Idris Ackamoor – born Bruce Baker on January 9, 1951 in Chicago, Illinois – is a jazz multi-instrumentalist, producer, composer, and actor. He is best known as the artistic director of jazz/world music ensemble the Pyramids. He is also the founder and Executive/Co-Artistic Director of the San Francisco performance company, Cultural Odyssey. His musical career began when he founded The Pyramids in the early 1970s while attending Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio. The members of the Pyramids were part of jazz pianist Cecil Taylor’s Black Music Ensemble, which was an orchestra of college students that would create large scale musical works under Taylor’s direction. Idris Ackamoor and the Pyramids toured Africa before relocating to San Francisco, California. They released three albums independently – Lalibela (1973), King of Kings (1974), and Birth/Speed/Merging (1976) – before splitting up in 1977. In 1979, Idris Ackamoor founded Cultural Odyssey, a San Francisco-based performance company inspired by his travels to Africa. Cultural Odyssey’s productions combine music, dance, and theater. The company has toured their productions internationally and has been honored with many awards. Idris Ackamoor released several albums as a leader – Portrait (1997) and Centurian (1999) – as well as several collaborations with Cultural Odyssey, Hakeem Muhammad, and others. Over the years, he reformed the Pyramids with a new line-up, and they have released several albums including We Be All Africans (2016), An Angel Fell (2018), and Shaman! (2020).
