Born Horace Elva Tapscott on 6 April 1934 in Houston, Texas, Horace Tapscott was an American jazz pianist, composer, and community activist whose mother, Mary Malone Tapscott, worked professionally as a singer and pianist. He began piano studies at age six and trombone at age eight, moving to Los Angeles with his family in 1943 aged nine. Immersed in the Central Avenue jazz scene as a teenager, Tapscott studied with Dr. Samuel R. Browne and Lloyd Reese at Jefferson High School, playing with Frank Morgan, Don Cherry, and Billy Higgins. He graduated in 1952, married Cecilia Payne, and served in the Air Force in Wyoming playing in an Air Force band. Returning to Los Angeles, he played trombone with Lionel Hampton from 1959 to 1961 before quitting trombone to focus on piano.
In 1961, Tapscott formed the Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra (PAPA, or The Ark) with the aim of preserving, developing, and performing African-American music. As his vision grew, this became part of a larger organisation in 1963, the Underground Musicians Association (UGMA), later renamed Union of God's Musicians and Artists Ascension (UGMAA). Arthur Blythe, Stanley Crouch, Butch Morris, Wilber Morris, David Murray, Jimmy Woods, and Nate Morgan all performed in the Arkestra. His first album as leader, The Giant Is Awakened (1969, Flying Dutchman), was also Arthur Blythe's recording debut. Outspoken about racism, politics, and social ethics, Tapscott was labelled a dissident and blacklisted from the music industry establishment in the early 1970s, gigging at parks, churches, and the Troubadour whilst reorganising the Arkestra around 1977. From 1978 through the mid-1980s, he recorded for Interplay and Nimbus Records, followed by The Dark Tree (1989, hat ART) and albums for Arabesque in the 1990s. The 1980s saw him emerge as one of jazz's premiere solo pianists, and in 1994 he toured Europe with the full Arkestra.
Tapscott died on 27 February 1999 aged 64, the day before a planned tribute concert at Los Angeles' Leimert Park. An engraving in the sidewalk along Degnan Boulevard honours him. UCLA holds the Horace Tapscott Jazz Collection, donated by his widow Cecilia in 2003, and the Arkestra remains active today.
