Some of the specific trip details are a little fuzzy. I would say it was 1990, give or take a year or two. I found myself in Las Vegas with my family, including my mom and dad. Maybe it was when Mrs. T and I got married? I also seem to recall it was the middle of the afternoon and we were looking to relax for a bit. We came across a typical Vegas hotel lounge that was featuring jazz. My dad liked jazz, so in we went.
The lounge was basically empty except for the staff and the musicians. The hostess seated us about as far as she could from the band, at a table very close to the bar. The bartender came over to take our drink order and apologized for the music, muttering “they sound nothing like the tape they sent.” Odd, I thought, this preemptive apology.
As we settled in I began to focus on the band. They were a three-piece and the apparent leader was a thin black man seated at a grand piano, well-dressed and wearing sunglasses. As I listened I realized this was not standard Vegas lounge jazz fare (it was a bit avant garde), but that doesn’t mean it was no good! In fact, I started getting really into it but I was totally won over when the man at the piano introduced a song by calmly stating “The Dark Tree…The Dark Tree.” He then stood up, reached his arm into the open piano, and started plucking the strings. I just about fell out of my chair! I wanted to laugh because it was so unexpected and so great, but I also suddenly understood why someone like the bartender might not appreciate the fact that this sounded “nothing like the tape.”
So we enjoyed the band for a bit then went on our way. I had no idea who it was; it could have been some guys from down the street for all I knew. The thing that stayed with me was that voice saying “The Dark Tree…The Dark Tree.” It wasn’t until several years later I was able to discover that the band leader was Horace Tapscott. Horace, it turns out, was a pretty interesting guy.
He was apparently very active in helping his local community (Watts). Among other things he formed the Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra as an outlet for the performance of African-American music and as a tool to teach/help local youth. (I’m always a sucker for a good Arkestra; see “Ra, Sun.”) It sounds like life was not always easy, but Horace followed his musical vision and tried to make his community a better place; both laudable pursuits. You can read more of his biography at the UCLA Archives or at this memorial site.
How Horace Tapscott ended up playing a lounge in Las Vegas that day I’ll never know. I was a bit sorry I didn’t know who he was at the time, but I am grateful I caught him and still smile at the memory of seeing him play. Had he sounded like “the tape,” he would probably have been forgotten.