Horace Tapscott (1934-1999) es uno de los pianistas más infravalorados de la historia del jazz. Activo en la zona de Los Angeles e involucrado con la escena de vanguardia y en el activismo en su comunidad local, fue calificado como problemático por el establishment musical. [...]
Unless you were an active concert-goer in the Los Angeles area in the late 60s and early 70s, there’s a good chance that your first awareness of Horace Tapscott as both a pianist/composer and organizer of local musicians roughly comparable to the AACM and BAG, was when hat[now]ART issued the Dark Tree sessions in 1990. [...]
Pianisten, kompositören och bandledaren Horace Tapscott (1934–1999) kan utan tvekan kallas en obesjungen hjälte inom jazzen. Till viss del beroende på att han närmast uteslutande verkade i Los Angeles, i en musikergemenskap liknande den kring Sun Ra, men ännu mer beroende på att han – till skillnad från den extremt produktive Sun Ra – gav ut få skivor under sin livstid. [...]
Moins connu en France qu’Archie Shepp, le pianiste Horace Tapscott (1934-1999) a fondé et dirigé pendant plus de trente ans le Pan-Afrikan Peoples Arkestra, dont l’oeuvre discographique témoigne de nombreuses affinités avec celle du saxophoniste : même quête de spiritualité, mêmes références au panafricanisme, même fonction rituelle d’émancipation et de réappropriation de soi dans les transes de l’improvisation. [...]
Un altro tassello ad arricchire il mosaico di un’eredità sulla quale, tra benedette ristampe e folgoranti inediti, sembra essersi finalmente diradata la nebbia. Dopo aver tirato fuori dagli scatoloni della Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra un live della fine degli anni Novanta, Why Don’t You Listen (2019), la Dark Tree ci delizia con il bis rispolverando una session in studio del 1976. [...]
Complete Communion sticks to new releases in each instalment, so I want to use a little space to look at some notable reissues and archival releases from 2020. The profile of Los Angeles pianist and composer Horace Tapscott has risen in recent years, with a slew of reissues precipitating a much needed critical reassessment. [...]
When someone called it an ARKestra, he’d correct them: it’s ArKEStra. As Horace Tapscott (1934–1999) says in his autobiography Songs of the Unsung (written with Stephen Isoardi), he’d borrowed the term from other-pronunciation Sun Ra, along with the connotation of an ark as protector/conservator ship encompassing diverse organic activity. [...]
Une vibration émanant des cordes du piano, une voix persuasive et énergique dit un beau poème dédié à la cause afro-américaine avec cette voix caractéristique. Une introduction au piano enchaîne sur le riff de Ancestral Echoes. Horace Tapscott, non content d’être un très remarquable pianiste, compositeur et auteur de thèmes soulful invitant à la danse à la célébration de la Great Black Music [...]
Il suffit d’écouter l’ébouriffant solo d’Horace Tapscott tout de suite après la déclamation de l’Ancestral Echoes de Kamau Daaood pour convaincre un non initié de la grandeur du pianiste. C’est bien grâce à Bertrand Gastaut et son label Dark Tree que renait aujourd’hui Horace Tapscott, le Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra et avec eux tout un pan de l’histoire du jazz de Los Angeles. [...]
Zapraszamy na podróż do prawdziwych, afrykańskich korzeni jazzu! W tym celu przenosimy się do … Kalifornii, a na osi czasu cofamy się do stycznia roku 1976. W studyjnych okolicznościach pewnego domu (sic!) spotykamy ponad 20 muzyków, którzy tworzyli wówczas The Pan-Afrikan Peoples Arkestra, kierowaną przez legendarnego pianistę jazzowego Horace’a Tapscotta (tu także w roli dyrygenta). [...]
In January of 1976 pianist/composer Horace Tapscott brought the Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra into the Audiotronics Recording Studios in Covina, California. Tapscott had been leading the Los Angeles-based orchestra since the early 1960s; as with the Sun Ra ensemble, the Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra had a communal house where Tapscott and many of its members lived. [...]
Horace Tapscott (1934-99) was more than just a very original jazz pianist. He was the spiritual leader of a large group of up-and-coming African-American improvisers based in Los Angeles during the 1960s, ‘70s, ‘80s and ‘90s. As with Sun Ra, he lived in a large home (called The Great House) along with many of his musicians so they were free to play music around the clock if they liked, learning from each other. [...]
Jazz orchestras are ambitious fiscal undertakings in the best of financial times. Pianist/composer Horace Tapscott led one during the lean decade of the 1970s and he did it out of Southern California where such ventures were even more fraught with the probability of failure. Ancestral Echoes documents one iteration of his large ensemble with surviving material from a rare studio session from January of 1976. [...]
Pianist and composer Horace Tapscott led the Pan African Peoples Arkestra in Los Angeles for nearly thirty years, unjustly flying under the radar of the jazz establishment. This album details the first studio recordings of the band and they sound vibrant and fresh at a time when most large ensembles were folding their tents. [...]
Die Union of God’s Musicians and Ar- tists Ascension und das PAN AFRICA PEOPLES ARKESTRA als zugehöriges Sprachrohr waren die Mittel, mit denen HORACE TAPSCOTT (1934-1999) von Anfang der 60er bis zu seinem Tod sein Credo verwirklichte: Come together, stay together, play together, play for the people. [...]
When pianist/composer/conductor Horace Tapscott founded the Pan Afrikan People’s Arkestra (PAPA) in 1961, it was by design a support collective for all arts, bringing pride to the black community, specifically that of South-Central Los Angeles. PAPA signified social activism, teaching empowerment, and advocating Tapscott’s belief that channeling African ancestral roots was a key to succeeding. [...]
Composer-pianist Tapscott was stoking the L.A. fires of the African diaspora so high in the 1970s that, according to Steven Isoardi’s comprehensive notes, his tapes got incinerated the day after a recording session, and many of his Arkestra were rendered homeless when their communal house burned down. [...]