Outernational Sounds Jazz | Fusion 6 Items

tiny wear. 2021 reissue.

"Long sought-after by those in know, this essential Irish jazz album finally gets a vinyl reissue on Outernational Sounds! Fully licensed from producer John D’Ardis, remastered at Abbey Road from the original tapes, and with lacquers cut at Dubplates and Mastering, the Noel Kelehan Quintet’s stunning 1979 Ozone is presented with unseen photographs of the band and commentary from original band members.

Featuring moody, modal jazz of the first order, subtle and original composing and world- class playing, Ozone was the creation of Ireland’s most respected jazz composer and musician, pianist Noel Kelehan (1935-2012). The only small-group album under his name, and arguably the first ever Irish jazz LP, Ozone was a landmark recording, but it was far from Kelehan’s only achievement. Born in Dublin, Kelehan had studied music from an early age. From the mid-1950s he worked at state-broadcaster Radio Éireann (RÉ, later RTÉ – Radio Telefis Éireann), and from the early 1960s he fronted Dublin’s first be-bop unit, the Jazz Heralds. A busy professional career saw him compose for numerous Irish pop stars, arrange and conduct many of Ireland’s Eurovision entries, and even contribute string arrangements to U2’s Unforgettable Fire LP.

But jazz was Kelehan’s first passion, and he never stopped playing in both small modernist units and composing for his own big band. The late 1970s saw him fronting the Noel Kelehan Quintet, alongside drummer John Wadham, saxophonist Keith Donald, bassist Frank Hess and trumpeter Mick Nolan. Playing weekly in Dublin for several years, they opened for visiting stars including Dollar Brand and the Ronnie Scott Orchestra, and eventually played a two-week residency at Ronnie Scotts in London. Though Kelehan had recorded a big-band LP of traditional Irish songs arranged as easy jazz in 1970, Ozone was his first album of modern jazz. Released on John D’Ardis’s independent Cargo imprint and press on blue vinyl, it featured original compositions such as the deep collectors cut ‘Spon Song’, subtle Latin flavours on ‘Spacer’s Delight’ and a beautiful modal arrangement of the traditional Irish air ‘Castle of Dromore’. A legendary recording in Ireland, Ozone reflected Kelehan’s keen appreciation of classic quintet-era Miles, with touches of the cerebral fusion of Ian Carr and the arranging genius of Neil Ardley. Not just a landmark Irish jazz set, Ozone is a lost classic of European jazz more widely."

Available on vinyl for the first time in 40 years, Outernational Sounds is proud to present a masterpiece from the Los Angeles jazz underground – Horace Tapscott’s burning, spiritualised 1978 set, The Call.

One of the unsung giants of jazz music, the composer, bandleader, arranger, pianist and community activist Horace Tapscott was the undisputed keystone in the grassroots Los Angeles jazz scene. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, his radical community arts and music formations the UGMA (Underground Musicians Association, later changed to UGMAA – Union of God’s Musicians and Artists Ascension), and his protean big band, the Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra, were at the epicentre of music, culture and politics in the Los Angeles area.

From their 1960s base at the Watt’s Happening Coffee House on 103rd St, to their decade-plus- long 1970s residency at the Immanuel United Church of Christ on 85thE St and Holmes Ave, Tapscott’s groups were the beating heart of underground music in LA. Hundreds of musicians passed through and played their part. Major figures in LA jazz such as Arthur Blythe, Azar Lawrence, Jimmy Woods, John Carter, Bobby Bradford, Sonny Criss, Ndugu Chancler and dozens of others all paid dues or just got down with Tapscott, not to mention the core Arkestra regulars who have since become celebrated names – Nate Morgan, Jesse Sharps, Adele Sebastian, Dadisi Komolafe, Gary Bias, to mention only a few.

Tapscott and the Arkestra were down on the ground – playing fundraisers in park and street, organising teach-ins and workshops for young and old, mixing it with radical theatre groups, firebrand poets, political radicals, Black separatists, community groups and churches. They lived communally, and built an ark for the Black arts in the heart of the city. But as a result of this grassroots community focus and Tapscott’s antipathy to the music industry, the Arkestra didn’t record for nearly two decades. That only changed when long-time jazz fan Tom Albach started Nimbus Records. The label was initiated specifically in order to document Tapscott and his circle, and the first three records showcased Horace and the Arkestra.

The Call was put together from two studio sessions in April 1978, one at Hollywood Sage and Sound, one at United Western – the latter session had the addition of a string section, who can be heard on the moody Cal Massey composition ‘Nakatini Suite’ and Jesse Sharps' swinging modal trip, ‘Peyote Song No. III’, with its swirling soprano solo. In keeping with the communal nature of the Arkestra, the other two compositions, ‘The Call’ and ‘Quagmire Manor at Five A.M.’ are also by Arkestra members. But at the centre of the music is the builder of the Ark, the visionary whose original call to action started a movement whose legacy continues to this day – Horace Tapscott.
Heed The Call!

