★Nimbus West Records
The Creator's Musician
Solo bass albums constitute a rare and demanding genre. The instrument's resonance, its sustain limitations, the absence of harmonic support - all conspire against extended solo statements. Yet Horace Tapscott's longtime bassist approaches the challenge with a structural intelligence that transforms apparent constraints into compositional architecture. Roberto Miranda's arco work on "Evolution On The Life Of Moses" demonstrates a command of overtones and microtonal shadings that recalls the medi…
Thomas Tedesco And Ocean
The Tommy Tedesco case is singular in California jazz history. A session guitarist among the most sought-after in Hollywood - thousands of recordings, film scores, pop records - chooses for his most personal statement the company of Bobby Bradford on trumpet and Roberto Miguel Miranda on bass, with Onaje Sherman Ferguson on drums and Sartuse on percussion. Not exactly the context of those Sinatra dates.
The result is a structurally sophisticated free jazz document. "The Doubleness of Three" supe…
Phantasmagoria
Curtis Clark's Nimbus debut - and he brings the whole Los Angeles underground with him. Miranda and Theus: the rhythm section that powered Horace Tapscott's Arkestra, that held the floor at UGMAA meetings, that knew how to make a piano trio sound like a congregation. This is the connection - Chicago kid studies with Tapscott, absorbs the lesson, makes his first record with the master's own people. Side A: "Phantasmagoria" - one long piece, the title track eating up the whole side. Side B: "Bouqu…
Deep Sea River
Just two people. Piano. Voice. Nothing else. No bass, no drums, no safety net. This is where Clark strips everything away - no Amsterdam quintet, no Dutch improvisers, just 88 keys and one voice diving deep. "Rainbow Over Harlem" opens and closes the record. "Cosmic Minstrels." "Deep Sea Diver." "Farewell Gentle Spirit (For Rev. Frank J. Harper)" - a dedication that tells you where this music comes from. "Broken Mirror Reflections." "Amy Yvonne." Titles like chapter headings in a book of hours.
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Amsterdam Sunshine
Bomb! Drop the needle. Thirteen minutes and twenty seconds. "Daniel/Amsterdam Sunshine" - dedicated to Daniel Halifee - opens this record like a prayer. Not a quick prayer, not a polite prayer. The kind that takes its time, builds in waves, lets the spirit enter the room. Clark's piano states the theme, Moore's alto answers, Reijseger's cello pulls you deeper. This is spiritual jazz in the truest sense - music as ceremony, music as offering.
A man from Chicago who studied with Horace Tapscott in…
Desert Fairy Princess
**2020 stock, rare 2nd ed. from Nimbus, last copies** Adele Sebastian was an Afro American jazz flutist and singer, active from the early 70s (when she was still a teenager) until her untimely death at the age of 27 (!) in 1983 from a kidney failure. In fact she had been depending on monthly dialysis to stay alive for years. She lived through and for the music and you can hear it on her only solo album “Desert Fairy Princess” which was first issued in 1981. The mostly acoustic instrumentation b…
The Tapscott Sessions Vol. 1 - 7
Last copies. Sealed dead-stock original copy of the Horace Tapscott's 'The Tapscott Sessions' solo piano series, released on Nimbus West Records from 1982 to 1984. Horace Tapscott has been one of the top "unknown" jazz pianists in the Los Angeles area since the 1960s, recording far too few sessions which has led to him being continually overlooked by jazz fans from outside L.A. During 1982-84 he recorded seven solo piano albums for the tiny Nimbus label, playing unaccompanied solos, his improvi…
Live at Lobero
"This is a reissue of a now out-of-print album from live trio date by the legendary LA-based pianist, composer and multi-bandleader, Horace Tapscott. Pianist Horace Tapscott is always at his best when he is leading a trio. Sketches of Drunken Mary features some sparkling piano revolving around a most lyrical bass part that is absolutely touching. The piece ends with a long, monstrous drum solo has to be heard to be believed. I recall hearing/seeing the mighty Sonship with John McLaughlin's One T…