Idris started the Pyramids sometime during the ’70s and was mostly forgotten till they rebooted that shit in 2010. He’s received two Lifetime Achievement Awards for music and theatre. He’s hot shit. Thank the jazz gods for that one. This album has African beats and a reggae feel. It’s deep spiritualism. It’s smiling music. These moves and grooves feel fucking fantastic. They bathe and soothe in a way nothing else can. They don’t move in a room, they glide through it. It feels like a giant wooden spoon stirring through a bowl of thick pudding. It’s cream. It’s butter. It’s molasses oozing out a spaghetti strainer. It’s modern but with roots running deeper than an oak tree. 

Marketing for jazz is shit. No surprise. The once powerful music genre has been limping and coughing blood ever since the ’50s. People generally listen out of pure obligation or because they grew up with that shit. Poor newcomers dip into jazz with something like Bitches Brew before Bill Evans. Don’t get me wrong, that bitch and her special brew shook the fucking world. But Bill Evans? He’s cool as the first motherfucker on skis. His grooves are so open and slick your grandma can giggle, sigh, and cringe along with it. Starting at Bitches Brew is like trying to laugh at someone else’s inside joke. There’s just no fucking point to it. Jazz doesn’t need to be all that hard. It’s not something to get or not get. You just listen to that shit. It’s that fucking simple. If it doesn’t get to you? Shut it off. Jazz is what happens when people try to play their soul. And sometimes, that soul is a complicated mess desperately trying to find a place to fit. It can sound fucky. Other times, it gets high as a motherfucker or drunk as shit and lounges in a puffy chair to feel out the room and get lost in some wallpaper. In other words? This shit can heal. And Idris? He’s a goddamn doctor. Here’s your prescription.