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This week on Night Lights L.A. jazz historian Steve Isoardi joins us for "One More You Wrote Through Us: Horace Tapscott." In 1961 pianist Horace Tapscott turned down a chance to have a high-profile career with the Lionel Hampton band and spent the next several decades in Los Angeles, leading several community-jazz bands and doing his best to extend the mentoring and teaching tradition that he had experienced growing up during the glory days of L.A.'s Central Avenue era. The underground jazz scene that he helped to create and sustain--a vibrant, multi-arts mix of culture, politics, and African-American values--has now been documented in Isoardi's new book, The Dark Tree: Jazz & the Community Arts in Los Angeles. We'll hear some previously unissued music by Tapscott and UGMAA (Union of God's Musician and Artists Ascension) and the Pan-Afrikan People's Arkestra (from a CD included with the new book), along with solo and trio Tapscott piano recordings and a collaboration with Black Panther activist Elaine Brown. "One More You Wrote Through Us: Horace Tapscott" airs Saturday, February 24 at 11:05 p.m. EST on WFIU and at 9 p.m. Central Time on WNIN-Evansville. It also airs Sunday evening at 10 p.m. EST on Michigan's Blue Lake Public Radio. The program will be posted, along with 12 extra interview clips not used in the show itself, Monday afternoon in the Night Lights archives. Next week: "Alice Coltrane, Ascending."

HORACE TAPSCOTT with the PAN AFRIKAN PEOPLES ARKESTRA and the GREAT VOICE OF UGMAA WHY DON’T YOU LISTEN? – Live at LACMA, 1998 (DarkTree DT(RS) 11, 2019) THE PAN AFRIKAN PEOPLES ARKESTRA MICHAEL SESSION soprano, alto, tenor saxophones PHIL RANELIN trombone HORACE TAPSCOTT conductor, pianist ALAN HINES double bass TREVOR WARE double bass LOUIS LARGE double bass DONALD DEAN drums NAJITE AGINDOTAN congas BILL MADISON percussion DWIGHT TRIBLE vocals THE GREAT VOICE OF UGMAA AFIFA AMATULLAH AMINA AMATULLAH DONTE CHAMBERS NDUGU “JINGLES” CHANDLER BRENDA HEARN CHINI KOPANO TORRE REESE MARIA ROSE TINA DENISE TRIBBLE DWIGHT TRIBLE director CAROLYN WHITAKER 01 | aiee! The Phantom | 02 | Caravan | 03 | Fela Fela | 04 | Why Don’t You Listen? | 05 | Little Africa | Recorded on Friday, July 24, 1998, at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), Los Angeles, CA Recorded, mixed and mastered by Wayne Peet Produced by Bertrand Gastaut for Dark Tree under exclusive license from the Horace Tapscott family Design and layout by Marie Gastaut – Photos by Warren Berman Liner notes by Steve Isoardi -- Bertrand just spread the news in a mail ... he deserves your lousy money, that's for sure - if you don't have it yet, do add the Carter/Bradford (NoUTurn- Live in Pasadena, 1975) he released a few years ago! 15€ a pop, free shipping worldwide http://www.darktree-records.com/en/horace-tapscott-with-the-pan-afrikan-peoples-arkestra-and-the-great-voice-of-ugmaa-–-why-dont-you-listen-–-live-at-lacma-1998-–-dtrs11

Interesting article about a recently-deceased artist in LA, RoHo, who collaborated with an artists' group/space called Studio Z for a while. "RoHo began staging concerts and poetry readings in Studio Z's cavernous space in Inglewood that was once an old dance studio, booking his practitioners of avant-garde jazz such as saxophonists Julius Hemphill and David Murray, pianist Horace Tapscott, woodwindist John Carter, trumpeter Bobby Bradford and the performance-jazz troupe the Art Ensemble of Chicago. Photographer Tylon Barrea attended the latter: "During Malachi [Favors]'s solo, one-third of the ceiling fell down — and nobody paid any attention."' https://www.kcet.org/shows/artbound/enigmatic-artists-garage-holds-out-against-south-las-gentrification?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=artbound