Pheeroan akLaff (drums), Michael Cain (piano), Ed Cherry (guitar), Keith Witty (bass)

Born in Detroit on January 27, 1955, Pheeroan akLaff was inspired by his father's collection of Thelonious Monk, the Clifford Brown / Max Roach quintet, and the Modern Jazz Quartet. He played in local bands with mentors Dwight Andrews, and Travis Biggs, while attending Eastern Michigan University His first recording was Emaual Lasky.’s Remember Me Always in 1973 produced by Travis Biggs. Searching for more musical variety, he moved to New Haven Connecticut in 1975 and assembled the DejaVu band with fellow Detroiters Dwight D. Andrews and Tyrone Golden.  There he met new artists and scholars and began a tenure with Wadada Leo Smith, Oliver Lake, Anthony Davis, Amina Claudine Myers, Henry Threadgill, and several forward-thinking musicians of the Northeast.  While auditing Robert Ferris Thompson's African Art class at Yale, akLaff was introduced to John Coltrane's futurist drummer Rashied Ali who invited him to Ali's Alley, the first musician-owned club in Soho.This educative immersion in music led to an irrepressible move to New York. By 1976 Pheeroan’s drumming led him to recordings and European while building connections with role models like Max Roach, Reggie Workman, and John Stubblefield.    

Throughout the Eighties and Nineties, Pheeroan performed and recorded with many leading musical lights of creative music and occasionally led bands with his compositional experiments influenced by his work with Geri Allen, Anthony Braxton, Baikida Carroll, Sonny Sharrock, Anthony Davis, Andrew Hill, Oliver Lake, David Murray, Cecil Taylor, Henry Threadgill, Mal Waldron, Yosuke Yamashita, and Tom Pierson.