Ethiopiques S/D

Actually, I'm working on putting a Europe & US tour for him as I belive so much in him and hearing positive stuff like this is essential in keeping me going against all the obstacles.

Funny seeing above post 'coz yesterday I actualy googled Sun Ra and Ethiopiques to see if anyone had seen any similarities with any of the stuff.

I found Mahmoud Ahmed's Ere Mela Mela a while ago and it's great.

I am interested in reading more about the history of Ethiopian music, specifically the relationship between the music and Ethiopian culture/politics/geography. Has anyone found any web resources, books, or articles that are insightful?

http://www.rootsworld.com/reviews/book-abbys.shtml

More sounds ...

http://www.aitrecords.com/

I am looking for information on Hirut Beqele, but have found only mentions of her participation in Ethiopiques.

Anybody have links?

(hi Mark)

thanks, sydney

Getachew spent part of last fall touring with The Ex and the ICP Orchestra for the 25th anniversary of The Ex. went great from all reports and they want to keep up the collaborations.

for those who are interested, for last year's festival i had invited Boston based big band Either/Orchestra and they'll be playing with Mulatu Astatqe (featured on Vol. 4) at Joe's Pub in NYC on March 15, def. well worth going to.

posting the press release below and for anyone who can't make but is interested there is a full concert they did together in the WNYC online archives. think the date was Nov. 12 2004.

Steve, there is supposed to be a March 18,19 show but venue is not set yet afaik

MULATU ASTATKE & THE EITHER/ORCHESTRA WITH GUEST DJ TIMAJ SUKKER

Monday March 14
9:30 PM & 11:30 PM
$20

Featured artists include:
Mulatu Astatke
Either/Orchestra http://either-orchestra.org

One of Ethiopia's major musicians, Mulatu Astatke studied in London, Boston and New York, in the late 1950s and returned home to invent Ethio-jazz, which stands with various South African and Nigerian styles as the most successful fusion of jazz and African music. Astatke is most notably featured in the acclaimed Ethiopiques series Vol. 4. The Grammy- Nominated Either/Orchestra is among the longest running and highly respected large ensembles in jazz. Since 1985, under the direction of saxophonist/composer Russ Gershon, the ten-piece has traversed the length and breadth of jazz to make unexpected connections between styles and approaches to music, including Ethiopian music and jazz.

In early 2004, as the first US big band to play in Ethiopia since Duke Ellington in 1973, the E/O met and collaborated with Mulatu. It was a match made in heaven, or at least in Addis Ababa! Since this meeting the two have performed together several times in the US building upon recorded Ethiopian explorations in E/O’s hit albums, afro-cubism and More Beautiful Than Death, “an album so jaw-droppin', eyes buggin' and head-shakingly good that it takes your breath away...” Snap Pop.

Don’t miss your chance to see this beautiful collaboration. "Mulatu Astatke's distinct brand of Ethiopian music features some of the most soulful hip-grinding instrumentals ever recorded in Mother Africa."-John Ballon, Musthear Reviews "One of the most innovative large ensembles in jazz for almost 20 years...[the Either/Orchestra] is still pushing the envelope." New York Newsday http://either-orchestra.org

Before and after sets, Downtown Manhattan's Ethiopian-born, female DJ/Producer Timaj Sukker, spins Nomadic beats, in which eclectic global rhythms are interwoven into a singular holistic adventure. www.nomadicbeat.com

March 18, 19
Washington DC, with Mulatu Astatke, venue TBA

more info here http://either-orchestra.org/newsEthio20PR.html

Those people only like what they hear on Top 40 radio.

more tour and other info below

http://either-orchestra.org/newsEthio20PR.html

http://web.joespub.com/caltool/index.cfm?fuseaction=detail&performanceID=1257

http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=19330

Film Puts a New Focus on the Master of 'Ethiojazz'
By BEN SISARIO
Published: October 13, 2005

In Jim Jarmusch's latest movie, "Broken Flowers," a graying former ladies' man played by Bill Murray has a strange companion with him as he searches for some old girlfriends, one of whom may have borne his son. He's gloomy but intrigued by the quest, and his mood is matched by the passenger in his rental car: a CD of brooding and mysterious music, a little funky and a little slithery, a bit like a 1970's blaxploitation soundtrack and a bit like dense modal jazz. He never seems to know what to make of it, but he clearly likes it.

The music is a particularly obscure vintage made in Ethiopia in the late 1960's and early 70's by a jazz innovator named Mulatu Astatke, and thanks to "Broken Flowers" and an acclaimed series of CD's, his music has enjoyed a little renaissance lately. A prominent figure in Ethiopia but barely known to Western listeners, Mr. Astatke makes a rare United States appearance tonight at Joe's Pub with the Either/Orchestra, an avant-garde jazz group that has championed him.

