Idris Ackamoor - Music of Idris Ackamoor 1971-2004

sort of career retrospective of Pyramids mainman Idris Ackamoor, drawing equally from the Pyramids albums Lalibela (1973), King Of Kings (1974) and Birth, Speed, Merging (1976), as well as a track a piece from three of Ackamoor's solo albums. As if that weren't already enough, there are six unreleased tracks, over an hour of music! One track from Ackamoor's pre-Pyramids group The Collective, three unreleased Pyramids tracks, one unreleased track from the Idris Ackamoor Quartet and finally a recording of Ackamoor and his wife at the time (1973) playing with King's Drummers Of Tamale, Ghana!!

Disc one is drawn from the earliest years, 1971 to 1974, and is completely mind blowing. Absolute free jazz nirvana! But with plenty of soul and groove. Long long tracks, heavy on the percussion, very tribal and experimental, but still soulful and jazzy. Fluttering flutes drift over dense beds of percussive shimmer, some tracks explode into full on drum solo percussion jams, others drift serenely, while still others careen wildly between the two. Modern ears will of course hear No Neck Blues Band and Sunburned Hand, Avarus and Kemialliset, it's hard not to, after all this is where that sound came from!! Disc one would be worth the price of admission alone, and definitely has us excited to see these whole records reissued in their entirety. But lucky for us there's a whole other disc!

The first two tracks on disc 2 are from Birth, Speed, Merging (1976) and if you don't have it already, these tracks should easily convince you that you absolutely NEED TO OWN IT! Gorgeous long form, slow burning jazz epics, horns skronk and shimmer, the bass is slippery and serpentine, the drums are wild and all over the place, utterly mesmerizing, extended blasts of controlled chaos. So goddamn good. The unreleased track is a killer too. Nearly twenty minutes. The stuff from Ackamoor's solo records is a lot less far out, but still really great, from straight up Bop, to groovy sort of cinematic jazz, to some softer Cuban style jazz (the final track taken from his album Cubana). It's hard to believe a band could be this amazing, and revolutionary and so brilliantly far out and not be spoken of in the same breath as groups like the Art Ensemble and Sun Ra's Arkestra, but here's hoping that this, as well as past and future reissues takes care of that!
Absolutely essential

disc 1
the collective - the shepherd's tune [1971] (16:59)*
the pyramids - land of eternal song suite part 3 [1972] (10:51)*
the pyramids - lalibela [1973] (6:02)
the pyramids - masenko nights [1973] (3:00)
the pyramids - ya a ya a [1973] (6:19)
the pyramids - the river ganges [1973] (11:06)
the pyramids - mohgo naba [1974] (8:32)
the pyramids - queen of the spirits part 3 [1974] (6:38)

disc 2
the pyramids - aomawa [1976] (5:36)
the pyramids - birth/speed/merging [1976] (7:47)
the pyramids - black man of the nile [1972] (18:39)
idris ackamoor & margaux simmons w/ king's drummers of tamale - africa [1973] (3:32)
idris ackamoor quartet - spiritual rebirth [1978] (5:52)
idris ackamoor quartet - topanga [1997] (6:02)
idris ackamoor ensemble - centurian [2000] (8:06)
idris ackamoor ensemble - cubana [2004] (11:28)