The Pyramids (jazz band)
| The pyramids | |
|---|---|
| General information | |
| Genre (s) | Avant-garde jazz , modern creative , jazz radio |
| founding | 1972, 2007 |
| resolution | 1977 |
| Website | www.culturalodyssey.org |
| Founding members | |
| Idris Ackamoor (Bruce Stephen Baker) | |
Flutes , percussion, dance |
Margaux Simmons |
| Kimathi Asante (Thomas Williams) | |
Soprano saxophone , bamboo flute, percussion |
Masai (Tony Owens) |
Drums , percussion |
Marcel Lytle |
Congas , percussion |
Hekaptah (Bradie Speller) |
Drums, bongos , percussion |
Donald Robinson |
| Current occupation | |
Saxophones, percussion, keytar , vocals |
Idris Ackamoor |
Violin , vocals |
Sandra Poindexter |
Flutes, singing |
Margaux Simmons |
Guitar, vocals |
Bobby Cobb |
Electric bass, double bass |
Ruben Ramos Medina |
Congas |
Jack Yglesias |
Drums |
Gioele Pagliaccia |
| former members | |
Drums, bongos, percussion |
Donald Robinson |
Piano , percussion |
Jerome Saunders |
| Chris Chafe | |
Drums, talking drum , percussion |
Augusta Lee Collins |
Steel drum , percussion |
Mcheza Ngomo |
Congas, bongos , percussion |
Kenneth Nash |
Electric bass |
Kimathi Asante |
double bass |
Kash Killion |
| David Molina | |
Double bass , electric bass |
Skyler Stover |
Congas, percussion |
Bradie Speller |
Drums |
Johann Polzer |
The Pyramids were an African American , avant-garde jazz music collective from Yellow Springs , Ohio , that existed from 1972 to 1977 . They combined anthemic singing, saxophone - and flute - improvisations with African rhythm and dance. In 2007 the band successfully re-founded after rediscovering their old recordings from the 1970s with a similar musical concept. In addition to the percussive elements and the wind instruments, the style-defining feature of their music for a long time was the use of two basses while avoiding guitars at the same time .
Relation to the political and spiritual background of the 1970s
The Pyramids were formed at Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio in the early 1970s . This college is considered a "notorious breeding ground for radical ideas in the otherwise so staid American province" .
The reputation of the college had attracted the spiritus rector of the project, the multi-instrumentalist, composer, actor and tap dancer Idris Ackamoor, born in Chicago as Bruce Stephen Baker in 1951 . Ackamor's mother, Doris Baker, was active in the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s and attached great importance to a comprehensive musical education for her children, so that he learned instruments such as violin , trumpet , clarinet , saxophone and piano from an early age . But while the friends of his first musical attempts in a band were inspired by Jimi Hendrix and the hippie movement , with Ackamoor it was more John Coltrane with his kind of spiritual music who shaped him.
Kimathi Asante, born Thomas Lee Williams in Columbus (Ohio) in 1951, moved from the trombone to the tuba and from there via the double bass to the electric bass . He played the current music of musicians such as Bob Dylan and Peter, Paul and Mary in folk bands . His lifestyle brought him into conflict with his Jehovah's Witness parents and he soon turned away from folk music and towards black spiritual dance music. Influenced by Archie Shepp , Sun Ra , Coltrane and Yusef Lateef , he hosted a radio program on the station WYSO , which he named after the Albert Ayler album of the same name Music is the Healing Force of the Universe . On the bass he wanted to achieve a “ transcendence similar to that of Sonny Sharrock and Jimi Hendrix on guitar” .
Margaux Simmons from Nashville , Tennessee, born in 1952, became the third permanent member of the Pyramids . She had studied classical flute for four years at the Putney School (a progressive high school in the small town of Putney, Vermont , which enabled students from difficult economic backgrounds to go to boarding school ), but she also frequently listened to the popular hits of the Motown label, such as Marvin Gaye . In Putney she began to accompany botanical educational films with music and discovered her love for improvisation. She was inspired by composers like Mozart , Bach , Stravinsky and Bartok as well as by the modal jazz of Miles Davis ( Kind of Blue ).
