The Dark Tree

Jazz and the Community Arts in Los Angeles

Steven L. Isoardi

• Publisher: Duke University Press Books
• Year: 2023
• Print ISBN: 9781478025283
• eBook ISBN: 9781478027416
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: North American History

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.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Contents
• Preface to the Second Edition
• Acknowledgments
• 1. Ancestral Echoes—Roots of the African American Community Artist
• 2. Ballad for Samuel—The Legacy of Central Avenue and the 1950s Avant-Garde in Los Angeles
• 3. Limo’s Pad—African American Los Angeles and the Formation of the Underground Musicians Association (UGMA)
• 4. The Giant is Awakened—The Watts Uprising and Cultural Resurgence
• 5. Warrios All—UGMA in the Middle of It
• 6. The Mothership—From UGMA/UGMAA to the Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra and UGMAA
• 7. To the Greathouse—The Arkestra in the 1970s
• 8. Thoughts of Dar Es Salaam—The Institutionalization of UGMAA
• 9. At the Crossroads—The Ark and UGMAA in the 1980s
• 10. The Hero’s Last Dance—The ’90s Resurgence
• 11. Aiee! the Phantom—Horace Tapscott
• 12. The Black Apotles—The Arkestra/UGMAA Ethos/Aesthetic: Music, Artists, and Community
• Epilogue: The Post-Horace Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra
• Appendix: A View from the Bottom: The Music of Horace Tapscott and The Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra, by Roberto Miranda
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index