Idris Ackamoor / The Collective - Idrissa's Dream

Format: 2 x LP
Catalogue No.: STRUT286LP 
Barcode: 4062548045857 
Release Date: 02 Dec 2022
Genre: Jazz

Standard weight 2LP – features new interview with Idris Ackamoor and rare photos.

TRACKLIST:
A1 The Shepherd's Tune
A2 Idrissa's Dream Part I
B1 Idrissa's Dream Part II
B2 Black Queen
C1 Beginning Roots Part I
D1 Beginning Roots Part II
D2 Veil Of Solitude

Strut continue their work from the archives of Idris Ackamoor & The Pyramids with a first ever vinyl release of Ackamoor's debut avant-garde / Afro-jazz recordings from 1971 with The Collective, based out of Yellow Springs, Ohio.

The group was formed after Ackamoor had returned to Antioch from a spell in L.A. under the wing of influential saxophonist Charles Tyler. Pianist Lester Knibbs had been appointed to the Antioch college music department as an assistant professor and had followed a similar path to avant-garde pioneer, Cecil Taylor. "They both came from the classical tradition," explains Ackamoor, "but also understood jazz and avant-garde improvisation." Ackamoor and Knibbs started as a duet before Ackamoor met three musicians from Wright-Patterson Air Force base near Dayton. Ackamoor continues, "They would come to Yellow Springs because they could find marijuana there. They were called 'the three Steves': Steve Maniscoso, an Italian, Steve Rumboat, a white American and Oakland Steve, a black musician playing flute. Oakland Steve left the air force and then Margaux Simmons arrived - that is the quintet featured on these recordings. You also hear a vocalist called Peggy Pettitt, another Antioch student who became quite famous in movies; she starred in the film Black Girl soon afterwards in 1972.

This concert is the only professional recording of The Collective from a performance at Kelly Hall in August 1971. "After this, I think the Steves went back to Wright-Patterson," continues Ackamoor, "and The Collective just naturally evolved and transitioned into the Pyramids. I felt like The Collective was my birth as a composer; we created such a tapestry of sound because Lester had the talent to play enormous arpeggios and colours on the piano, both classically and as improvisation. Our music was just a natural expression, coming from our souls, our hearts and our minds. A channel from above... But it was not pre-designed in any way.

`Idrissa's Dream' is fully remastered from the original tapes by The Carvery and the package features an interview with Idris Ackamoor alongside previously unseen photos.

More From This Artist: Idris Ackamoor The Collective