Horace Tapscott Quintet - The Giant Is Awakened (1969, Remastered, 2014)

The Giant is Awakened is the debut album by American jazz pianist/composer Horace Tapscott recorded in 1969 and released on the Flying Dutchman label.

AllMusic awarded the album 4½ stars. The Chicago Reader noted "Tapscott was leery of the music business in general, and of this deal in particular—and considering a promise that he'd be involved in the mixing process was subsequently broken, his skepticism was prescient. He didn't record again for another decade, and then only for small independents like Nimbus and Interplay. In any case, as listeners, we should be grateful Tapscott agreed to make The Giant at all"
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There are very few musicians who can be turned towards to feel the beating heart of African-American ethos. Horace Tapscott Quintet is one of them. The blunt force with which he strikes piano keys is reminiscent of the hard edge in the deepest part of the blues. The angularity of his attack, which makes for a dramatic, slanted enunciation, also reminds the listener that the blues can also be beautiful and subtle. In Mr. Tapscott’s musicianship there is also the reminder that the blues swings and is ebullient as it proclaims the triumph of human endeavour, but it is also haunting as it traverses through all the pain of being black in America. This is why he always gave the feeling of being heraldic and served as a moral compass for musicians and listeners alike.

Mr. Tapscott’s music produced an elemental ache in the heart of the listener just as much as it shaped the eventual joy that came from experiencing that melancholic thorn in the soul. Such was the power of Horace Tapscott’s music as it roamed the topography of African-American culture that it described the racism against a people in a brutal and unexpurgated way. But more than anything, more than the striking mirror it held up against society, it reflected the anguish of discrimination and the art that pronounced it.