The Pyramids - 2 Day Residency at Cafe Oto

Wednesday 18th January 2012
Tickets : £10 adv / £12 on the door

Thursday 19th January 2012
Tickets : £10 adv / £12 on the door

£18 two day pass

Door Times : 8pm

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 Los Angeles and had his own free jazz outfit called “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 Margo 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. After numerous performances throughout Holland and France the group headed for an amazing journey throughout Africa where they had the rare opportunity to study and play with Alhassan Ibrahim and the King's drummers of Tamale, Ghana. In Nairobi, Kenya the group made treks to the countryside to study, experience, and record the music of the Masai and Kikuyu tribes.

The Pyramids returned home 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 including "Lalibela" (1973), "King of Kings" (1974), and "Birth/Speed/Merging" (1976) that drew heavily upon their shared experiences abroad. As well, the band migrated to the San Francisco Bay Area and became a local phenomenon in the avant-garde jazz musical community.

By 1977, after a performance at the UC Berkeley Jazz Festival the group had disbanded.

Now, close to 40 years since the founding of the group, The Pyramids have been “rediscovered” and in the past nine months the band has toured Europe three times performing with original and new members at major jazz festivals, concert venues, and clubs throughout the continent! In a spectacular comeback the band has performed at Copenhagen Jazz Festival, Enjoy Jazz Festival in Heidelberg, Germany, Berlin’s leading theatre Volksbühne, ÜberJazz Festival in Hamburg, Prague’s Palac Acropolis, Worldwide Festival in Séte, France and the Dutch State X Festival. The Pyramids just have been signed to Disko B Records in Munich for a two-record deal. Disco B Records will release their recently produced album, “Otherworldly”. "THEY PLAY TO MAKE MUSIC FIRE! THEY PLAY TO MAKE THE SOUL BURST FROM THE BODY!"