Horace Tapscott

Horace Tapscott was a pianist and composer born in Houston, Texas in 1934 who spent most of his life rooted in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Leimert Park. He played avant-garde and free jazz, and in 1961 he founded the Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra, a collective dedicated to preserving and developing African American music outside the commercial music industry. Over the decades the Arkestra became a hub for musicians like Arthur Blythe, David Murray, and Butch Morris.