IDRIS ACKAMOOR
Idris Ackamoor is an alto and tenor saxophonist, composer, pianist, percussionist, actor, tap dancer, and art administrator. He is the Founder and Artistic Director of The San Francisco performance company Idris Ackamoor and Cultural Odyssey, one of San Francisco oldest and most unique African American performing arts organizations founded in 1979. He is also the Founder/Artistic Director of the jazz and world music ensemble Idris Ackamoor ☥ The Pyramids, which he founded in 1972. He is also the Founder/CEO the African American Theater Alliance for Independence (AATAIN!), a consortium of San Francisco-based African American arts organizations that create work deeply rooted in the Black experience.
In celebration of half a century in the performing arts--beginning with the founding of his legendary band, The Pyramids in 1972--Idris saluted this epoch with the American premiere of Afro Futuristic Dreams in two performances at the Presidio Theatre in San Francisco for free to the public. Presented by the Presidio Theatre and Cultural Odyssey, the performances celebrated the 50th Anniversary commemorative double vinyl album release in 2023 of Afro Futuristic Dreams for STRUT Records. Performances were Friday and Saturday, March 17 and 18, 2023. On March 18th, 2023 Idris Ackamoor ☥ The Pyramids traveled to the popular music venue Zebulon, located in Los Angeles for a sold out performance. Afro Futuristic Dreams is a departure from other albums recorded by Idris Ackamoor with The Pyramids or his other ensembles over his career as a performer and composer and features the first music Ackamoor composed for orchestral musicians. It features string quartet, additional horn section, multiple vocalists and his seven-piece band, Idris Ackamoor and The Pyramids.
Most recently Idris was a featured guest star at the Corazón Performing Arts in Topanga, California for a performance by Carlos Nino & Friends with members of the creative music community. He also just returned from a triumphant European tour during November 2022, that began at the renowned Le Guess Who? Festival in Utrecht, The Netherlands, and continued throughout Germany and Italy to sold out houses and critical acclaim.
IDRIS has performed and collaborated with tenor Saxophonists Chico Freeman and John Tchicai, the late alto saxophonist Charles Tyler, drummer Famoudou Don Moye of the Art Ensemble of Chicago, The Cecil Taylor Creative Orchestra, choreographer Bill T. Jones, and writer Ntozake Shange, and many others. Idris was a proteǵé of Chicago legendary master clarinetist Clifford King who had played with Jelly Roll Morton and Freddie Keppard in the 1920s. Idris is one of the first of his generation of jazz artists to receive a significant lump sum to sell his entire 50 -year catalogue of Master recordings to !K7 Music of London, Berlin and New York joining the illustrious company of legendary South African singer, Miriam Makeba, and renowned pianist, Patrice Rushen whose catalogues are also managed by !K7.
In 2020 Idris Ackamoor ☥The Pyramids released “SHAMAN!”, a double vinyl album, on STRUT RECORDS of London. “SHAMAN!” was celebrated as “ONE OF THE BEST JAZZ RELEASES OF 2020” by All About Jazz, Treblezine Magazine, as well as, receiving 4 Star reviews across the board including Downbeat Magazine, Jazz Journal and others! Rolling Stone calls it, “...a great afro-jazz trip, flamboyant and timeless, where the ghosts of John Coltrane and Pharoah Sanders often appear. Brilliant.” Tom Jones of FutureMusic Magazine says, “A highly expressive, energetic record that takes us on a long, unpredictable journey through the human soul, this is Idris Ackamoor and The Pyramids at their innovative best.” “SHAMAN!” was selected by the NEW YORK CITY JAZZ RECORD as “ALBUM COVER OF THE YEAR FOR 2020!” The band moves from the political and social commentaries of 2018’s acclaimed ‘An Angel Fell’ to more introspective themes. “I wanted to use this album to touch on some of the issues we all face as individuals in the inner space of our souls and our conscience,”explains Ackamoor. “The album unfolds over four Acts with personal musical statements about love and loss, mortality, the afterlife, family and salvation.”
During spring, summer and fall of 2019 the band performed throughout America, Europe and the Middle East appearing at the PORI INTERNATIONAL JAZZ FESTIVAL in Finland, WE OUT THERE FESTIVAL in the United Kingdom, X-JAZZ SCOPE FESTIVAL in Berlin, and LE GUESS WHO? FESTIVAL in Utrecht, The Netherlands. Club performances include JAZZ TIBET in Oloumuc, Czech Republic, SALON IKSV in Istanbul, Turkey, LEXINGTON in London, and many other locations in Spain, Italy, Sweden, and France.