From the moment Mr. Jarmusch first heard it, about six years ago, the music got under his skin, he said, and he began seeking it out wherever he could find it. "When I was writing 'Broken Flowers,' " he said by phone from his home in the Catskills, "I was listening to a lot of his music, and I was thinking, 'How do I get this music into a film that's set in suburban America?' It even led me to make the character of Jeffrey Wright of Ethiopian descent." In the film, Mr. Wright's character, Mr. Murray's next-door neighbor, gets him started on his journey and hands him the disc. Several songs by Mr. Astatke are used prominently in the film, and are on the soundtrack album, released by Decca.

Mr. Astatke, a vibraphonist and bandleader, had a suitably cosmopolitan upbringing for a music that blends jazz with funk, Latin music and traditional Ethiopian five-tone scales. Born in 1943 in the western Ethiopian city of Jimma, he was one of the few musicians of his generation to be educated abroad. He went to the Trinity College of Music in London, where he studied clarinet, harmony and theory, and in the early 60's attended the Schillinger House of Music in Boston, now the Berklee College of Music.

"My whole idea," he said by phone the other day from his home in Addis Ababa, "was sort of fusion with Ethiopian and jazz and modern music. I started at Berklee this idea of the 'Ethiojazz' business. From there I came to New York and I had this group, and what I wanted to do, I did it there."

His group in New York, the Ethiopian Quintet, was mostly Puerto Rican. He recorded two albums in the 60's on a small New York label, Worthy. He jammed with Dave Pike, who was Herbie Mann's vibraphonist at the time, and remembers his time here fondly.

"We had all these big bands," he said. "And the Village Gate, the Village Vanguard, the Palladium - there were all these clubs around at that time." He was surprised and delighted to learn that the Vanguard is still in business. "It's still around?" he said. "Fantastic! Wow!"

Mr. Astatke returned to Ethiopia in the late 60's and took part in a fertile musical scene there in the waning years of Emperor Haile Selassie, who was deposed in 1974. Establishing himself as a jazz ambassador, he brought the Hammond organ and vibraphone to Ethiopia. "I changed the whole Ethiopian music," he said without shyness, "combining jazz and fusion with the Ethiopian five-tone scales. Since then my name has been on the very, very top of the Ethiopian musical scene."

The music of that period, influenced by American funk and soul, is being collected in "Éthiopiques," a series of albums on the French label Buda Musique, which since the late 90's has run to 20 volumes. Mr. Astatke's disc, Vol. 4, is its best seller and has seen a bump in sales since "Broken Flowers" was released in August. It is now selling about 1,800 copies a week, said a spokeswoman for Allegro, the albums' American distributor; that is equivalent to the sales of a new album by a world music star like Youssou N'Dour.

Last year the Either/Orchestra, led by the saxophonist and composer Russ Gershon, performed in Addis Ababa and met Mr. Astatke. The group has since brought him to the United States for concerts twice, the first times Mr. Astatke had performed in New York in many years. After performing at Joe's Pub tonight, they will go on a brief Northeastern tour, traveling to Boston, Philadelphia, Washington and Colgate University in Hamilton, N.Y.

Mr. Astatke said he had been following news of "Broken Flowers" by e-mail ("I'm very far away") but had not yet seen them film in its entirety. He added, with a laugh, "I'm going to see it in New York."

Was I there? I just heard about this stuff recently, and I have a feeling I'd really like it.

http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=19126

http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=19598

I think I am gonna be busy with my kid and will have to miss it. My son loves Ethiopian food, not so sure about the music. I need to check out the food and music at all those newish Ethiopian restaurants around 9th and U in DC.

that's awesome about the mulatu astatke shows!

title track is great because it has her wonderful sense of time, the other songs also have some of that but are more traditional classic solo piano

vocal compilation forthcoming https://emahoytsegemariamgebru.bandcamp.com/album/souvenirs

If you like some Ethiopiques comps, you might also like seeing the band Qwanqwa live. They are on a US tour now. Baltimore tonight , DC area Sunday and some gigs in between and many after

https://www.qwanqwa.net/tour

Zanzibara done by the same label had some very interesting material too. Not sure if it got anything like the same recognition.

https://www.instantseats.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=home.event&eventid=237AB0FE-E847-96A3-1693AEF5C01D8802&k=&CFID=5969167&CFTOKEN=dd0393536c05719f-2753451F-056F-92FC-CFD691C664FA1389

Girma Beyene , pianist / arranger is going to be back in dc area Thursday night July 18. Composer of Muziqawi Silt that Walias Band and others have covered. Also represented on Ethiopiques 30

Sweet old guy who was good when I saw him awhile back

Went to the Girma Beyengig. He had a band and he and they started late around 10 after 2 opening acts & a movie and then had to finish by the rented theatre's 11 pm weeknight closing time. He talked a bunch, mostly in Amharic, and sounded suave when singing. Not as great as when I saw him 6 years ago, but he wasn't even young back then either. Still good. They showed the Girma movie doc again. Falceto the Ethiopiques compiler found Beyene. Beyene and several members of the Walias Band decided to stay in DC circa 81 when a military dictatorship took over Ethiopia. Beyene's wife got ill from cancer I think and died in a DC hospital and he was heartbroken. He stopped doing music and worked 6 days a week at a gas station to pay the bills for he and his 2 kids. Now this century he's finally back.

