An Act to Follow

Musician, teacher and bandleader, Horace Tapscott, 64, will be buried today after a 10 a.m. ceremony at Brookins Community A.M.E. in Los Angeles. Yet it is not likely that his physical passing will diminish the life and vibrancy of the music, organizations and themes he devoted his life to sustaining.

Alongside his eight solo piano recordings and his many compositions (a discography is available online at https://www.posi-tone.com), Tapscott’s wide-ranging creative life and works have been captured in two vital documentaries: the brilliant solo concert film “Afro American Classics” (1985), by Michael Dett Wilcots, and “Passing Through” (1975), by Larry Clark, on which Charles Burnett worked as a cameraman and Julie Dash as a sound technician.

Tapscott’s oral history is also represented in Steven Isodari’s indispensable book, “Central Avenue Sounds.” Moreover, Tapscott’s “old-fashioned” notions of artistic responsibility--of “giving back” to the community, respect for one’s history and forebears, and of direct social activism--have been invested into the moral aesthetics and works of literally hundreds of local musicians, artists, poets, dancers and activists.

Rail-thin, tall, handsome and dark, Tapscott was an artist of both physical and moral intensity. Known as “Papa” to many, he was a community patriarch whose life and work are a bridge between the long succession of the seminal jazz giants--Art Tatum, Buddy Collette, Gerald Wilson and others--who nurtured him and plied their trade on Central Avenue from the turn of the century through the ‘40s, and Ornette Coleman, Charles Mingus, Dexter Gordon, Eric Dolphy and Don Cherry, the young Turks of the avant-garde who followed in their footsteps.

Labeled a “militant” (true) and a “trouble-maker” (not true), Tapscott suffered from a lack of critical and commercial attention. He supported his family by touring abroad and ghostwriting music for others, while performing free throughout the black community. Tapscott was also a fixture at benefits and rallies for sundry local causes and organizations, from Geronimo Pratt to the Black Panthers. In a 1991 interview with California Jazz Now, Tapscott discussed his choice of community activism over commercial success: “Your record might not be in the top ten, but your life is.”

Tapscott played what he termed “African American classical music,” an amalgamation of various genres and styles: blues, ragtime, gospel, boogie-woogie, etc. His mature work and compositions invoke an encyclopedic range of musical voices, colors, rhythms and dissonances. But equally important was his quiet work in L.A.’s black community, particularly with his Union of God’s Musicians & Artists Ascension.

Forged in the fires of the Watts rebellion, UGMAA was--and is--a grass-roots collective of artists formulated to “provide an avenue for self-expression to save the children and the people of the community.” His Pan-Afrikan People’s Arkestra was that group’s artistic voice and center, and nurtured the talents of such notable L.A. artists as David Murray, Patrice Rushen and Arthur Blythe.

Tapscott was diagnosed with inoperable brain cancer last fall as he was preparing for a European tour. He died one week ago today, just hours before an extraordinary tribute to his life and work took place at Washington High School. Onstage was the full panoply of jazz masters, amateurs, legends and stars whose work and efforts Tapscott had uplifted and extolled for decades. His last interview was conducted at his Crenshaw district home on Dec. 12, 1998.

Question: When did you realize that there were problems in the world that we have a responsibility to tackle?

Answer: I guess it really became an issue with me during the time that black people, as a group, had a problem gaining respect from any other group of people. When things started happening, like the murders, the case of Emmitt Till.

In Houston, Texas, this white person put a gun to my mother’s head. . . . That turned my system to the point that I knew something was wrong then. But at such a young age, I couldn’t cope with [it]. . . . But it never left my fear and my thoughts, and it was all these things: us being raped on the streets, and being hung on old country roads. . . . It was very early in life that I began to think about race and myself, and this country and world.

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Q: Was there any linkage in your mind between race and art?

A: I was thinking that it was just all one . . . and the music was one way of showing my feelings toward the kind of racial things we were going through at the time. I could express myself with the sounds . . . showing my feelings toward the way I looked at it, and the way a group of other people looked at it, as a race of people.

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Q: Why did you pick music as your mode of expression?

A: I didn’t actually pick it for that particular purpose. I was in it because my love for music was passed on down through my mother’s side of the family. And it just happened to be a part of everything that I was. The things that I have sought throughout my lifetime, music had to do with that . . . [to provide] some kind of guidance. I’ve been able to help others in ways I couldn’t [otherwise].

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Q: When you got out of the Air Force, you got a chance to travel with Lionel Hampton’s band. Was it a dream come true?

