The Pyramids - Day One

Event information

Day One of a two day residency of "Deeply spiritual Afro psychedelic music" from The Pyramids!

At the dawn of the 1970s, saxophonist Idris Ackamoor, flautist Margo Simmons and bassist Kimathi Asante were embedded in the radical artistic hotbed of Ohio's Antioch College. Idris Ackamoor had cut his teeth with Albert Ayler's alto player Charles Tyler in LA & Clifford King in Chicago and had his own free jazz outfit -The Collective- with Margo Simmons and three other Ohio musicians; Kimathi Asante had played in a handful of obscure acid rock bands before being tapped by Sonny Sharrock's Brute Force but like many of the musicians caught up in the gestalt at Antioch, it was under the tutelage of Cecil Taylor and participation in his 40 member Black Music Ensemble that Idris, Kimathi and Margot began to galvanize a vision of the free black music they would soon play as The Pyramids.

Young, vital and filled with an insatiable wanderlust, the trio set sail in 1972 for a year long cultural odyssey through the heart of Africa by way of the fertile expatriate cultures of Paris and Amsterdam. Kimathi suggested the name while they were in France: The Pyramids. The group liked its evocation of the symbolic monuments of African and Egyptian culture. Steadfast and timeless.



In Paris, they picked up drummer Donald Robinson, the son of an expat activist living in Paris, who was running with the Frank Wright crowd. In Amsterdam, the group spent several months living & playing gigs at the Literary Café, the Kosmos, and VPRO before arriving at a commune settlement outside Accra, Ghana called "Weekend in Havana". From their hub in Accra, The group made excursions to Bolgatanga and Tamale where they had the rare opportunity to study and play with Alhassan Ibrahim and the King's drummers of Tamale.

From Ghana, the group moved on to Nairobi, Kenya and made treks to the countryside to experience and record the music of the Masai and Kikuyu tribes; At year's end, the young musicians closed out their travels through the continent with trips to legendary rock churches in Lalibela, Ethiopia and the pyramids in Egypt.

The members returned with a name, a sound, a look and a singular vision that infused their high- energy fire music with hypnotizing Pan-African melodies, propulsive polyrhythms and a deeply spiritual Afro psychedelic music. In the span of just over 5 years together, The Pyramids cut three stunning independently produced albums that drew heavily upon the shared experiences abroad. Both Lalibela and King of Kings were cut in Ohio and performed before large crowds at Antioch's Kelly Hall. Birth/Speed/Merging was made shortly after the group relocated to Oakland, California where the group continued to perform live - even doing a live stint on local television station KQED. By 1977, the group had disbanded. More than 30 years later, The Pyramids - all still musically active - reunited to great acclaim in San Francisco in May 2007 for the San Francisco International Art Festival.

"THEY PLAY TO MAKE MUSIC FIRE! THEY PLAY TO MAKE THE SOUL BURST FROM THE BODY!"