[EFF18S13] Session 13: Horace Tapscott/Barbara McCullough
Cite as:
Temple, Michael and Barrington, Matthew
(2023):
[EFF18S13] Session 13: Horace Tapscott/Barbara McCullough.
Birkbeck College, University of London.
Description
28 March 2018, 12:00, Birkbeck Cinema
Film: Horace Tapscott: Musical Griot, Barbara McCullough, USA, 2017, digital, 72 minutes, English
Barbara McCullough’s Horace Tapscott: Musical Griot is a portrait of the late musical genius and community activist Horace Tapscott. The film reflects on the connections made through black music to local activism in Los Angeles and to questions of pan-Africanism. Historically the figure of the griot is a storyteller, and this is how Tapscott is presented, telling the story of his life through the development of the Los Angeles Jazz scene.
Emerging from the LA Rebellion, Barbara McCullough is responsible for seminal works which bring together questions of ritual, feminism and post-colonialism, and draw from the artistic richness of the black art communities coming out of Los Angeles in the late 1960s and 70s. In Shopping Bag, Spirits and Freeway Fetishes: Reflections on Ritual Space (1981), a key reference point in the representation of this period, she portrays poets, sculptors and improvisational musicians through a series of vignettes underscored by the music of Don Cherry. The result is a multi-layered film engaging with a concept of ritual that provides the Black artist with a tool with which to engage with traditions of the past and to connect to future generations.
McCullough’s film portrait of Horace Tapscott is informed by a similar set of concerns, embedding the inspirational musician into the fabric of the LA Rebellion. In the summer of 1976 McCullough filmed Tapscott at the Watts Towers Jazz Festival, which was the initial spark of a project that would eventually become Horace Tapscott: Musical Griot. In 1977, Tapscott also performed in Passing Through (Larry Clark, USA, 1977) another key work coming out of the LA Rebellion. The musician’s appeal to McCullough, and to the filmmakers of the LA Rebellion, can be linked to this central question of ritual connecting generations, as Tapscott in his music sought to make post-colonial connections between past, present and future instances of Blackness through the establishing the Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra in 1961 and then the Underground Musicians Association in 1963.
The screening was followed by a conversation with Stuart Baker, Soul Jazz Records, chaired by Kelli Weston, postgraduate researcher, Birkbeck.
Film: Horace Tapscott: Musical Griot, Barbara McCullough, USA, 2017, digital, 72 minutes, English
Barbara McCullough’s Horace Tapscott: Musical Griot is a portrait of the late musical genius and community activist Horace Tapscott. The film reflects on the connections made through black music to local activism in Los Angeles and to questions of pan-Africanism. Historically the figure of the griot is a storyteller, and this is how Tapscott is presented, telling the story of his life through the development of the Los Angeles Jazz scene.
Emerging from the LA Rebellion, Barbara McCullough is responsible for seminal works which bring together questions of ritual, feminism and post-colonialism, and draw from the artistic richness of the black art communities coming out of Los Angeles in the late 1960s and 70s. In Shopping Bag, Spirits and Freeway Fetishes: Reflections on Ritual Space (1981), a key reference point in the representation of this period, she portrays poets, sculptors and improvisational musicians through a series of vignettes underscored by the music of Don Cherry. The result is a multi-layered film engaging with a concept of ritual that provides the Black artist with a tool with which to engage with traditions of the past and to connect to future generations.
McCullough’s film portrait of Horace Tapscott is informed by a similar set of concerns, embedding the inspirational musician into the fabric of the LA Rebellion. In the summer of 1976 McCullough filmed Tapscott at the Watts Towers Jazz Festival, which was the initial spark of a project that would eventually become Horace Tapscott: Musical Griot. In 1977, Tapscott also performed in Passing Through (Larry Clark, USA, 1977) another key work coming out of the LA Rebellion. The musician’s appeal to McCullough, and to the filmmakers of the LA Rebellion, can be linked to this central question of ritual connecting generations, as Tapscott in his music sought to make post-colonial connections between past, present and future instances of Blackness through the establishing the Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra in 1961 and then the Underground Musicians Association in 1963.
The screening was followed by a conversation with Stuart Baker, Soul Jazz Records, chaired by Kelli Weston, postgraduate researcher, Birkbeck.
Previews
1 - EFF18S13 Discussion (EFF18S13 Horace Tapscott discussion.WMA)
Collection Method
The Essay Film Festival, active since 2015, presents a global range of contemporary and restored essayistic works. The events are now archived here for research purposes.
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Metadata
| Dataset Title: | [EFF18S13] Session 13: Horace Tapscott/Barbara McCullough |
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| Creators: | Temple, Michael and Barrington, Matthew |
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| Data collection method: | The Essay Film Festival, active since 2015, presents a global range of contemporary and restored essayistic works. The events are now archived here for research purposes. |
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| Collection period: |
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| Statement on legal, ethical, and access issues: | All film stills were provided by participating artists. |
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| Depositing User: | Emma Yapp | ||||||||||||
| Date Deposited: | 01 Sep 2026 10:14 | ||||||||||||
| Last Modified: | 01 Sep 2026 10:14 | ||||||||||||
| Publisher: | Birkbeck College, University of London |
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