{"title":"Horace Tapscott","description":"\u003cp\u003eBorn 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.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn 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, \u003cem\u003eThe Giant Is Awakened\u003c\/em\u003e (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.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTapscott 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.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"horace-tapscott-quintet-the-quintet-2022-mr-bongo-vinyl-lp","title":"Horace Tapscott Quintet - The Quintet (2022 Mr Bongo Vinyl LP)","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eHorace Tapscott Quintet - \u003cem\u003eThe Quintet\u003c\/em\u003e | Vinyl LP - 2022 Mr Bongo Reissue (MRBLP256)\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli class=\"whitespace-normal break-words pl-2\"\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eA previously unreleased 1969 session\u003c\/strong\u003e by one of Los Angeles' most important and unjustly overlooked jazz musicians, recovered from master tapes in the Flying Dutchman archives and released for the first time in 2022 by Mr Bongo\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli class=\"whitespace-normal break-words pl-2\"\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eThe exact same quintet as \u003cem\u003eThe Giant Is Awakened\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e: Horace Tapscott on piano, Arthur Blythe on alto saxophone, Everett Brown Jr. on drums, and the unusual dual-bass configuration of David Bryant and Walter Savage Jr.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli class=\"whitespace-normal break-words pl-2\"\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eProduced by Bob Thiele\u003c\/strong\u003e, who had just departed Impulse! Records to found Flying Dutchman in 1969 and brought the same conviction to these sessions that produced the best work of the Impulse! era\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHorace Tapscott spent most of the 1960s in South Central Los Angeles, leading the Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra and building the Underground Musicians Association (UGMA, later renamed the Union of God's Musicians and Artists Ascension), a community organisation that functioned as rehearsal space, arts incubator and social anchor through the years surrounding the 1965 Watts uprising. The Arkestra performed on flatbed trucks through the neighbourhood as the fires burned. The musicians Tapscott nurtured in those years included Arthur Blythe, David Murray, Butch Morris and Stanley Crouch. He declined opportunities to tour nationally or relocate to New York, choosing instead to stay and build something in his own community, which meant that despite being regarded by his peers as one of the most significant pianists in the country, his recording career did not begin until 1969. That debut, \u003cem\u003eThe Giant Is Awakened\u003c\/em\u003e, was produced by Bob Thiele for his newly founded Flying Dutchman imprint, Thiele having just left Impulse! Records where he had produced the definitive John Coltrane catalogue. The session that became \u003cem\u003eThe Giant Is Awakened\u003c\/em\u003e produced enough material for a second album, which Thiele also intended to release. It was not released. The master tapes sat in the Flying Dutchman archives for over fifty years.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhat Mr Bongo have recovered and pressed here is three pieces from that same 1969 session, with the same quintet: Tapscott on piano, Arthur Blythe on alto saxophone, Everett Brown Jr. on drums, and the distinctive dual-bass configuration of David Bryant and Walter Savage Jr. that gives the rhythm section its particular weight and density. The lineup contains no trumpet, no trombone and no second horn: just piano, alto saxophone and two basses over drums, a configuration that concentrates the harmonic and rhythmic conversation between Tapscott and his rhythm section in a way that the fuller ensemble of some contemporary free jazz recordings does not. The three tracks are titled \"World Peace\", \"Your Child\" and \"For Fats\", the last almost certainly an elegy for a significant jazz figure whose identity is worth confirming from your sleeve before discussing in any marketing context. Following the release of \u003cem\u003eThe Giant Is Awakened\u003c\/em\u003e, Tapscott did not record again as a leader until the late 1970s through the small Los Angeles labels Interplay and Nimbus. He died in February 1999 at the age of 64. The music on this record was made at his only commercially produced recording session and would not be heard by anyone outside the Flying Dutchman archives for five decades.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePressed at Optimal Media GmbH, licensed from Flying Dutchman, released 2 September 2022 on Mr Bongo (MRBLP256). Comes in an oversized jacket with plain black poly-lined inner sleeve and obi strip.