Germs – What We Do Is Secret LP

Dark Tree Records is pleased to announce the release of this previously unpublished live performance featuring the legendary Pan-Afrikan Peoples Arkestra, led by its founder and mastermind, Horace Tapscott. Tapscott's Pan-Afrikan Peoples Arkestra was one of the most transformative, forward-thinking and straight-up heavy big bands to have played jazz in the 1960s and 1970s.First formed as the Underground Musicians Association in the early 1960s, Tapscott always wanted his group to be a community project. From their base in Watts, Ugma got down at the grassroots. The group was renamed the Pan-Afrikan Peoples Arkestra in 1971, and soon after they established a monthly residency at the Immanuel United Church of Christ which ran for over a decade, while still playing all over LA and beyond. This album features Horace leading the Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra (with Michael Session, saxophone; Phil Ranelin, trombone; Alan Hines, Trevor Ware, Louis Large, bass; Donald Dean, drums; Najite Agindotan, conga; Bill Madison, percussion; Dwight Trible, vocals) with an ensemble of 12 voices, the Great Voice of UgmaA, under Trible's direction. The album includes liner notes by Steven Isoardi, song lyrics and photos from the performance by Warren Berman. The two songs performed here are "Why Don't You Listen?," known to Tapscott aficionados as previously recorded on piano solo, and "Fela Fela," issued here for the very first time, a moving tribute to the Nigerian Afrobeat initiator Fela Kuti.