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The Dark Tree
Jazz and the Community Arts in Los Angeles
Language:
English
Published/Copyright:
2023
About this book
In the early 1960s, pianist Horace Tapscott gave up a successful career in Lionel Hampton’s band and returned to his home in Los Angeles to found the Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra, a community arts group that focused on providing community-oriented jazz and jazz training. Over the course of almost forty years, the Arkestra, together with the related Union of God’s Musicians and Artists Ascension collective, was at the forefront of the vital community-based arts movement in Black Los Angeles. Some three hundred artists—musicians, vocalists, poets, playwrights, painters, sculptors, and graphic artists—passed through these organizations, many ultimately remaining within the community and others moving on to achieve international fame. In The Dark Tree, Steven L. Isoardi draws on one hundred in-depth interviews with the Arkestra’s participants to tell the history of the important and largely overlooked community arts movement of Black Los Angeles. This revised and updated edition brings the story of the Arkestra up to date, as its ethos and aesthetic remain vital forces in jazz and popular music to this day.
Author / Editor information
Steven L. Isoardi is an independent scholar; editor of Songs of the Unsung: The Musical and Social Journey of Horace Tapscott, also published by Duke University Press, and Jazz Generations: A Life in American Music and Society; and coeditor of Central Avenue Sounds: Jazz in Los Angeles. He is the author of The Music Finds a Way: A PAPA/UGMAA Oral History of Growing Up in Postwar South Central Los Angeles.
Reviews
“The Dark Tree is just wonderful. One cannot understand the history of Black arts on the West Coast without a thorough assessment of this movement; Isoardi knows this history so well and tells a much bigger story. The book does a fantastic job of capturing the nitty-gritty nature of the music scene and resurrecting local figures in the Arkestra who have never gotten any press for their astounding musicianship. This is a remarkable book.”
-- Robin D. G. Kelley, author of Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original
“This is a revelatory document, virtuosically combining scholarship and oral history to connect the dots of African American music on the West Coast. Far more than a mere historical ‘overdub’ of an underdocumented scene, this book disrupts the mythic notions of jazz history, showing instead how music and community unfold as one. Both a celebratory and a cautionary tale, it also delivers some of the most frank and eye-opening musicians’ accounts since Arthur Taylor’s Notes and Tones.”
-- Vijay Iyer, musician and composer
“In these pages, Horace Tapscott says to the audience, ‘This is one more you wrote through us.’ And this is what Isoardi has done here: given voice to the nearly lost history of a revolutionary community movement through its key players. Epic in scope, dazzling in detail, and sensual as any Coltrane solo, this rare book—informative, intimate, lyrical, scholarly, nuanced, and essential—reads like no history book you’ve read before.”
-- Chris Abani, author of GraceLand
"An impressively constructed tapestry of voices, it includes memories and opinions from myriad people while maintaining a strong narrative thread through lsoardi's authoritative voice. . . . lsoardi's interviews with dozens of members—not one of whom declined to participate—recover a wealth of information crucial to the history of Los Angeles jazz. In the process, he has made The Dark Tree a truly collaborative project that itself shares in the communal spirit of the UGMAA."
-- Matthew Blackwell The Wire
"Though Horace passed away in 1999, his Arkestra continues to play with three generations of players while moving forward with playing international festivals. This book is essential to understanding their ethos of paying the music forward."
-- Mike Sonksen L.A. Taco
"A landmark work that documents the dynamic yet often overlooked community-based arts movement centered on pianist and composer Horace Tapscott. Isoardi, an independent scholar with expertise in West Coast jazz, provides a comprehensive account that goes beyond a simple biography. . . . The significance of The Dark Tree lies in its emphasis on an alternative ethos for artists."
-- Karl Ackermann All About Jazz
-- Karl Ackermann All About Jazz
Topics
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Frontmatter
i -
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Contents
vii -
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Preface to the second edition
ix -
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Acknowledgments
xv -
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1. ANCESTRAL ECHOES
1 -
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2. BALLAD FOR SAMUEL
19 -
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3. LINO’S PAD
43 -
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4. THE GIANT IS AWAKENED
69 -
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5. WARRIORS ALL
117 -
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6. THE MOTHERSHIP
141 -
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7. TO THE GREAT HOUSE
179 -
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8. THOUGHTS OF DAR ES SALAAM
215 -
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9. AT THE CROSSROADS
259 -
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10. THE HERO’S LAST DANCE
285 -
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11. AIEE! THE PHANTOM
311 -
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12. THE BLACK APOSTLES
341 -
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EPILOGUE
363 -
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Appendix: A View from the Bottom: The Music of Horace Tapscott and The Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra
369 -
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Notes
379 -
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Bibliography
407 -
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Index
425
Publishing information
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
eBook published on:
August 30, 2023
eBook ISBN:
9781478027416
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
eBook ISBN:
9781478027416
Keywords for this book
jazz; African American musicians; Horace Tapscott; Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra; community arts; Underground Musicians Association UGMA; West African arts; slave culture; segregated culture; post-segregation movements; 1950s jazz avant-garde; Los Angeles; Studio Watts; Watts Writers Workshop; Watts Happening Coffee House; Mafundi Institute; The People's Band; Union of God's Musicians and Artists Ascension; The Great House; The Azz Izz; South Central Los Angeles; Leimert Park; Nimbus Records; Interplay Records; UGMAA Foundation; Michael Dett Wilcots; Mekala Session; Michael Session; orchestration
Audience(s) for this book
For a non-specialist adult audience
