{"id":486535,"date":"2019-05-31T15:00:49","date_gmt":"2019-05-31T21:00:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/?p=841936"},"modified":"2019-05-31T15:00:49","modified_gmt":"2019-05-31T21:00:49","slug":"song-you-need-to-know-horace-tapscott-why-dont-you-listen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/music-news\/song-you-need-to-know-horace-tapscott-why-dont-you-listen\/","title":{"rendered":"Song You Need to Know: Horace Tapscott, \u2018Why Don\u2019t You Listen?\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Unless you\u2019re a hardcore jazz<\/a> aficionado, you might not know the name Horace Tapscott. But to several generations of L.A. musicians \u2014 including breakout saxophone star Kamasi Washington<\/a> \u2014 the late pianist and composer is a near-legendary figure.<\/p>\n

\u201cI grew up in Leimert Park and his footprint is all over that area,\u201d Washington said in 2015<\/a> of Tapscott\u2019s importance to his South L.A. neighborhood. \u201cWe all learned his music and his philosophies from the elders who played with him that are still with us. Horace is one of the most important figures in the foundation of music in L.A., from both a purely musically and socially conscious perspective. My dad took me to hear [Tapscott\u2019s] Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra many times and I played with them after Horace passed away.\u201d<\/p>\n

If Washington\u2019s sound \u2014 specifically the large-scale, spirit-lifting jazz-meets-gospel-meets-R&B documented on his 2015 breakthrough The Epic<\/em><\/a> and its 2018 follow-up Heaven and Earth<\/em><\/a> \u2014 has a patron saint, it would have to be Tapscott. From the early Sixties through his death in 1999, the pianist helped to anchor a community-driven L.A. scene, bringing together musicians, singers and poets in both the Arkestra (the name nods to a group led by Tapscott\u2019s like-minded predecessor Sun Ra<\/a>) and an umbrella group called UGMAA, the Union of God\u2019s Musicians and Artists Ascension.<\/p>\n

A new archival release, Why Don\u2019t You Listen?,<\/em> captures the ensemble that inspired Washington and his peers in the form of a 1998 Arkestra concert at the L.A. County Museum of Art, reportedly the final time Tapscott was healthy enough to play piano with the band live. Released by Dark Tree<\/a>, a French label named for a Tapscott piece<\/a>, it joins a wealth of other Tapscott and UGMAA work now available digitally<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The album\u2019s near-15-minute title track makes for a fine introduction to Tapscott\u2019s expansive approach. While much of the Arkestra\u2019s available output focuses on the leader\u2019s intricate instrumental writing, which ranges from funky to free, \u201cWhy Don\u2019t You Listen?\u201d spotlights the voice. On the piece, co-written by Tapscott and Linda Hill, a nine-member choir known as the Great Voice of UGMAA \u2014 directed by Dwight Trible, who remains committed<\/a> to Tapscott\u2019s mission \u2014 sings out stirring variations on a central question: \u201cWhy didn\u2019t you listen to the sounds of truth?\u201d<\/p>\n

After a brief, expressionistic piano intro, the vocalists sing out a somber opening (\u201cGo forth my seed \/ And spread the truth \u2026\u201d). From there, the tempo picks up, and the singers begin calling out a series of jazz icons \u2014 \u201cWhy didn\u2019t you listen to Bird and Trane \u2026 ?\/ Why didn\u2019t you listen to Lady Day?\u201d \u2014 over an insistent pulse, complete with hand percussion, booming brass and emphatic shouts. Around the five-minute mark, the piece breaks into brisk post-bop swing, with the soprano sax of Michael Session swooping over top. A solo vocal episode and a slashing drum feature by Donald Dean lead back into the \u201cWhy didn\u2019t you listen \u2026?\u201d refrain.<\/p>\n

The track\u2019s blend of somber, gospel-like textures with upbeat, unfettered improv does have precedents in jazz \u2014 Duke Ellington\u2019s Sacred Concerts<\/a>, grand Charles Mingus works like \u201cMeditations on Integration\u201d<\/a> \u2014 but Tapscott clearly developed his own rich aesthetic. Throughout Why Don\u2019t You Listen?,<\/em> it\u2019s easy to hear why up-and-comers like Washington were so struck by his vision \u2014 and following that thread to Washington\u2019s own work<\/a>, equally plain to hear the echo of an earlier L.A. jazz revolution.<\/p>\n

via:: Rolling Stone<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Unless you\u2019re a hardcore jazz aficionado, you might not know the name Horace Tapscott. But to several generations of L.A. musicians \u2014 including breakout saxophone star Kamasi Washington \u2014 the late pianist and composer is a near-legendary figure. \u201cI grew up in Leimert Park and his footprint is all over that area,\u201d Washington said in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-486535","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-music-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-20 08:39:33","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KQZR - The Reel","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/486535","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=486535"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/486535\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=486535"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=486535"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=486535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}