Horace Tapscott

Solo piano. Recorded March 1983, Los Angeles. Five pieces, forty-one minutes. Where Sun Ra meets Erik Satie. This is the third volume in what would become Tapscott's monumental series of solo recordings - over thirty hours captured between 1982 and 1985, documenting his own compositions alongside works by unknown Black composers in the Los Angeles area. Producer Tom Albach considered these the most important music Horace Tapscott ever made.

The titles read like chapters from a life: "The Tuus," "Lately's Light-Green Blues," "Reflections of Self," "Kopkee's Blues." The closer, "After the Storm" - nearly fourteen minutes of Tapscott working through aftermath, resolution, survival. This is the one that catches you. This is where the man who built UGMAA from nothing, who stayed when others left, sits alone with eighty-eight keys and tells you what he knows about weathering storms. Pyramid temples. Umbrellaed caravan in the high desert sun. The music moves between contemplation and eruption, between the weight of history and the lightness of a blues that hasn't forgotten how to swing. Not background music. Not easy listening.

This is a man thinking out loud at the piano, and if you're ready to listen, he'll take you somewhere real.