Hey, Tapscott Fans -

[JSngry]

http://www.dustygroove.com/item.php?id=5gs...p;ref=index.php

Seize The Time

Elaine Brown

$11.99 ... CD

List Price: 16.99

(€8.92 || £6.04 || ¥1371) (approx.)

CD (Item 429684) Vault/Water, 1969 -- Condition: New Copy

A righteous treasure from the end of the 60s -- an album of vocal tracks recorded by the Minister Of Information for the Black Panther Party, set to backings from the legendary Horace Tapscott! Elaine Brown's less of a soul singer than a powerful speaker who delivers the lyrics with an almost folksy quality -- singing boldly and with a sense of power that matches Tapscott's great orchestrations for the record -- done in a style that's a fair bit like his Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra work for Nimbus Records, but a bit more inside -- given the vocal setting of the record. Titles include "The Meeting", "The Panther", "Assassination", and "Very Black Man".

Haven't heard it yet, but will soon!

[JSngry]

Nobody?

[jazzbo]

Nobody!

Noman!

[ghost of miles]

Wow!

I'd heard of this record, but hadn't even tried to check on its availability--thanks much, Jsngry! I'm buyin'...

Tapscott fans should also check out the new Steve Isoardi book, DARK TREE. It comes with a CD of unreleased Tapscott/Arkestra material.

[John L]

Is Tapscott really playing live behind Brown? Or is it dubbed?

[JSngry]

I'd be shocked if it was live.

[John L]

I wouldn't be completely shocked. As I understand, Tapscott was heavily absorbed in the "movement" at the time.

[JSngry]

Yeah, but this type of thing would almost certainly have the vocals added on top of the band tracks, unless it was a live recording. Brown was probably not a professional singer, so there'd have to be some "work" done on the vocals in terms of phrasing and stuff like that. Maybe even moreso if she mostly did recitations. They'd most likely want to work w/the phrasing of the speech. Jayne Cortez could do it live w/Richard Davis, but that's Jayne Cortez, dig? This was Vault, not a big label by any means, but not a DIY either. Some "professional" production was probably at play.

But I could be wrong. I'm expecting a copy quite soon, and will report back.

BTW - anybody ever hear that Flying Dutchman side of Pete Hamill's writings narrated by Roscoe, w/James Spaulding & Ron Carter playing in the background? That's definitely reading added on top of tracks, and that's what I'm expecting here, especially since it's a full ensemble playing, not 1 or 2 people.

[robviti]

from a 1999 article in the revolutionary worker:

Another L.A. visitor at the concert was Mamie Blythe, the wife of Arthur Blythe, a musician who got his start in Horace's Arkestra. She told the RW: "I'm here because I love Horace. I love Cecilia [his wife]. I love all the kids. We had a wonderful time back then [the '60s and early '70s]. We were like...we were revolutionaries, and we were warriors, and anything that would uplift the African-American, an American, we were for it. That's why we did things for the Panthers. That's how `Seize the Time, the Time is Now' came in. Horace did the music, Elaine Brown did the lyrics. But anything that was activist, we were there, from colleges to parks. Horace always kept a house for the musicians to go and play at. And any musician that came through town and didn't have a place to stay, they could lay their head..."

[JSngry]

Of course Tapscott was committed to the movement and to the record. But that's got no bearing on how the record itself was made, if it was in fact a studio recording.

What I meant by "live" was "live in the studio", not "concert live". If it was the latter, then yeah, I doubt it was dubbed. But if it was studio, then my bet would be that the vocals were dubbed, or at least recorded in an isolation booth for later "fine-tuning".

If I gave the impression that this was some random session that was used as backing for Brown's vocals, then that's bad communication on my part.