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Mr Bongo","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43258630438971,"sku":null,"price":50.0,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0630\/3203\/3339\/files\/a3247336009_10.jpg?v=1772766376"},{"product_id":"horace-tapscott-with-the-pan-afrikan-peoples-arkestra-live-at-lacma-1998-2020-dark-tree-vinyl-lp","title":"Horace Tapscott with The Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra - Live at LACMA 1998 (2020 Dark Tree Vinyl LP)","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eHorace Tapscott with The Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra and The Great Voice of UGMAA - \u003cem\u003eLive at LACMA, 1998 \u003c\/em\u003e| Vinyl LP - 2020 Dark Tree Roots Series (DT(RS)11LP)\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli class=\"whitespace-normal break-words pl-2\"\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eTapscott's last public performance\u003c\/strong\u003e, recorded live at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art on 24 July 1998, seven months before his death in February 1999, with the Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra and the twelve-voice Great Voice of UGMAA choir reconstituted for this occasion\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli class=\"whitespace-normal break-words pl-2\"\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eTwo extended pieces, each over fourteen minutes\u003c\/strong\u003e: \"Fela Fela\", a tribute to Fela Kuti composed by Tapscott and conguero Najite Agindotan, and \"Why Don't You Listen?\", co-written with Linda Hill, whose lyrics call the roll of jazz's ancestors\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli class=\"whitespace-normal break-words pl-2\"\u003eRecorded and mixed by Wayne Peet, mastered by François Lê Xuân, pressed at Pallas on 180-gram vinyl, released on Dark Tree's Roots Series in 2020 with liner notes by Steven L. Isoardi and a photo insert by Warren Berman\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOn 24 July 1998 Horace Tapscott led the Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra and the Great Voice of UGMAA choir in a public concert at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. He was already ill with the cancer that would kill him on 27 February 1999. He was sixty-four years old. This LP, released by the Paris-based Dark Tree label in June 2020 as part of their Roots Series documenting previously unreleased recordings from the Los Angeles avant-garde scene, presents two pieces from that night, each running past fourteen minutes. \"Fela Fela\" is a tribute to Fela Kuti composed by Tapscott and Arkestra conguero Najite Agindotan, written following Kuti's death in August 1997 and performed here for what was likely one of the first times: its groove draws on the African percussion rhythms in Kuti's own music, with three basses providing a dense low foundation under the choir's Yoruba-inflected singing, Michael Session's soprano saxophone and Phil Ranelin's trombone. \"Why Don't You Listen?\", co-written with Linda Hill, is a vocal invocation of the jazz tradition, its lyrics addressing the listener directly in a roll call of names: Charlie Parker, John Coltrane, Billie Holiday, Max Roach, James Moody, Dizzy Gillespie. Dwight Trible sings lead and directs the Great Voice of UGMAA, which includes vocalist and percussionist Ndugu \"Jingles\" Chandler among its twelve members.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe personnel assembled here are a concentrated version of what Tapscott had been building for nearly four decades. Phil Ranelin, who had co-founded the Detroit Tribe label in the early 1970s before relocating to Los Angeles, plays trombone. The rhythm section comprises three bassists (Alan Hines, Trevor Ware and Louis Large), Donald Dean on drums, Agindotan on congas and Bill Madison on percussion. The total ensemble, with choir, is twenty people. The Great Voice of UGMAA had originally operated from the late 1960s until the mid-1970s before Tapscott dissolved it; it was reconstituted here. Licensed under exclusive arrangement from the Horace Tapscott family, recorded and mixed by Wayne Peet, the full five-track concert was first released on CD and digital in 2019 as \"Why Don't You Listen? - Live at LACMA, 1998\"; this LP presents two of those five pieces, \"Fela Fela\" and \"Why Don't You Listen?\", in a 180-gram pressing from Pallas in Germany, cut at Pallas, with liner notes by Steven L. Isoardi, author of the definitive Tapscott study \"The Dark Tree: Jazz and the Community Arts in Los Angeles\", and photographs from the concert by Warren Berman.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Dark Tree","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43258649772091,"sku":null,"price":80.0,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0630\/3203\/3339\/files\/71QqtzsebSL._AC_SX679.jpg?v=1772768200"}],"url":"https:\/\/lushliferecords.com.au\/collections\/horace-tapscott.oembed","provider":"Lush Life Records","version":"1.0","type":"link"}