He has been honored with TWO Lifetime Achievement Awards for his extraordinary musical and theatrical contributions. The most recent presented in January 2012 by the renowned BBC radio personality Gilles Peterson at the Worldwide Awards Show in London. In 2003 San Francisco’s historic magazine, The San Francisco Bay Guardian, presented Idris with his first. The U.S. Department of State, Educational and Cultural Affairs Bureau selected Idris twice as an Arts Envoy. In his role as an arts ambassador he journeyed to Johannesburg, South Africa conducting residency activities inside the Naturena Women’s Prison with his partner Rhodessa Jones.
In 2007 Idris conducted his first U.S. Department of State Speakers Tour of Russia where he conducted performances and workshops throughout the country with disenfranchised populations. Mr. Ackamoor recently received a $50,000 Composer Commission presented by the Gerbode Foundation. The resulting suite of compositions entitled, “WE LIVE HERE!” premiered at Brava Theater Cabaret celebrating Cultural Odyssey’s 40th Anniversary Season and paying homage to the musical developments, genres and world influencing musicians who have resided and made the San Francisco Bay Area their home.
Musical composition is one of Idris' primary artistic enterprises and since 1976 he has been registered as a writer and publisher with Broadcast Music Inc. registering over ONE HUNDRED musical compositions that are published through his publishing company, Aomawa Music. Idris has composed for theater, dance companies, and video/film productions including Penumbra Theater in St. Paul, MN., the Lorraine Hansberry Theater in San Francisco, and La Mama Theater in New York City, Dimensions Dance Company in Oakland, CA. and the documentary Tongues Untied by the late filmmaker Marlon Riggs. He is presently included on the recently released Wild Poppies: A Poetry Jam Across Prison Walls. His composition was used on the renowned poet Sonya Sanchez’s track.
In 2004 Idris released his third CD entitled, “Homage to Cuba”, inspired by his recent studies in Cuba. In 1999 Idris released his second jazz CD entitled, “Centurian”. Centurian contains eight original Ackamoor compositions played by his ensemble. During 1998 Idris recorded and released his first CD entitled "Portrait" which contains nine original Ackamoor compositions.
IDRIS ACKAMOOR THE PYRAMIDS
Idris Ackmoor and his wife Dr. Margaux Simmons compose music together for the Pyramids, in the 1970s
The Pyramids band was founded fifty years ago in 1972. Saxophonist and composer Idris Ackamoor had originally left his hometown of Chicago to study music at Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio, where his teachers numbered legendary pianist Cecil Taylor. Via the Antioch Abroad Program, Ackamoor landed a year’s study overseas in 1972, which allowed him, and two Antioch students, Margaux Simmons and Kimathi Asante, to travel to Europe and Africa where they co-founded The Pyramids. The trip took in a musical spiritual journey up into Northern Ghana, the land of the Fra Fra of Bolgatanga and the Islam-influenced Dagomba in Tamale, where Ackamoor taped some field recordings.
“We played with the King’s musicians in Tamale,” he remembers. “I also undertook a healing ceremony in the bush of Bolgatanga with a Fra Fra traditional healer (a Juju Man).” Back in Yellow Springs, The Pyramids brought together all of the knowledge from their journey and released two independently produced albums including Lalibela (1973), and King Of Kings (1974). After graduating, Idris and the band headed to Oakland, California and quickly met other musicians in the thriving San Francisco Bay Area music scene where they recorded their third album, Birth/Speed/Merging in 1976.
The Pyramids played their last concert at the 1977 UC Berkeley Jazz Festival sharing the stage with vocalist Al Jarreau, and jazz legends Woody Shaw and Dexter Gordon. Out of the blue, The Pyramids announced their return in 2007. “Around 2006 there was an increased interest in the 1970s music the band recorded with many requests from record labels to re-issue the early albums,” Ackamoor explains. “The Pyramids’ three LPs were showing up on eBay for high prices.” A Berlin booking agency began organizing European dates for the band and The Pyramids were fully back in business. The momentum has continued for the group with Ackamoor landing a Lifetime Achievement Award from Gilles Peterson at his Worldwide Awards in London.
