Horace Tapscott
b. 6 April 1934, Houston, Texas, USA. Tapscott moved to Los Angeles at the age of nine and, although taught piano by his mother (an accomplished stride player), he decided to concentrate on trombone. Helped by bandleader Gerald Wilson, Tapscott began to play professionally, but after army service in Korea, switched back to piano, jamming on LA's Central Avenue scene with musicians such as Sonny Criss, Eric Dolphy, Red Callender, Charles Lloyd and Buddy Collette. For 18 months he was accompanist to singer Lorez Alexandria, then toured briefly with Lionel Hampton before deciding to remain in Los Angeles where, in 1961, he co-founded the UGMA (the Underground Musicians Association) as a community self-help organization based in the Watts area. The UGMA later became the UGMAA (the Union of God's Musicians and Artists Ascension) but has otherwise survived intact for 30 years, providing a testing ground for generations of upcoming west coast musicians (alumni include Arthur Blythe, David Murray, Roberto Miranda) as has its offshoot big band, the Pan-Afrikan Peoples Arkestra (motto: ‘Our music is contributive rather than competitive’). Although (or perhaps because) Tapscott and the UGMAA served the black community and celebrated the black cultural heritage in much the same way as Muhal Richard Abramsand the AACM would do in Chicago, they found themselves neglected by the media and the mainstream record industry. Until a cluster of albums suddenly appeared in the late '70s, Tapscott had only two appearances on record to show for nearly 20 years of making music. The first, in 1968, was on alto saxophonist Criss's SONNY'S DREAM (THE BIRTH OF THE NEW COOL), for which Tapscott wrote and arranged all the tunes and conducted the 10-piece ensemble; the second was his own THE GIANT IS AWAKENED, a fiercely exciting quintet session that also marked Arthur Blythe's recording debut. (Long a collector's item, it was reissued in 1991 as part of the Novus Series ‘70 CD, WEST COAST HOT.) The record's evident Black Power sympathies—the Giant of the title was, said Tapscott, ‘the New Black Nation’—perhaps helps to explain why it was almost a decade before Tapscott was able to record again; a sudden flurry of activity producing some small-group albums and, notably, a trio of releases with the Pan-Afrikan Peoples Arkestra ( FLIGHT 17, THE CALL, LIVE AT THE IUCC) on the small, independent Nimbus label, which also initiated a series of solo piano records ( THE TAPSCOTT SESSIONS) in the '80s. A dramatic, lyrical pianist—he cites Art Tatum, Thelonious Monk, Andrew Hill, his mother and Vladimir Horowitz as major influences—Tapscott's compositions are, he says, inspired by ‘the experience of black people in America’. His tunes celebrate their history, their community, their culture; filled with blues, dance, struggle, dream, they are—as the title of his first solo album declares—the songs of the unsung. By devoting himself to their cause, Tapscott has remained largely unsung himself.