The Arkestra first started rehearsing at pianist Linda Hill’s house in the early 1960s. ‘In a few months, we’d built up from seven or eight to about eighteen cats, musicians started living there,’ Tapscott recalls in his autobiography. ‘People got involved with the Arkestra like it was their life’s work.’
Opening with the spiritual jazz epic Leland’s Song — a duet with flautist Adele Sebastian — this LP was recorded for Nimbus West by Hill in 1981, with fellow Arkestra members including Sabir Matteen, Roberto Miranda and Everett Brown Jr.