Les remarked, “Ah, Samia. I loved her and never got to tell her.” I inquired who she was and he told me that she was a lady who worked at Atlantic Records while he was on the label, and that she left the company before he got to express his feelings. He told me her real name and that, if she was still around, she would be around 80 and he thought that she lived in Brooklyn. So I typed her name, “80, Brooklyn” into Google and a bunch of phone numbers came up. “Let’s call ‘em!,” Les said. And we spent the night calling them. While we never found the Kathy Moore that he was looking for, Les did get to have a field day when one of the Kathy Moores answered the phone drunk and responded, “I get fucked up,” when Les asked what she did for a living.
He called me one Christmas singing, “I’m dreaming of a white…woman.”
One time, one of my musician friends had a question about Les’ song “Gus Gus,” which was written for one of his best friends, Gus Perdikakis. Here’s how the exchange went down:
Friend: Les, is your song “Gus Gus” named after the mouse in Cinderella?
Les: How old are you?
Friend: 33
Les: What the fuck are you doing watching Cinderella?
Occasionally Les would lose his teeth after taking them out, putting them on his chest and falling asleep, and he’d always have fun with the nurses who tried to help him find them. Here’s a favorite interaction that happened while we were on the phone:
Les, to me, laughing: Joe! I lost my teeth!
Les (talking to his nurse who’s looking for his teeth as we’re talking): Y’all got any extra teeth?
Nurse: We don’t have extra teeth…
Les (fake crying): Where’s my teethies?
Nurse (as she’s searching): We’ll find them, don’t worry. Did the other nurses feed you yet?
Les (still fake crying): No, they didn’t.
Nurse: They didn’t?
Les (still fake crying): It’s because I’m Black…
Les would leave me hilarious voicemails, often speaking in a British accent and pretending to be different people, most frequently - and I have no idea why - Amos from “Amos & Andy.” During COVID, when my hair was especially long he’d call me “Tarzan” and, lovingly, “Jungle Jew.” He’d poke fun at my love for brisket and sandwiches, sometimes calling me the “briskid,” sometimes “brisket junkie” and sometimes “Joe Alterman: sandwich-eating motherfucker.” One time I told him I had to go meet a bunch of friends to which he responded, “By bunch do you mean both?” Another time I was getting off the phone and told him that I had to go meet a friend, but that I was glad we got to talk. Les’ response: “I’m glad you have a friend.”
I loved Les poking fun at me. When I moved back to Atlanta from New York Les asked me for my new mailing address. A few days later an autographed Les McCann diaper arrived! And speaking of Atlanta, he had a great idea for Stone Mountain, which features stoned etchings of confederate generals. “Replace the confederate statues with those of [Georgia natives] Ray Charles, Otis Redding and James Brown, but change the name from ‘Stone Mountain’ to ‘Stoned Mountain.’"
He called me every Mother’s Day with the same message: “Happy Mother’s Day motherfucker!,” and he gave me advice to “never call your own mother a motherfucker,” although being called a motherfucker by Les is one hell of an honor. “I only call people motherfucker that I love,” he told me, before continuing: “Motherfucker is the most flexible word in the English language.” And to illustrate this point he said the following sentence: “This motherfucker came by my motherfucking house the other day, and I told this motherfucker, "What motherfucker do you think you are, motherfucker? Just pay me my motherfucking money, and I’ll stop bothering with your motherfucking ass. Okay?’”
I loved the relationship he formed with my parents, especially my Dad— with whom he liked to trade silly jokes—and my wife, Stephanie.
One time he told my Dad, “I want to congratulate you on a job well done raising Joe.” To which my Dad jokingly responded “We’re not done yet.” To which Les asked, “You’re having more kids?!”
Les really wanted to officiate our wedding, adding that he’d happily become Rabbi Les McCannstein. While he was bedridden and couldn’t make it, the last thing Stephanie and I did before our ceremony—just a few minutes prior—was FaceTiming Les. He gave us the most loving and wonderful congratulatory pep-talk; it was a truly beautiful moment.
Both Les and I knew that Les’ transition would inevitably come, and Les did his best to prepare me for that day. Here are some of the statements he shared with me over the years about it:
Me: I’ve been worried about you.
Les: Don’t ever worry about me. I’ve lived a wonderful life. I’ve done everything I could’ve done and more.
—
I want it so that when you come home, I want the fucking crowd to be as big as my crowd will be.
—
When I die, don’t let them say it’s because of some physical ailment. Say that I died with a loving heart. Period.
—
I want to tell you something very serious. When I get outta here, if anybody asks you what was Les' most important thing, always refer to something related to God, okay?
—
Les: I’ve been wanting to talk to you. I want you to know that I love you dearly.
Me: I love you dearly too. I want you know.
Les: That is not about me anymore. I know, but I want you to know.
—-
Me: Its been a beautiful few days of weather. Lots of blue skies. I’ve been thinking of you.
Les: Whenever you look up and see a blue sky I’m giving you a hug wrapped in my arms.
—-
There have been many health scares with Les these past few years and, fearing that day had arrived, Les did call me to say goodbye about five times over the past four or five years. Sadly, we didn’t get to tell each other goodbye when it actually happened a few days ago but, as I write this today looking up at a beautiful clear blue sky, I can’t help but think of Les’ first goodbye to me, which will always represent to me, our true goodbye:
Les: Call me tomorrow or the next day, but if I’m not here anymore I want to thank you for all of your love.
Me: And I want to thank you for all of yours.
Les: Motherfucker. [Click]
