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Idris Ackamoor Ankhestra, Rhodessa Jones, Danny Glover: Artistic Being review – powerful live set from the Afrofuturist and friends
This San Francisco session released for Record Store Day sets spoken word to Ackamoor’s uncompromising but joyous spiritual jazz
Idris Ackamoor was a champion of Afrofuturism long before that term was coined; his 70s band the Pyramids combined funk and avant-garde jazz with Egyptian flavours and a keen awareness of Afro-American history. It’s a powerful, uncompromising work, combining an expanded big band, the Ankhestra, with spoken-word outings by Hollywood actor Danny Glover alongside fellow activist Rhodessa Jones. The centrepiece is Glover’s Grandma Cole Story, which turns the harrowing ordeals of a 10-year-old African girl aboard a slave ship into a a triumph of spirit via a blaze of Blakean imagery.
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