Members of the jazz infrastructure are infuriated by challenges to established convention. There’s hell to pay when the “right” path isn’t followed. The Pyramids didn’t do much in the “right” way in the 1970s. Thankfully, they’re still doing it all wrong.
Initially assembled in Ohio, the ensemble led by Idris Ackamoor is one of innumerable groups of innovative improvisors that never stood much of a chance. The internet has given rebuked and scorned trailblazers a fighting chance at belated recognition.
The New York Times is among the outlets hailing the recent release of Aomawa, a boxed set collecting the Pyramids’ neglected Afrofuturism efforts from the 1970s. Deliriously unconventional selections like "Birth Speed Merging, Pt. 2" remain thrilling more than 45 years after they were recorded.
While noble efforts of the people responsible for the resurfacing of the sounds documented on Aomawa probably won’t do much to increase the popularity of jazz, the documentation of non-codified sounds should chip away at the common misperception that the music is inherently bland and boring.
