Tapscott Ensemble Paying Tribute to Ailing Leader

Imperially slim pianist-composer-bandleader Horace Tapscott has cast a long, vibrant shadow over the Los Angeles jazz scene during the last 50 years. A musical activist, Tapscott brought his bands to the people at every opportunity, at one point loading his Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra onto a flatbed truck during the Watts riots of 1965 to play in the streets.

The Arkestra, one of several Tapscott-led ensembles, has in its nearly 40-year history served as a proving ground for aspiring musicians, producing such internationally known stars as saxophonists David Murray, Arthur Blythe and Azar Lawrence, as well as providing a home for a host of Los Angeles-based musicians. The current Arkestra will assemble Sunday at Washington High School Auditorium in a tribute and benefit for Tapscott, who, according to his wife, Cecilia Tapscott, has been diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer.

“Horace is the griot of the community,” says vocalist and event organizer Dwight Trible, “someone who earned our love and respect not through media attention, but because of all he did. You have to love and respect a man who had so much talent, generosity and humility.”

The Arkestra, to be conducted in Tapscott’s absence by saxophonists Michael Session and Charles Owens, will include longtime Tapscott associates trumpeter Clora Bryant, bassist Roberta Miranda, drummers Donald Dean and Sonship Theus, trombonist Phil Ranelin, Trible, poet Kamau Daaood, and others. Also on the bill are the Watts Prophets, saxophonist Teddy Edwards, trombone ensemble Bone Soir and the Washington High School Prep Jazz Band.

* “A Tribute to the Life and Music of Horace Tapscott,” Washington High School Auditorium, 10860 Denker Ave.; Sunday, 2 p.m. $10 suggested donation. Information: (323) 960-5613.

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Mancini Move: The Henry Mancini Institute, located for its first two seasons at Cal State Long Beach, has announced its move to UCLA. The Westwood campus’ Royce Hall will be the primary performance venue for the summer program’s 70 students and guest artist instructors.

The Mancini Institute--the education arm of the American Jazz Philharmonic, with offices in Culver City--brings together about 70 student-musicians with established jazz professionals for four weeks of career-oriented clinics and performances. Auditions for this year’s programs are being held around the country. Los Angeles-area auditions are scheduled for March 7 at UCLA. “The whole operation will move,” said Mancini music director Jack Elliott, taking a brief moment earlier this week from his duties as musical director of the Grammy Awards, his 29th year in the role. “We’ll be using classrooms in Schoenberg Hall and Royce Hall, and the students will all live on the campus.”

Proximity and exposure both figured into the move, according to Elliott. “It’s closer to home, closer to our offices, closer to where much of our faculty lives. And it’s an opportunity to widen our audience. Long Beach was sensational, [the Carpenter Center for the Performing Arts] is a great hall, and we got very good media coverage. But it’s hard to get the audience outside of Long Beach to come down there.”

This year’s guest artists, a somewhat more youthful bunch than in years past, include bassist Christian McBride, trumpeter Randy Brecker, clarinetist Richard Stoltzman and his pianist son, Peter Stoltzman, lyricist-pianist-singer Dave Frishberg, Lincoln Mayorga (who has been commissioned to compose a piece for the Mancini orchestras), and members of the Turtle Island String Quartet.

“We thought, let’s get some people closer to [the students’] age than [to] mine,” Elliott said with a laugh. “There is a difference in how [younger players] relate to the students. McBride is marvelous. I first heard Peter [Stoltzman] play in Ojai, and he’s a monster jazz piano player.”

Elliott said he’s hopeful there will be some future collaboration between the UCLA Jazz Studies program directed by Kenny Burrell and the Mancini Institute, now that both are on the same campus. “Kenny is an old friend, and I’m hopeful that we can do something together. It would be great for both sides.”

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More Jazz Ed: The Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz, which announced an affiliation with USC’s School of Music in September, continues presenting student artists at its Club Thelonious, every Friday and Saturday at Impresario’s in the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, fifth floor, 135 N. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. Guitarist Randy Ingram leads a combo tonight and Saturday; saxophonist Zane Musa brings in a band March 5-6. Showtime is 10 p.m. Information: (310) 656-4500; reservations: (213) 972-7333.

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Free Jazz: Saxophonist Dale Fielder, recent winner of the Black Entertainment Television 1999 New Jazz Discovery competition, plays a free concert Sunday at 5 p.m. at All Saints Church, 132 N. Euclid Ave., Pasadena. Pianist Jane Getz, bassist Bill Markus and drummer Thomas White, who were all with the saxophonist on Feb. 18 in Washington to record a one-hour BET special, will round out the quartet. Information: (626) 796-1172.