The Collective Idrissa’s Dream

Description

Strut continues their work from the archives of Idris Ackamoor & The Pyramids with a first ever vinyl release of Ackamoors 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.

Idrissas Dream is fully remastered from the original tapes by The Carvery and the package features an interview with Idris Ackamoor alongside previously unseen photos. –Bandcamp