McCann, Live at Lowell, Instructs and Improvises

Les McCann inched up towards the front of the room, past a hundred tapping feet and a slightly smaller number of rhythmically bobbing heads.

He was supposed to be teaching, or "coaching," the nine Harvard jazz musicians who were jamming yesterday afternoon in the front of the Lowell House Junior Common Room. It was the third installment of the Office of the Arts's new program, "Learning from Performers."

But actually, McCann--the program's first artist-in-residence--was itching to play some himself.

He disappeared behind a curtain, circled past the portrait of a lifeless Harvard Classics professor and for a few moments leaned up against a portion of the battlefield mural on the south wall of the room.

McCann's hands were restless at his sides while he listened to his second group of students--the "Funky Butt Band," as he had dubbed them a few minutes before--play a few more choruses of a simple melody he had given them to play to a funky beat.

Finally, the 40-year-old jazz pianist could sideline-sit no longer. He sidled up to a grand piano in the corner and began forking out some chords.

Ten minutes later, after taking Stan Dorn's place at the electric piano, leaning back and orchestrating one solo after another by the students around him, McCann had the somewhat stale after-lunch crowd on its feet.

"My first group [of eight students] just didn't play together," McCann said afterwards. "But this second group, that didn't feel like it had as much talent, or could play together as well as the first, they decided they were going to play together and communicate."

"And," McCann said, "You know I couldn't miss out on that."

The Lexington, Ky., native had said before he led 21 students in three groups, through half-hour improvisations, that his gospel music background and tendency to experiment put him among those jazz musicians who "play to communicate, not to play for themselves."

In the eaves, Thelma Massey, a dining hall worker for Lowell House was among those standing and applauding.

"I love all kinds of music," Massey said. "But I really love Les McCann."

"Even Bill Bossert [professor of Applied Mathematics and Master of Lowell House] was on his feet clapping," Jerold S. Kayden '75, the coordinator of the Learning from Performers series said afterwards.

Yesterday's two-hour workshop was the first of two seminars McCann will lead while living at Lowell House this week--the next one is tomorrow at 2 p.m. at the Lowell JCR.

Jazz musician Anthony Braxton, who conducted a similar workshop last Thursday in Adams House, was the series' first artist to come to Harvard.

Although the full schedule for the series will not be announced until later this week, Kayden said, and although that schedule will include resident artists from other areas of the performing arts besides jazz, the series' next guest will be another jazz musician, Freddie Hubbard