'Sessions' with Horace Tapscott
Posthumous releases continue to reveal facets of L.A.'s towering jazz pianist
By Kirk Silsbee
The tragedy of jazz in California is the ongoing lack of worthy documentation. In the 1940s, this was due to record labels’ inability to see the music of Central Avenue as anything more than mere entertainment. In the ’50s, the proponents of cool jazz were lionized to the shameful neglect of the California hard players. Even in the ’60s, the explosion of new black music in Los Angeles was captured on just a handful of releases from such small labels as John Hardy’s Revelation and Bob Thiele’s Flying Dutchman.
The three pillars of that latter ferment – teachers all – were transplanted Texans: reedman John Carter, trumpeter Bobby Bradford, and pianist Horace Tapscott. Their brightest students and acolytes – among them saxophonists David Murray and Arthur Blythe, composer/conductor Butch Morris, flute virtuoso James Newton, and critic/polemicist Stanley Crouch – would leave to energize the New York avant-garde, particularly the loft-jazz scene of the ’70s.
The success of that second wave of Angelenos in the prime jazz marketplace of New York City (and, by extension, Europe) created curiosity about the forebears of L.A.’s jazz underground. High-profile independents, the Black Saint and Gramavision labels, took on Carter in the last decade of his life. It was just in time to realize his sprawling five-album masterwork, the sepia panorama of black America’s history stretching from Dauhwe (’82) to Shadows on a Wall (’89). Yet his partner Bobby Bradford, aside from the albums he co-led with Carter, has just a couple of Soul Note releases under his own name to show for more than 30 years of activity. Label patronage eludes him to this day.
New York discovered Horace Tapscott in the ’80s. Some well-received club appearances alerted Easterners that Southern California truly had something outside their scope of knowledge – and worth investigating. Tapscott was seen as the L.A. equivalent of Sun Ra (as a pianist and bandleader) or of Philadelphia’s resident eccentric piano genius, Hassan Ibn Ali. Tapscott’s originality made the comparisons valid. A few small band releases on the hatART and Arabesque labels followed before Tapscott’s death in 1999.
Yet, of the Texas-to-L.A. triumvirate, Tapscott was by far the most extensively recorded. His patron was Tom Albach, a Santa Barbara-based entrepreneur who began Nimbus West Records with the idea of documenting Tapscott’s work, rather than selling product. In December ’78, Downbeat reported that, after a dry spell that began following The Giant Is Awakened (Flying Dutchman, 1969), two new Tapscott albums were available (one was Songs of the Unsung on Tosh Taenaka’s Interplay label), and a third set for release. Thus began Tapscott’s exposure to the larger jazz world and Nimbus West’s ongoing accumulation of the pianist in many musical configurations. Unfortunately, that July the musician was stricken with the first of several brain aneurysms. Tapscott’s renaissance was coupled with his slow decline.
The ongoing Nimbus West releases – now up to Vol. 11 of Tapscott solo sessions, along with recordings of the pianist in a trio and with the ever-expanding Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra – amount to Tapscott’s codex. They catalog his many compositions, as well as the myriad piano styles-within-a-style that made up his art. These collections also form a canon of material by other writers in what chronicler Steven L. Isoardi (in his 2006 book The Dark Tree, University of Southern California Press) calls “the community arts in Los Angeles,” of which Tapscott was a central figure. Indeed, he needed to look no further than within this community for suitable and compatible musicians.
Bobby Bradford recently spoke about the inevitable conflicts and strained loyalties that occurred when the larger labels beckoned. “I told John [Carter] one time,” he recalled, “‘Man, you don’t owe me nothin’. If the company wants a New York trumpet player on your date, don’t look back. And by the same token, if I get somethin’, and they’re pressurin’ me to use somebody else, I’m gonna do it.’ And neither one of us had any problem with that.”
Tapscott must also have had to make such tacit agreements, if only with himself. Although he was probably thrilled to be playing with such big-leaguers as bassists Cecil McBee and Ray Drummond, and drummers Andrew Cyrille and Billy Hart, their playing – as marvelous as it was – amounted to something of a standardization. A player like bassist Roberto Miranda, who first encountered Tapscott at 19 and developed in his ensembles (while doing parallel studies with Carter and Bradford, and in symphonic settings), must surely have known the ways and requirements of the master far better than hired guns brought in for a two-day recording session. To hear Tapscott in his regional context, one has to hear the Nimbus West releases.
These recordings, though, contain thorns amid the roses. One local broadcaster, well versed in Tapscott’s recorded legacy, spoke after his passing: “One of his faults,” she said, “was to be encouraging to other musicians who were not in Horace’s class.” Indeed, the requirements for entry into Tapscott’s musical circle seemed to be passion and intent, rather than ability and competence. “Our music is contributive,” he famously stressed, “not competitive.” He seemed content to let the musical chips fall where they may.
Sometime around ’88, Albach relocated to Europe. His label’s plain-covered records, a familiar sight in the Tapscott bin at Rhino Records in Westwood, became scarce. The hatARTs (two volumes of The Dark Tree) and Arabesques (Aiee! The Phantom and Thoughts of Dar Es Salaam) inevitably disappeared. The Nimbus West discography seemed consigned to the pre-CD era. But a few years ago, with no fanfare whatsoever, Albach began to put out a slow stream of compact disc releases. (Some works are even available for downloading at Nimbuswest.com.)
Albach, now in New Mexico, began his CD line with unissued material from the solo Tapscott Sessions series and a few favorites (Dial B for Barbra, Live at Lobero). Better than anything, these give a clear view of Tapscott the multi-layered keyboard original. Vol. 11 features mostly originals, peppered with some interesting repertory choices. Horace Silver’s “Nica’s Dream” is given an especially luxurious treatment, with different calibrations of slow tempos throughout. The relaxed gait allows Tapscott to explore the tune’s sparkling lyricism, so often neglected when taken at its customary steeplechase velocity. Another hard-bop pianist and composer, the almost forgotten Elmo Hope, is represented by “This Is for Kenny.” Here Tapscott creates a chordal whirlpool, and within the currents circle out-of-tempo fragments, Tatumesque arpeggios, sly dissonance, and piled ostinatos. They bob to the surface and then resubmerge.
Tapscott surely must have played “Besame Mucho” in many working contexts. (The influence of Mexican music on L.A. jazz musicians remains an unexplored area of scholarship.) But here, without ensemble constraints, Tapscott indulges in deep, soulful brooding through plaintive theme reiterations against inky, sometimes dissonant, chords. Conversely, his own “Sabroso” is tender enough to be sung as a lullaby. A mid-’50s Sun Ra piece, “Call for All Demons,” plays tag with the Sun King’s processional beat, while playfully straying from and then returning to it.
Clearly from different recording dates, the material on Vol. 11 is a mixed sonic bag as well. The engineering can render the piano somewhat remote, as though you’re hearing it from another room. On other selections, bass and treble registers are disconnected. None of these caveats is news to Tapscott followers. What matters in the end is the music, and this is quite substantial.
2008-01-31
Published: 01/30/2008
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