Tom Albach was the founder of Nimbus West Records, whose logo of a man reaching toward the heavens represented the label's early embrace of spiritual jazz. Tom Albach, a true jazz patron, has died. He began his Nimbus records specifically to record and document pianist, composer and bandleader Horace Tapscott. Albach’s efforts sustained Tapscott (1934-1999), and alerted the world outside of Los Angeles to his music. Albach was 95 and succumbed to the effects of pneumonia at the University of New Mexico Hospital in Albuquerque.
Along with clarinetist John Carter and cornetist Bobby Bradford, Tapscott was one of the founding fathers of free jazz in L.A. Tapscott uniquely drew scores of community musicians to his Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra—the SoCal equivalent to Chicago’s A.A.C.M. and other self-determination music collectives of the 1960s.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OdKONRZsCUQ
Tapscott convened his band each week in a church. Though Albach lived in Santa Barbara (95 miles away), regularly made the trek in the early ‘70s. Bassist Roberto Miranda, a longtime Tapscott collaborator, explains: “Something in Horace’s music touched Tom on a very deep spiritual level.” Albach responded to the music by recording Tapscott in solo, trio and orchestral settings, and underwriting tours of the East Coast and Europe.
Albach grew up in St. Louis, and heard young Miles Davis sit in with the Billy Eckstine Orchestra that featured Gene Ammons. After Army service, he followed his family to Los Angeles and haunted the jazz rooms. Albach was a street-smart man with a sharp eye for good opportunities; he made his living as a golfer.
Albach was a frequent presence at new music recitals. Reedman Vinny Golia recalls, “We were playing a door gig in Ventura and Tom came in. Afterward he asked what we were being paid; when I told him he yelled out, ‘Bullshit!’ Then, he wrote me a check for triple the amount.”
Going by his gut, Albach also recorded albums by artists in Tapscott’s orbit, like Miranda, flutist Adele Sebastian, and pianist Curtis Clark, whom Albach discovered during his Amsterdam residence (’89-‘95). Though he underwrote recording expenses, in the studio, he left the music to the artists. “Tom listened all the time; he had great ears. He allowed you to do your best, and he stayed out of the way.”
Albach’s patronage extended well beyond the studio. He underwrote the World Piano Summit concert with Tapscott, Andrew Hill and Randy Weston (’84) at the Wilshire Ebell Theatre. “When Horace was sick in his last days,” says his widow Celia Tapscott, “I didn’t have to worry about anything.”
Tapscott’s manager, David Keller, co-produced the Piano Summit. He offers, “Tom’s generosity of spirit was so refreshing, in a world that is pretty unforgiving.”
