Born in Detroit on January 27, 1955, Pheeroan AkLaff grew up listening to recordings by
such talents as Clifford Brown and Max Roach, Thelonious Monk and the Modern Jazz Quartet.
He studies speech and drama at Eastern Michigan University, then spent several months during
1975 interacting with and learning from drummers in the Ivory Coast. Eventually he settled
in New York, where his technical facility and his finely tuned musical taste quickly won him
numerous admirers - particularly among the city's more creative, adventuresome and forward
looking jazz players.
Throughout the Eighties and Nineties, Pheeroan jas performed and recorded with many of today's leading musical light;
Geri Allen, Anthony Braxton, Anthony Davis, Marty Ehrlich, Andrew Hill, Oliver Lake, David Murray, Leo Smith, Cecil
Taylor, Henry Threadgill, Mal Waldron, Yosuke Yamashita and a host of others.
Audiences around the world have marveled firsthand at Pheeroan's exciting percussion work, thanks to a number of
overseas tours - with his own ensembles and those of his peers.
As part of a Jay Hoggard group, Pheeroan performed in India, Syria, Jordan, Sudan and Morocco under U.S. Information
Agency sponsorship in 1985.
Another USIA sponsored tour - this time with Oliver Lake's Jump Up band - took him to Togo, Ivory Coast, Liberia,
Swaziland and Malawi in 1982.
Pheeroan backed the Marie Rose Guiraud Dance Company at performances in four Ivorian cities in 1981 - and was a member
of the Henry Threadgill ensemble featured at India's jazz Yatra Festival in 1984.
He's been a frequent headliner with his own group and others at festivals, concerts and clubs throughout North America,
as well as such major overseas events as the Sju Festival in the Netherlands, the Willisau Jazz festival in Switzerland,
the Nurnberg East-West Festival and the Moers New jazz Festival in Germany, the Middlemeim Festival in Belgium and the
Montsalvat Festival in Australia.