Idris Ackamoor

Saxophonist and composer Idris Ackamoor founded and leads the Pyramids, an Afrofuturist ensemble fusing world music with spiritual jazz whose approach intersects yet diverges from the explorations of Sun Ra, Phil Cohran, and the Art Ensemble of Chicago. He also trained as a dancer and actor while establishing and serving as co-artistic director of Cultural Odyssey, the San Francisco performance-art troupe. Between 1970 and 1976 the Pyramids self-released the now-classic albums Lalibela in 1973, King of Kings in 1974, and Birth, Speed, Merging in 1976, shaping subsequent generations of musicians, critics, beatmakers, and DJs. Following the 1977 disbandment, Ackamoor performed alongside saxophonists Chico Freeman, John Tchicai, and Charles Tyler plus drummer Famoudou Don Moye and joined the Cecil Taylor Creative Orchestra. As dancer and conceptualist he collaborated with choreographer Bill T. Jones, writers Ntozake Shange and Pearl Cleage, actress Rhodessa Jones, and additional artists. Renewed attention to the Pyramids prompted a 2011 reformation with drummer Kenneth Nash, percussionist Bradie Speller, and bassist-percussionist Kimathi Asante, yielding Otherworldly on Cultural Odyssey’s own imprint. In 2016 Idris Ackamoor & the Pyramids signed with the U.K. label Strut and issued We Be All Africans, retaining only Asante from earlier lineups while adding drummer-vocalist Babatunde Lea and violinist Sandra Poindexter. International tours followed to widespread praise, and the 2018 album An Angel Fell—produced by Malcolm Catto and marking the return of Speller alongside co-founding flutist Dr. Margaux Simmons, who studied with Taylor and Pauline Oliveros—appeared next. The funk-inflected jazz of The Shaman! earned critical regard plus club and radio exposure across the Atlantic. Ackamoor reconvened the Pyramids with Catto producing for the 2023 release Afro Futuristic Dreams.

Born Bruce Baker in Chicago’s South Side in 1950, Ackamoor developed an early passion for music and studied saxophone, clarinet, piano, violin, and trumpet. High-school athletics earned him a basketball scholarship, yet after one college semester he recognized music as his calling, transferred to Antioch College in Ohio, and declared it his major. There in the early 1970s he worked with pianist Cecil Taylor, flutist Margaux Simmons, and bassist Kimathi Asante—his initial Pyramids partners—and proposed a jazz ensemble to tour Europe and Africa. The group reached France in 1972 before proceeding to Amsterdam with Parisian drummer Donald Robinson, then arrived in Africa as a trio in December 1972 once Robinson stayed behind. They performed across Morocco including Rabat and Casablanca, later reaching Dakar, Senegal, and Accra, Ghana, where they met Hugh Masekela performing with Hedzoleh Soundz. Local musicians and environments shaped their aesthetic; they amassed instruments, incorporated encountered rhythms and harmonies into free jazz and funk, and forged the group’s signature style while also playing Uganda, Kenya, and Ethiopia. Ackamoor made field recordings, drawing particular inspiration from Lalibela’s drummers.

Back in Ohio by 1973, Ackamoor graduated and the Pyramids turned full-time. Following Taylor’s self-release model, they recorded, produced, and pressed their debut Lalibela that year on four-track in an edition of five hundred copies, selling them at shows and to acquaintances from car trunks. Proceeds funded another pressing, establishing the pattern for King of Kings in 1974. Their sound merged free and spiritual jazz, African rhythmic influences, and shared affection for American R&B and funk. Live presentations, integrating percussion, spirituality, space-age jazz, funk, theater, and dance, attracted notice. After relocating to San Francisco and issuing Birth, Speed, Merging in 1976 on the Bay Area scene, they concluded with a final 1977 appearance at the UC Berkeley Jazz Festival and disbanded.

For nearly two decades Ackamoor concentrated on Cultural Odyssey, issuing only sporadic recordings. The 1985 double-A-side single “Acka Backa”/“Your Body” appeared, yet musical work remained largely tied to the company and live settings. With Bill T. Jones and Rhodessa Jones he received a 1992 Izzie Award for choreography in Perfect Courage. The Idris Ackamoor Ensemble released Portrait on Aomawa Music in 1997 and Centurian on Cultural Odyssey Records the same year. The San Francisco Bay Guardian bestowed a lifetime-achievement honor in 2003 for his interdisciplinary contributions. Homage to Cuba, a double album, followed in 2004 while he continued directing Cultural Odyssey. Trained in bookkeeping, grant writing, editing, and filmmaking, Ackamoor was twice chosen by the U.S. Department of State Educational and Cultural Affairs Bureau as an arts envoy, leading residency work inside Johannesburg’s Naturena Women’s Prison alongside Rhodessa Jones. A 2007 Speaker’s Tour took him to Russia for performances and workshops at the University of Moscow, The American Center, and University of Rayzen. Persistent inquiries from fans and musicians about the Pyramids—whose albums had been reissued, both legitimately and otherwise—led to reunion performances in 2004 and 2007; a first European tour occurred in 2010, centered on 1970s repertoire. New material was tracked for Otherworldly at Faust Studios in 2011 with a quintet including Kenneth Nash, second bassist Kash Killion, and percussionist-electronicist Bradie Speller; Simmons and Asante opted out of touring for financial and health considerations.

Ackamoor received the BBC’s Gilles Peterson Lifetime Achievement award in 2012 and issued The Beginning of the Second Earth on Cultural Odyssey. The year 2014 brought multiple projects: Idrissa’s Dream under the Collective name, Live in Europe with pianist Hakeem Muhammad, The Periphery of the Periphery by the Idris Ackamoor Paris Quartet, and Ascent of the Nether Creatures alongside Rashied Al Akbar, Muhammad Ali, and Earl Cross. The Pyramids remained central; in 2016 the group reassembled for We Be All Africans, recorded at Max Weissenfeldt’s Philophon studio in Berlin and released by Strut. After extensive touring and festival dates, a 2018 sextet session produced the Malcolm Catto–helmed An Angel Fell for Strut, featuring Ackamoor on alto and tenor saxophone, keytar, and lead vocals, founding flutist Dr. Margaux Simmons, Sandra Poindexter on violin and lead vocals, David Molina on guitar and backing vocals, Skyler Stover on double bass and backing vocals, Johann Polzer on drums, and returning conguero-vocalist Bradie Speller. Issued in May, the album supported sold-out U.S. and European tours.

The Pyramids’ fiftieth anniversary in 2020 was marked by Shaman! on Strut, produced and recorded by Catto with a septet comprising Simmons, Poindexter, guitarist Bobby Conn, bassist Ruben Ramos, drummer Gioele Pagliaccia, and percussionist Jack Yglesias. Following tours across Europe, Asia, and the United States, Ackamoor & the Pyramids plus guests prepared and documented new work. Again with Catto producing in San Francisco and London studios, Ackamoor’s arrangements incorporated string sections and choral passages onto the ensemble’s African-derived spiritual jazz-funk foundation for Afro Futuristic Dreams, released in September 2023.