Various

Featuring: Adele Sebastian, Creative Arts Ensemble, Jesse Sharps, Nate Morgan, Horace Tapscott

Nine rare tracks from the Nimbus West archive, a map of Los Angeles underground jazz the world never heard enough of. Horace Tapscott, Nate Morgan, Jesse Sharps, Dadisi Komolafe, Roberto Miranda - the names that built UGMAA and the Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra, the movement that kept spiritual jazz alive in South Central for decades while the music industry looked elsewhere.

"Desert Fairy Princess," "U.G.M.A.A Ger," "Prayer Of Happiness," "Mrafu," "Calvary" - titles evoking the Pan-African consciousness and spiritual quest of that community. With Vinny Golia, Henry Franklin, Nels Cline, Sonship Theus, Joel Ector, Jeff Clayton, Adele Sebastian among the players. Over seventy minutes of music that never made it onto the usual "best of" lists, never got the magazine covers, never reached the ears it deserved.

The title says it all: L.A.'s unsung heroes. While New York's loft scene got the documentaries and the retrospectives, this West Coast parallel universe remained largely invisible. Tapscott and his circle made a conscious choice to stay local, to serve their community, to build something lasting rather than chase fame. The price was obscurity. The reward was artistic freedom and a body of work that still sounds radical today.

This compilation is the perfect entry point for anyone wanting to discover one of the most important and least told chapters in American jazz history. Essential listening.