“I love Horace Tapscott! I love his music, his philosophies, and everything he did for the community that I grew up in” Kamasi Washington
Soul Jazz Records are proud to release the first in a series of albums by the legendary Los Angeles radical jazz artist, Horace Tapscott and The Pan-Afrikan Peoples Arkestra. Horace Tapscott is the key figure in the Los Angeles political and underground jazz scene of the late 20th century – his stridently independent and radical music, as far-reaching, cosmic and spiritual in scope as it was rooted in the Watts community of Los Angeles where he lived.
This superb rare, deep and spiritual jazz opus album was recorded at the Immanuel United Church of Christ, Los Angeles, in 1979, and has been unavailable on vinyl for over 40 years. ‘I had a vision of the inside of this church, and I went there, and it was just like I had dreamed it.’ This location remained the residence of the musical collective for most of the 1970s.
The music of Horace Tapscott and The Pan-Afrikan Peoples Arkestra is part Sun Ra Arkestra, part John Coltrane, part Art Ensemble of Chicago. This ground-breaking and monumental album (released here for the first time ever on expanded triple vinyl and double CD) explores the multi-faceted deep and spiritual jazz of Tapscott – Afro-centric rhythms, hypnotic bass lines, Tapscott’s stabbing modal piano playing and stunning flute and horn arrangements. ‘The Pan-Afrikan Peoples Arkestra – Live at I.U.C.C.’ is a true high point in the cannon of great independent underground jazz music recorded during this era.

Issued on vinyl for the first time, Outernational Sounds proudly presents a monumental spirit music document from the Los Angeles underground – Jesse Sharp’s slept-on deep jazz classic Sharps And Flats.

“He became the Ark leader…he was hardcore. They’d all be quiet and listen to him when he talked.”
Horace Tapscott, on Jesse Sharps

You could be forgiven for not knowing how important saxophonist, bandleader and composer Jesse Sharps is. After all, the only album to come out under his name, Sharps And Flats, was recorded in 1985, and wasn’t issued on CD until 2004.

But despite this seemingly small recorded footprint, Jesse Sharps is a major figure in the history of jazz music in Los Angeles. As the bandleader for Horace Tapscott’s Pan-Afrikan People’s Arkestra (P.A.P.A.) – the Marshall Allen to Tapscott’s Sun Ra – he led Tapscott’s seminal music community through its most cohesive phase. And, after a hiatus living in Europe, his return to Los Angeles in the 2000s saw him build a new group, The Gathering, which linked original heads including acclaimed singer Dwight Trible and legendary trombonist Phil Ranelin with a new generation of LA jazz voices, including none other than Kamasi Washington. Sharps has been around, and he’s made an indelible mark.

Born in Los Angeles in 1953, Jesse Sharps spent his childhood in Watts. He first encountered the visionary pianist Horace Tapscott when he was still at high school – the Arkestra were performing on 103rd Street, and when Sharps heard them he knew what his future would be. Tapscott soon invited the young Sharps to rehearsals, where he played baritone. At college, Sharps studied under Cecil Taylor. When he came back to LA he rejoined the Arkestra on flute and reeds, and eventually took over band-leading duties from the great altoist Arthur Blythe. Trusted completely by Tapscott, as bandleader Sharps turned the Arkestra into a well-drilled unit. This was the time of the classic P.A.P.A. recordings Flight 17, Live at I.U.C.C, and The Call, and Sharps also wrote for the band. The funky, deep spirituality of compositions like ‘Desert Fairy Princess’, ‘Macramé’ and ‘Peyote Song III’ has made his tunes among most celebrated in the whole P.A.P.A. catalogue.

Sharps And Flats was recorded in 1985 for Tom Albach’s legendary Nimbus West imprint, a label Albach had founded specifically to document the work of Horace Tapscott and his circle. Featuring a quintet of P.A.P.A. regulars at the height of their game, Sharps And Flats is one of the great lost Nimbus sessions – it lay unissued until 2004, and never saw a vinyl press.

In line with the original Nimbus CD release, this edition of Sharps And Flats includes ‘McKowsky’s First Fifth’, a stunning 16 minute bonus cut by the Pan-Afrikan Peoples Arkestra featuring Horace Tapscott, recorded in 1979. A lost classic of the LA underground, on wax at last!

Organically funky, laced with avant-garde synth textures, and studded with breakbeats, the second Outernational is Jeff Resnick’s unique, ultra-rare, 1978 promotional recording for the School for American Craftsmen, at the Rochester Institute of Technology. Five tracks of soul jazz and modal fusion — re-modelling Trane, and opening with a variation of Norwegian Wood — by a local group including trumpeter Jeff Tyzik and pianist Sonny Kompanek; then Resnick mostly solo for the second side, when the money ran out, multi-tracking synthesizers on his home set-up, in an engrossing blend of reflective abstraction, grooving electro and spiritualised fourth-world tropicalism.
Bim!