Horace Tapscott

Solo (Steinway) piano. Los Angeles, September 1982. Just read the titles: "A Dress for Renee" - infectious melody, keeps coming back like a persistent thought. "Shades of Soweto" - South Africa seen from South Central. "The Hero's Last Dance" - whoever that hero was. "First Call of the Humming Bird" - nature breaking through concrete. And then "Forgiving" - as a closing statement, as a breath.

Horace Tapscott was a fierce critic of racial bigotry, and his music never hid it. But here there's also tenderness, also lightness. "Toward the Sunset" takes you somewhere. "Whit" and "As of Yet" - fragments, intuitions, notes stolen from silence. This is chapter four of the sessions that Tom Albach considered Tapscott's most important work. Thirty hours of solo piano recorded between 1982 and 1985. The dream of releasing them all never came true, but what we have is more than enough. No tricks, no safety net. Every note is a choice.