Horace Tapscott

Horace Elva Tapscott , (born April 6, 1934 in Houston , Texas , † February 27, 1999 in Los Angeles ) was an American jazz pianist and composer.

Live and act

As the son of jazz pianist Mary Lou Malone, he learned piano from his mother when he was 6 years old. Two years later, the trumpet was added. He and his family moved to Fresno in 1943 and eventually to Los Angeles , where he first studied trombone in high school. There he played - together with Eric Dolphy and Frank Morgan - in the bands of Dexter Gordon , Wardell Gray and Gerald Wilson . During his military service from 1953 to 1957 he played trombone and baritone saxophone in an Army orchestra in Wyoming . From 1959 to 1961 he worked as a trombonist with Lionel Hampton , but due to the problems that followed from a serious car accident, he finally concentrated on the piano. At the end of 1961 he founded the Pan-African Peoples Arkestra in Los Angeles , an ensemble of up to 35 musicians with whom he played avant-garde jazz and to which Red Callender belonged at times . The orchestra existed under a different name until the 1990s. In 1963 he recorded with Lou Blackburn ; He also arranged two albums for the then singer (and later Black Panther activist) Elaine Brown and directed the recordings.

The saxophonist Sonny Criss recorded his compositions on the record "Sonny's Dream" (1968). In 1969 Tapscott recorded a quintet with Arthur Blythe , from 1977 he recorded for Nimbus records, in 1979 a trio with Roy Haynes and Art Davis , and later a quartet with John Carter , Cecil McBee and Andrew Cyrille . Tapscott's idiosyncratic music has only received national recognition since the 1990s, which was also evident in tours through the USA and Europe and recordings with European musicians such as Nelly Pouget and Michel Godard . In 2020, the 1976 album Ancestral Echoes was released from the estate .

literature

• Steven L. Isoardi The Dark Tree: Jazz and the Community Arts in Los Angeles , University of California Press, 2006

Web links

• Tapscott website with discography
• engl. Interview by Bob Rosenbaum with Horace Tapscott, October 1982 (pdf) (157 kB)
• Horace Tapscott at Allmusic (English)
• Horace Tapscott at Discogs (English)