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With bassist Roberto Miranda and drummer Sonship in 1981.
Featuring a tremendous, side-long reading of Dark Tree.
Sparse, contemplative, classy, playful, deep jazz, recorded in 1983, with the focus on Tapscott’s brilliant piano-playing, accompanied by Aubrey Hart and Kafi Roberts on flute and saxophone. All-analogue; cut directly from the original master tapes. Tip-on sleeve.
Recorded in 1969 to follow up the classic The Giant Is Awakened LP, but never released; now sensationally sprung from the Flying Dutchman archives.
‘World Peace starts with a neo-baroque melody, leading to an eruption in sound, then ends as it began. The beautiful Your Child is the jewel in the crown, skirting modal, deep jazz and introducing elements of free jazz. Opening with bowed bass and piano, For Fats takes you on a journey, dropping into dark, stormy melodies, and developing a driving energy as it progresses.’
Tapscott is joined by the same personnel as Giant: Arthur Blythe, Everett Brown, David Bryant and Walter Savage. Produced by the legendary Bob Thiele.
The Leroy Burgess disco classic, with Weekend.
Ballads and rocking rhythm and blues recorded for King in 1960-61.
Earth-moving stuff here, of course, with Joe Henderson, Alice Coltrane, Gary Bartz, Norman Connors… but ‘forgotten’? Even as a marketing angle, you must be kidding.
A fabulous, landmark compilation of deep, southern and bluesy ballads — originally released in 1983 — back again at last, with improved sound and numerous additions.
This fine American-Grain poet digs Elmo Hope as badly as he does Lucia Berlin (and he’s sniffy about Tom Waits). His prose here is clear as a bell, ranging from Bach to the Louvins. Warmly recommended.
Stompers, floaters and ballads, with several impossible to get otherwise.
Spicy, deep, sensual Arab, Black and Asian styles, lipsmackingly mixed together in classic Taarab — when electric guitars, bass guitars, organs and kit drums kicked orchestral instruments out of bed.
Cream-of-the-crop, fabulous, firing dance music from Dar es-Salaam, rocking between shimmering, swinging guitars and delirious, riffing horns. Check the rest of the series, especially Volume 2.
A form of Sufi music with its roots in the ancient Arab world, surviving only in Zanzibar: slowly building in intensity, with songs and poetry, and passages for dancing, featuring a wide range of percussion.
A fabulous selection of Swahili popular music from the East African coast — Lamu, Mombasa, Tanga, Dar es Salaam, Zanzibar and the Comoros — taking in Tanzanian dance-band music, Congolese-style rumba and the hypnotic, Islamic sounds of Taarab, from the 1960s to date.
