Horace Tapscott -

Horace Tapscott (April 6, 1934 — Feb. 27, 1999) was an American jazz pianist, composer, and bandleader from Houston who spent most of his career in Los Angeles. He founded the Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra and built a long-running South Los Angeles network around community performance, composition, and musician development. Tapscott recorded as a leader for Flying Dutchman, Nimbus West, and other labels while maintaining the Arkestra as the central vehicle for his music.

Background

Horace Elva Tapscott was born April 6, 1934, in Houston, Texas. His mother, Mary Lou Malone, accompanied a neighborhood church choir on piano and toured East Texas and Louisiana with a jazz quartet. Tapscott began piano lessons with Malone at age six and took up trombone at eight under an outside teacher.

In 1943, the family moved to Los Angeles, where Tapscott studied trombone with Harry Southard. He attended Lafayette Junior High School under Percy McDavid and Jefferson High School under Samuel Browne. Tapscott also took private lessons from Lloyd Reese and played trombone beside alto saxophonist Frank Morgan in the Jefferson High School Vocational Band.

Tapscott joined American Federation of Musicians Local 767 in 1949, the segregated Black musicians’ local on Central Avenue. He and Morgan joined Gerald Wilson’s big band while both attended Jefferson. Tapscott graduated from Jefferson in 1952 and briefly attended Los Angeles City College. He enlisted in the Air Force in March 1953 and played in the band at Fort Warren Air Force Base in Cheyenne, Wyoming. Tapscott returned to Los Angeles after his March 1957 discharge.

Tapscott played trombone in drummer Peppy Prince’s orchestra at a 1958 Dooto session for Dance Party, his earliest recording credit. He joined Lionel Hampton’s big band on trombone in 1959 and remained through his February 1961 departure. Tapscott also arranged charts for Hampton and occasionally moved from trombone to piano.

Tapscott organized a South Los Angeles ensemble and musicians’ collective around his Avalon Boulevard rehearsal garage in 1961. He developed the network into the Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra and Underground Musicians Association. Tapscott played trombone for Lou Rawls on 1962 sessions for Capitol. In 1963, he played piano for trombonist Lou Blackburn at Imperial Records. He led a March 1964 quartet at Red’s in Los Angeles with alto saxophonist Arthur Blythe, bassist David Bryant, and drummer Bill Madison.

Tapscott led Blythe and Bryant in small groups at UGMA rehearsals and community concerts across Los Angeles. He formed a quintet by January 1968 with Blythe, Bryant, second bassist Walter Savage Jr., and drummer Everett Brown Jr. Tapscott composed six pieces for Sonny Criss and arranged and conducted the May 1968 Prestige session for Sonny’s Dream (Birth of the New Cool).

Reedisr John Carter recommended Tapscott to producer Bob Thiele in early 1969 as Thiele assembled Flying Dutchman Records.

Discography:

The Giant Is Awakened (1969 • Horace Tapscott Quintet)
Flight 17 (1978 • Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra)
Songs of the Unsung (1978)
In New York (1979)
The Call (1979)
Live at the I.U.C.C. (1979 • Horace Tapscott With The Pan-Afrikan Peoples Arkestra)
At the Crossroads (1980 • Horace Tapscott & Everett Brown Jr.)
Dial ‘B’ for Barbra (1981)
Faith (2010, recorded 1983)