Results for "Horace Tapscott"

Horace Tapscott

Born in 1934 in Houston, Texas, Horace came from a musical family centered around his mother, Mary Malone Tapscott, who worked professionally as a singer and pianist. When Horace was nine, the family moved to Los Angeles. As a teenager in the late 1940's, Horace was surrounded by the music of Central Avenue: Art Tatum, Charlie Parker, Coleman Hawkins, Dexter Gordon, were among the many cats on the set. Around this time, Horace also began to take music lessons from teachers Dr. Samuel R. Browne and Lloyd Reese, whose other students included Eric Dolphy and Frank Morgan. Horace's musical studies included trombone in addition to piano. In 1952, Horace graduated from Jefferson High, got married to Cecilia Payne and went into the Air Force

Ancestral Echoes – The Covina Sessions, 1976

By HORACE TAPSCOTT

Label: Dark Tree Records
Released: 2020
Track listing: Ancestral Echoes; Sketches of Drunken Mary; Jo Annette; Eternal Egypt Suite.

Karl Ackermann’s Best Releases of 2020

By KARL ACKERMANN

2020 abridged: A staggering loss of lives and livelihoods. We had worldwide social unrest, wildfires, locust swarms of Biblical proportions, killer hornets, killer drones, kids in cages; an impeachment, an election, an attempted insurrection. Oh, and Poland accidentally invaded the Czech Republic. It was not exactly the Gilded Age. Yet, amid doom-scrolling, the creative music community ...

Roots Magic, Audio Cave Artists & Alan Braufman

By MAURICE HOGUE

A new release by the Italian Quartet Roots Magic is always welcome. Their contemporary and improvisatory approach to old blues tunes and the way they always put their own touch on the music of avant-garde jazz composers is kind of unique on the European scene. Take Root Among the Stars, out on Clean Feed, should be ...

Heavy Rotation For A Pandemic Summer

By MARK CORROTO

In the summer of 2020 one result of the COVID-19 isolation, and artists inability to tour and perform is that they have time to deal with projects halted by this pandemic. Musicians, producers, and engineers have mixed, mastered and released an abundance of music. Many of the titles have been, and will be covered by our ...

Muse Records: Ten Smoking Hot Albums

By CHRIS MAY

Alone among the other great jazz labels of the 1960s and 1970s—Blue Note, Prestige, Riverside, Impulse!, Strata-East and Atlantic—Joe Fields' Muse is rarely anthologised, written about or otherwise celebrated. Yet like its peers, Muse was prolific, releasing over 200 premium-grade albums during the 1970s, its most active decade, alone. This relative obscurity is ...

Horace Tapscott with the Pan Afrikan People’s Arkestra: Ancestral Echoes – The Covina Sessions, 1976

By KARL ACKERMANN

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. Tapscott, ...

Lift Every Voice And Sing: Twenty #BlackLives Albums That Matter

By CHRIS MAY

Jazz has been inextricably linked with social and political protest since at least the late 1930s, when Billie Holiday made famous the leftist songwriter and poet Abel Meeropol's “Strange Fruit." The song, which has a power to move that is undiminished by familiarity, likens the bodies of lynched African Americans to fruit hanging in trees.

Aruán Ortiz with Andrew Cyrille and Mauricio Herrera: Inside Rhythmic Falls

By KARL ACKERMANN

Cuban-born pianist and composer Aruán Ortiz is constantly evolving, experimenting and injecting new elements into his craft. Inside Rhythmic Falls is his third trio album, each with impressive but different lineups. His previous trio release, Live In Zürich (Intakt Records, 2018), with bassist Brad Jones and Chicago Underground mainstay Chad Taylor on drums and mbira, saw ...

Cecil McAwesome

By PATRICK BURNETTE

Inspired by bassist Cecil McBee's star-turn on Lloyd McNeill's Elegia, the boys devote a whole episode to examining works led by Cecil or just plain enhanced by his presence. He's had a wide-ranging career as a side-man so they cherry-pick what highlights they can while wondering if the next setting on the engineering knob after “10" ...