Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra Performs

In the LACMA's Angel City Jazz Festival, a live Oct. 8 concert featuring the Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra shared rich culture through music. 

A musician tapping together two wooden clave sticks, an instrument prominent in Afro-Cuban jazz, conducted the rhythm for the Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra's first set. The Oct. 8 evening performance, by the ensemble, was in front of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art's (LACMA) iconic street lights. The Arkestra was one featured group in a series for the Angel City Jazz Festival located at the LACMA.

Kamasi Washington plays with the Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra during the Angel City of Jazz performance at LACMA on October 8, 2021 in Los Angeles, Calif. Aside COVID-19 restrictions, this is Washington's first time playing with the Arkestra in quite some time. (Marc Federici | The Corsair)

The beginning of the concert flowed with upbeat, celebratory music. According to performers, who announced details of each song right after they ended, the tunes were composed by African musicians such as Lester Robinson and Jesse Sharp.

The third song shifted to a melancholy, somber mood with a trombone solo. Next, the music featured lots of drums.

Then, the ensemble paused to share a few poignant words. One musician spoke on how he was there, performing with his best friends and family (including his own father), and viewing his friends as his family. He told the show's audience that the Arkestra's purpose, that day, was to preserve the culture of Black musicians "dead or alive."

According to Kamau Daaood, a spoken word artist and another member of the Pan Afrikan Peoples Ensemble, that idea of cultural preservation is the organization's overall mission. 

Daaood discussed the group's founding in 1930 on Los Angeles's East Side by jazz musician Horace Tapscott, and how the community has since expanded to many neighborhoods such as Leimert Park. They've also begun mentoring younger musicians as they've always been 'generational.' "It was about teaching, spreading the culture … embedding the culture in the participants, in the family, and the energy around the culture," Daaood said.

A saxophone player in the ensemble, Kamasi Washington, also reflected on the organization's origins and how it created bonds in his community through music. "It really kind of instilled the idea that there needs to be more than just notes," he said.

Many musicians in the ensemble received life-changing opportunities from the Arkestra's community. "This has nothing to do with other things, other than music, but this uses music to do other things," Washington said. 

Daaood, too, shared his belief in the power of cultural music. He described how notes can tell a story. "There are things that you cannot verbalize. There are things in the music that you feel that are spiritual to remedy," Daaood said. 

The concert concluded with a female singer scatting, a vocal style distinct within African jazz. Then, the ensemble performed an original slam poem by Daaood which the writer penned about Tapscott, accompanied by a softer jazz composition. "I do not fit into form, I create form," the poem said. "My ears are radar charting the whispers of my ancestors." 

For a finale, a drummer in the ensemble played a solo, and the crowd rose for a standing ovation.