When the founders of the later collective came to Yellow Springs, Antioch College was closely associated with the avant-garde cultural and political currents of the 1960s. “The Vietnam War caused a stir and Antioch was a stronghold of protest movement and black power . It had the reputation of being at the forefront of political currents. ” Numerous Afrocentrically committed artists such as Charles Lloyd , Sun Ra or the Art Ensemble of Chicago came to concerts at the college despite the“ village ”atmosphere. When the Pyramids were formed in 1971, Cecil Taylor was currently staying as Artist in Residence with his 30 to 40 musicians Cecil Taylor Black Music Ensemble (until 1973) in Antioch and encouraged Ackamoor, Asante and Simmons decisively to their experiments.
Trip to Africa and Europe
In the spring, Ackamoor applied for support for himself and the other two for an overseas program that he had in mind. “I said, 'We'll go to Europe, start a band, then we'll go through Europe and Africa and learn about the musical cultures there.' And they said, 'All right, here is your ticket around the world.' And we were gone. "
At the urging of Antioch Abroad , they took part in a five-week intensive French course at the University of Besançon and founded themselves as The Pyramids . In Amsterdam they were joined by the drummer Donald Robinson, son of an emigrated activist whom they had met in Paris and who belonged to the band the saxophonist Frank Wright . In the liberal and artist-friendly Amsterdam they met the beat poet Ted Joans , who dedicated the poem Pyramids I´ve Seen / Heard to them and who would later also contribute the liner notes for their second album King of Kings . After four months in the Netherlands , they traveled via Málaga to Morocco and from there to Accra in Ghana , where they settled for a long time. With the grant that Antioch granted them, they bought musical instruments, masks and costumes and "became African," as Ackamoor writes.
From Accra we went on to Tamale (Ghana) to record the ceremonies of the Royal Drummers of Tamale with a cassette recorder , from there to Nairobi and finally to Ethiopia . Cecil Taylor had told them in Ohio about the Lalibela churches carved into the rock . At this pilgrimage site from the 13th century, they made slides and sound recordings of the drum rituals of the priests and masinko players.
When they returned to Yellow Springs they were sure to get their attention. "When we got off the plane in our African robes, we were an eye-catcher!" And at the end of their journey, the band The Pyramids began .
First incarnation: 1973 to 1976
The Pyramids' first LP was titled Lalibela - like the Ethiopian rock-hewn churches they had visited. Since Donald Robinson was still in Europe, musicians from Ohio complemented the band collective. As a drummer Marcel Lytle, the son came the hard bop - vibraphonist Johnny Lytle it. The soprano saxophonist Tony Owens was given the stage name Masai . The percussionist Brady Speller, who also studied at Antioch College , called himself Hekaptah . Numerous black record labels across the country were just beginning to produce new Afro-American music under political auspices in the favorable conditions of the early 1970s . And in July 1973, the recordings for the first release of The Pyramids took place for little money in a studio in Yellow Springs that belonged to a friend . The musicians processed the still fresh impressions of the long journey and played their early version of world music without much effort in one take and with a few microphones on 4-track technology . Idris Ackamoor and Margaux Simmons had recently married in an African-influenced ceremony and photos from the celebration were used for the album cover. The first edition of the record was 500 copies and was sold mainly to friends and family for $ 5.00 each. As a result of the release of Lalibela , the group was invited to live performances more and more often, which evolved into more spiritual events. “We had the face-painting, the African robes. We left our bodies and became incarnations of Egyptian and Ethiopian kings. We went back to that old time, which we felt was ours. ” The group integrated two to three dancers into their stage performances under the direction of Margaux Simmons, who received their dance training and the techniques they had learned in Africa , brought in. It usually started with a choreography , which then led to an improvised dance performance.
After various changes of drummers and the return of Donald Robinson from Europe, the band recorded the album King of Kings in March 1974 with an edition of 1000 copies. It is the only one of the three albums from the 1970s that shows the Pyramids in their original line-up. The band was supplemented by cellist Chris Chafe. "[...] the band had grown, the percussive exorcism of Lalibela had opened the way for deeper trance rhythms and vocals." The band continued to perform in Ohio, including in the opening act for Weather Report . A planned trip to Japan, such as the trip to Africa as part of a scholarship from the Antioch Abroad program, had been considered for a long time, but did not materialize. Instead, the band members moved to the San Francisco Bay Area , where they promised a better livelihood (at the Berkeley Jazz Festival , for example, musicians outside the mainstream such as Sun Ra or Alice Coltrane performed ). But the core of the group was already in the process of disintegration. Margaux and Idris wanted to settle down and start a family while Kimathi temporarily traveled to Egypt. The different percussionists changed, for Hekaptah came a conga player named Mcheza. At times the band played with a double bass player and an electric bass player. A performance with this line-up was recorded for regional television and is included on the 2012 CD re-release.
