Really loving these Pyramids reissues. Fans of Don Cherry, Sun Ra, Philip Cohran, and/or Afro-centric jazz that has a tendency to take the music out there, take note!

“A psychedelic Afrojazz stunner that capped off a feverish diaspora from the Midwest to the Bay Area by way of Africa. Cut in 1975, Birth/Speed/Merging was the bands highest end production to date and their final recorded act. The mood was celebratory, carnivalesque and wholly in the groove. Features the burning classic Black Man & Woman Of The Nile. Remastered from the original source tapes. 180 gram virgin vinyl pressing.”

Kimathi Asante: Hagstrom bass guitar, talking drum, Ugandan harp, bamboo flutes, percussions, vocals
Margo Ackamoor: flute, piccolo, percussions, vocals
Idris Ackamoor AKA Bruce Baker: alto sax, bongos, Ku Cheng, bamboo flutes, talking drum, percussions, vocals
Heshima AKA Mark Anthony Williams: acoustic bass, vocals
Augusta Lee Collins: drums, talking drum, percussions
Kenneth Nash: congas, bongos, rosenbow, percussions

Really loving these Pyramids reissues. Fans of Don Cherry, Sun Ra, Philip Cohran, and/or Afro-centric jazz that has a tendency to take the music out there, take note!

“There were spirits in that recording studio! I remember a feeling of spiritual strength while we were recording! Images and sounds reverberating off the walls! - Idris Ackamoor. Though only a year had passed in the time between the fierce abandon of Lalibela and 1974’s King Of Kings, it signaled a monumental shift for the band. By 1974, the core Pyramids continued their musical odyssey with their Lalibela collaborators – percussionists Hekaptah, Marcel Lytle and saxophonist Masai – while welcoming drummer-in-exile Donald Robinson back to the Pyramids Midwestern American family. Inspired, the group set to shape a set of compositions that most fully realized – in form, feel & reflection – their African passage. On a spring day in 1974, the Pyramids went into a remote 16-track studio called Appalachia Sound Recording hours from Antioch in Chillicothe, Ohio – the site of ancient native Indian burial mounds – and, with no less intensity than before, cut a warm and infectious spiritual jazz masterpiece – King of Kings – in a day and headed back to Antioch that night. Exact repro of the ultra-rare private issue LP on the bands Pyramid Records label. Remastered from the original source tapes. 180 gram virgin vinyl pressing.”

Kwame Kimathi Asante AKA Thomas Williams: Hagstrom bass, Ugandan harp, percussion
Margo Ackamoor: flute, percussion
Idris Ackamoor AKA Bruce Baker: alto sax, talking drum, bailophone, one-stringed goge, Ethiopian drum, calypso box
Hekaptah AKA Bradie Speller: conga drums, percussion
Donald Robinson: drums, bongos, percussion
Guest artists:
Jerome Saunders: piano, percussion
Chris Chafe: cello

Really loving these Pyramids reissues. Fans of Don Cherry, Sun Ra, Philip Cohran, and/or Afro-centric jazz that has a tendency to take the music out there, take note!

“We were playing music to burst out of our bodies. Extremely free! Extremely intense! -- Idrissa Ackamoor. The Pyramids came together in the feverish expat climate of Paris & Amsterdam in 1971 where the three Antioch classmates – Idrissa Ackamoor, Margo Ackamoor and Kimathi Asante – hooked up with drummer Donald Robinson and began to flesh out their own brand of musical freedom, but it was the subsequent pilgrimage back to Africa that proved to be the young musicians creative awakening & truly set their brand of spiritual jazz apart from the pack. Cut just months after their return to Yellow Springs, Ohio in 1973 with kindred players jumping in on the session, Lalibela is an urgent, beautiful & massive two track suite of propulsive Afrodelic cosmic earth groove. Exact repro of the ultra-rare private issue LP on the bands Pyramid Records label. Remastered from the original source tapes. 180 gram virgin vinyl pressing.”

Idrissa Ackamoor: alto & soprano saxophones, bailofone, masenqo, talking drum, Moroccan clay drum
Margo Ackamoor: flute, piccolo, percussion
Kwame Kimathi Asante: Hagstrom bass, Ugandan Harp, Ethiopian drum, bamboo flute
Masai: soprano sax, bamboo flute, percussion
Marcel Lytle: drums, percussion
Hekaptah: conga drums, osi drum, percussion