With Shaman!, 69-year-old bandleader and saxophonist Idris Ackamoor completes an impressive trilogy of albums since his re-emergence with 2016’s We Be All Africans and 2018’s An Angel Fell.
Like those, it finds Ackamoor’s mix of Afro-funk and free jazz in robust form, though its themes are more personal than political. The title track, by turns reflective and turbulent, is about a failed love affair, while When Will I See You Again, inspired by mass shootings in the US, dwells on mortality and the dangers of being “in the wrong place at the wrong time”, a subject with new resonance in our current pandemic. More subdued, Eternity comes with a swaying, Saharan flavour in line with Ackamoor’s Egyptian preoccupations, while The Last Slave Ship (about Clotilda, which sailed in 1860) is less anguished than forlorn.
Ackamoor’s sax work – he plays both alto and tenor – remains fiery, recalling Pharoah Sanders and John Coltrane, though this time it’s tempered by the lyrical flute of Dr Margaux Simmons, a returning founder of the Pyramids’ 1970s lineup. There are muscular funk workouts, like Virgin, studded with vocal declamations, but the album’s 76 minutes are a brilliant, shape-shifting matrix.