In November 1975 the Pyramids went to a studio for the last time. The His Master's Wheel Recording Studio was with his 16-track technology on the amount of time and a lot more professional than anything which the band had previously worked. At that time, Kenneth Nash was already considered the leading percussionist in the Bay Area , so that he was allowed to be used increasingly - also via overdub . For all band members, Bird Speed Merging was a big step forward when it was released in 1976 with its 5000 copies. With its two basses as a basis, the album was in places much more "danceable" than its predecessor. For the collective it sounded like a new beginning, but they had diverged musically and personally and it would be the last release for several decades.
1977 to 2009
By the late 1970s, the cultural climate had changed. Previously successful projects and record companies such as Tribe in Detroit or Strata-East Records had to accept losses; the "golden age" of free jazz and spiritual Afro-American music was drawing to a close. When Margaux Simmons and Idris Ackamoor separated in late 1976, Margaux also left the Pyramids to work as a teacher in the future, and the project was over. The group performed without her and supported by other musicians only once at the Berkeley Jazz Festival 1977 - in the opening act of Al Jarreau .
Idris turned away from the experiments and free forms of music and devoted himself more to traditional jazz . He stayed in the Bay Area and founded Cultural Odyssey - a non-profit organization that runs music and theater events and which he directed for over 30 years. Kimathi also stayed in the Bay Area for a long time , but became increasingly interested in Spanish and Brazilian music before he returned to Ohio via Hawaii to teach there. Margaux went to San Diego for a PhD in composition and joined the faculty of Hampshire College in 1987 , teaching African American music and teaching classes for female composers .
Second incarnation: from 2010
At the beginning of the 2000s a new interest in the old Pyramids albums awoke among jazz fans . After the Japanese label EM Records released a bootleg of Birth Speed Merging , Dawson Prater of the Ikef label in Chicago contacted Idris Ackamoor and EM Records . As a result, the bootleg was taken off the market again and it appeared in its place with The Music of Idris Ackamoor 1971-2004 an authorized retrospective of Ackamor's music. Published in 2007 Ikef the old records of the 1970s new on vinyl , which "a minor sensation [came]" To celebrate the re-release came Ackamoor, Kimathi and Simmons 2007 first again - also with great success - on the San Francisco International Arts Festival in common on.
When the Berlin organizer Christoph Linder signed the Pyramids for three tours to Europe between 2010 and 2012 , Peter Wacha , the operator of the Munich label Disko B - which actually specializes in electronic music - became aware of the band. In the summer of 2011, the first recordings for a new album took place in the Faust Studios in Scheer , but Margaux Simmons was unable to take part for health reasons. In addition to the original members Idris Ackamoor, Bradie Speller and Kimathi Asante, the percussionist Kenneth Nash and bassist Kash Killion are now part of the band. Otherworldly was released in 2012 and received a lot of critical acclaim. At the same time, the label put the old albums in a box set called They Play to Make Music Fire! again. This also includes a television recording of an appearance by the Pyramids in 1975.
The surprising success of Otherworldly enabled Idris Ackamoor ☥ the Pyramids to release another CD in 2016 entitled We All Be Africans . The magazine Intro wrote about it, “It now skilfully and well-known combines jazz with afro-funk, folk instrumentation and improvisation. It's no longer a surprise, but it's still wonderful music that gives us a hint of traditional trance states. "
In 2018 the album An Angel Fell was released with a different line-up and the extensive use of guitars for the first time.