A: I had told Hampton years before, when he was coming down to Central Avenue and I was going to Jefferson High School, “Some day I’m going to be playing in your band.” And he said, “OK, I’ll be waiting for you.” And when it came true, it was just like a transition. It [didn’t seem] a real big thing.

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Q: It was a big thing--it was Lionel Hampton.

A: Yeah, it was a big thing. And I had a family and I had a job making $125 a week. But it was like I was being trained for that moment all my life.

So, it was good to go. It was a job but it didn’t have anything to do with any fantasy. It was more like, “Well, I got a chance, maybe I can stretch out and do a little more.” Because at that point in time, I didn’t know exactly what I was going to be doing with music. . . . I wasn’t especially trying to go to New York, but this friend of mine, Lester Robertson, called and said, “Would you like to go to New York [with Hampton] at Christmas?” We wound up staying for two years.

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Q: And you encountered some racism?

A: We had been through it all through that tour--police comin’ backstage when the white girls would be coming after the concerts. . . . I had to leave because I couldn’t stand it anymore. The most racist place I’ve been is New York--and I’m talking about [having traveled] through the South. And so I started thinking about what was going on in the world, in Africa and here.

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Q: It would have been simple for you to ignore it. You are a musician--politics and sociology are not your calling.

A: Musicians, all through the ages, when laws and times have changed, have been a part of it somehow or another and in some way or form. You’ve got to have a song. Got to have something to dance to. You’ve got to have something to build up your courage, or your belief in yourself. Music is just as important--it’s been said by a lot of men around the world that music in a war is more important than guns--and more dangerous.

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Q: When you left Hampton’s band, you immediately formed the Arkestra. Did anyone else share this idea of this hidden power in the music--or were you just a lonely voice?

A: Almost. There were a couple of us. But we were supposed to be crazy guys to be thinking about something that would hook you up with something that hasn’t [anything] to do with the so-called “ordinary.” But yeah, there were four or five people that believed in the same things--they weren’t necessarily musicians, some of them were artists, so to speak. Some were writers.

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Q: It was pan-artistic.

A: That’s right. So by that time, we were deep into it, we were doing things in the community. And we were not into advertising; we were into showing people what we were doing, and then all the neighborhood started becoming interested in what we were doing.

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Q: You’ve said that jazz was not getting the proper respect that it deserved. It seems that jazz has gotten tremendous respect internationally. Do you mean the black musician hasn’t gotten respect?

A: In America, so-called “jazz” has been selected as the most indigenous [music] to come out of this country and so on and so forth. [Critics] had begun to realize that because people had been telling them that for years, but they [didn’t] want to hear that. Jazz was hooked up to black people, to dope, to women, to all the things . . . that didn’t have anything to do with the sound of that music. It was music by slaves, by race of men--”Don’t you dance to it. Don’t you sing it in this house.” And now, all of a sudden, it’s looked upon as being America’s treasure. So it tells you in a lot of ways that no one has been listening.

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Q: Let me ask about your health. What is your illness?

A: Brain cancer. This has happened recently--six weeks. I was getting ready to go overseas . . . and found out it was brain cancer. . . . I’d had an aneurysm 20 years ago. But there’s no cure for [my cancer].

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Q: But you fought back before, and have thrived for 20 years.

A: Yeah, well, because of that, you could think what I have is not serious, since I did last this long. I’ve had to deal with [effects of the aneurysm] through the years.

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Q: Around this period, have you felt any inspiration to write?

A: Understand something: When I was in the hospital six weeks ago, I was hearing two sets of conversation. We could be talking together, and all of a sudden there would be a whole arrangement playing like I was in tune to a radio. I kept hearing these things over and over. I called my wife. She couldn’t hear it. It was getting to the point where I was getting afraid of what I was listening to, I guess. It was so distinct. [I was thinking], “I’m laying up in the hospital trippin’ now.” The music kept on playing. But I found a way of dealing with it. So I wrote it down on paper.

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Q: Does this music possess a unique quality, or is it an extension of what you’ve already been doing?

A: I’d have to say it’s an extension, another color to the painting. And it was written down, just like a regular piece of music.

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Q: What about your compositions--is your work archived?

A: My son-in-law, Michael Dett Wilcots, is archiving it. He’s a pianist and knows all the music.

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Q: What would you like your legacy to be?

A: I would like my legacy to be about naturalism, living and loving each another. . . . That I came loving and believing in sharing knowledge and history. I’d like them to say that he was always there, and straight-ahead.