Horace Tapscott

Delicate, melodic, angular, and challenging...yet full of soul and Gospel roots, pianist Horace Tapscott's music deserves mention in any conversation regarding contemporary jazz. His aggressive, rhythmic atonality recalls Cecil Taylor's approach of "eighty-eight tuned drums," yet he'd just as soon tickle and pound his way through rollicking, finger-popping Blues riffs. And his compositions reveal an innate ability to construct oblique yet evocative melodies, full of striking contrasts and unexpected resolutions.