On the 2020 album Shaman! Margaux Simmons was again involved in the original cast. The singing now took up a lot of space.
reception
On the occasion of their European tour, Jazzpages.com wrote: “THE PYRAMIDS are probably the most mysterious and legendary of all cosmic jazz collectives of the early 70s, who follow the immortal SUN RA not only musical, but above all social experiments of black consciousness and human coexistence explored. [...] This resulted in a mixture of hymn-like saxophone improvisations and unbridled drum freakouts, a music that sounded like America, Europe and Africa at the same time and weightlessly combined ecstatic and earthy moments with lyrical, almost meditative phases. "
Roderich Fabian said in his show Nachtmix that “['Otherworldly'] sounds like the Pyramids always sounded: Extra-terrestrial, as if thrown from the black ark, subversive and groovy, definitely: Seventies. But musically and politically the Pyramids - most of them over the age of 60 - seem unbroken - founded under Nixon , but still relevant under Obama too . "
For the reviewer of the Volksbühne Berlin "[they] were already at the 2012 level in 1972."
In 2012, influential DJ and label owner Gilles Peterson presented Idris Ackamoor with the Lifetime Achievement Award 2012 . Peterson also extensively pays tribute to the Pyramids in his book Freedom Rhythm & Sound .
Discography
- Lalibela (1973)
- King of Kings (1974)
- Birth Speed Merging (1976)
- The Music of Idris Ackamoor 1971-2004 (2005)
- They Play to Make Music Fire! (2012, CD box set of the old vinyl releases)
- Otherworldly (2012)
- We All Be Africans (2016)
- An Angel Fell (2018)
- Shaman! (2020)
Awards
- 2012 Lifetime Achievement Award 2012 for Idris Ackamoor
literature
- Gilles Peterson & Stuart Baker: Freedom Rhythm & Sound. Revolutionary Jazz & The Civil Rights Movement 1963–82. Soul Jazz Records 2009
Web links
- allmusic.com
- The Pyramids on culturalodyssey.org
- The Pyramids on diskob.com (PDF; 204 kB)
- Interview with Idris Ackamoor on thevinylfactory.com (Engl.)
Individual evidence
- ↑ www.spex.de ( Memento of the original from June 6, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (Accessed January 9, 2013)
- ↑ Idris Ackamoor in the booklet for the re-release of the LPs, p. 9. "The way that Jimi Hendrix and Sonny Sharrock transcended the guitar - I wanted to transcend the bass."
- ↑ Idris Ackamoor in the booklet for the re-release of the LPs, p. 11. “Vietnam was raging, and 'Antioch' was a hotbed of protest activity, Black Power, and all of that. It had a reputation for being at the forefront of political issues. "
- ↑ Idris Ackamoor in the booklet for the re-release of the LPs, p. 18. “I told them we'd go to Europe, form a band, then travel through Europe and Africa learning about the musical cultures there. They said, 'Sure, here's your round-the-world-ticket!' And we were off. "
- ↑ Idris Ackamoor in the booklet for the re-release of the LPs, p. 19. "We started to become African, trying to fit in and everything."
- ↑ Idris Ackamoor in the booklet for the re-release of the LPs, p. 23. "When we got off the plane, we had all of this african garb on, and we were sight!"
- ^ Idris Ackamoor in the booklet for the re-release of the LPs, p. 25. “We had the face paint, the african clothes. We would leave ourselves, and become incarnations of Egyptian and ethiopian royalty. We would go back to that ancient time, which we felt was our time. "
- ↑ Idris Ackamoor in the booklet for the re-release of the LPs, p. 29. "[…] the band had grown, the percussive exorcisms of Lalibela hadgiven way to deeper trance rhythms and chanting."
- ↑ a b c jazzpages.com ( Memento of the original from November 29, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (Accessed January 17, 2013)
- ↑ www.intro.de - WE BE ALL AFRICANS - Lars Fleischmann - May 27, 2016 ( Memento from July 18, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) (accessed on July 18, 2016)
- ↑ Nachtmix on br.de ( Memento from January 27, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) (accessed on July 18, 2016)
- ↑ Announcement for the appearance in the Volksbühne Berlin - Musikbühne: The Pyramids "Otherworldly" ( Memento from January 29, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) (accessed on January 17, 2013)
- ↑ Worldwide Awards 2012 - Gilles Peterson - The Winners 23 Jan 2012 ( Memento from 1 September 2015 on the Internet Archive ) (Accessed 17 January 2013)