Beyene hasn't attracted the crossover crowd that Mulatu Astatke has. When I saw Astatke a little while back at Howard Theatre, the audience was 50 % Ethiopians and 50 % non-Ethiopians. At the Bethesda Theatre Beyene gig the audience was 99 % Ethiopian.

Ethiopian New Year, Enkutatash, is Wednesday September 11. Many Ethiopian New Year’s Eve events at Ethiopian establishments tonight Tuesday

80-something Mahmoud Ahmed is planning to retire from singing. He is being honored and singing near his Springfield, Va home near DC on Friday and sometime soon back in Ethiopia. He was great when I last saw him sing in 2020 at Ethiopia embassy in DC . Saw him at a show by another performer earlier this year and he was walking with a cane .

https://www.thereporterethiopia.com/42671/

The Ibex Band that later became the Roha Band have an album of 1970s material coming out via Bandcamp. The group included guitarist Selam Selamino Woldemariam who lives in the dc area now and is still playing music.

https://ibexband.bandcamp.com/album/stereo-instrumental-music

there's also a newish Mulatu album, from last November:

https://mulatuastatke.bandcamp.com/album/tension

heard a song on the RADIO (well, college radio) the other day.

i also heard a song on the radio (well, radio 3)

surprised he was still alive tbh

I just saw Mulatu Astatke perform live last year at the Howard Theatre (he had a European band) in Washington DC. It was a good show. I see that newish album linked above was done with an Israeli band.

I am at a talk in Washington DC by guitarist Selamino who played in Ibex and Roha bands when he was in his 20s , and also backed Mahmoud Ahmed in the studio and live . Selam Woldemariam aka Selamino has lived in DC area for years and now at age 70 still plays regularly around here . There’s an intermission now, but he’s going to play some after and talk more about his music with the younger moderator.

This year's Mulatu Plays Mulatu is on his Bandcamp---wouldn't have thought to check w/o thread revive---thanks yall!

It's come out since the one curm mentioned: "...balances western jazz arrangements with traditional Ethiopian instruments...elegant big band..."

I have read acclaim for the Mulatu album, but also seen some folks just note that much of it is covers of his classics

https://ethiopiquesseries.bandcamp.com/album/nalbandian-the-ethiopian-either-orchestra

In 2011 in Ethiopia a tribute concert by the Either/Or Orchestra and Ethiopian guest musicians for Armenian-Ethiopian composer, horn player, and music teacher Nerses Nalbandian (1915–1977) was held. It's now coming out on Ethiopiques.

Another new Ethiopiques release

https://ethiopiquesseries.bandcamp.com/album/muluken-mellesse-with-the-dahlak-band

Muluken Mellesse began singing at a very young age and later became known for love songs. Later in life he gave up on secular songs.

https://www.npr.org/2024/04/12/1244220320/ethiopian-singer-muluken-melesse-dies-at-73

DC -based Ethiopian singer Munit Mesfin will be with the Either/Or Orchestra doing an Ethiopiques set Sat Jan 10 at the Brooklyn Bowl

Jeez, sorry! Only meant to copy what it says after track list.

Maybe I was too harsh on Mulatu's re-arrangements

xpost this refers to a previous post, since removed (thanks mods) that imported the whole Mulatu Plays Mulatu Bandcamp page when I tried to cut & paste some notes at the end:like it says, he's "intricately balancing Western jazz arrangements with the rich sounds of traditional Ethiopian instruments," also Western instruments, recording with his longtime cohorts in London and Addis Ababa. Title is a little misleading, since he also covers compatible compositions by the Either/Orchestra's Russ Gershon. I haven't done any comparative listening, but sounds pretty engaging so far, noticing more detail, incl. nuance, each time I stream it.

Having said all that< I must add that its elegance, emerging glamour, even, still seems---a little dry. So I didn't Top Ten it, but may yet, if I get an Uproxx ballot, which has showed up in early Jan. of recent years.

Legendary Ethiopian singer Aster Aweke who I thought had retired is going to be doing a late night show in DC at a place called Karma tonight. Event is billed with an opening act as being from 9pm to 4 am. Last time I saw Aweke years ago, she came on at like 1am. She was good but not sure if I am up for that again tonight

At Big Ears, The ten-piece E/O will be joined by legendary Ethiopian vocalist Teshome Mitiku and younger gen vocalist Munit Mesfin for a dive into their Ethiopian songbook.

A Weekend Where Legends Met: My Addis Jazz Festival Story

Medium

https://medium.com/@tinabelayw/a-weekend-where-legends-met-my-addis-jazz-festival-story-51b05f146607

Lots of Ethiopiques greats were at this past weekend’s Addis jazz festival

http://www.tadias.com/04/09/2026/ethiopiques-revisited-francis-falceto-amha-eshete-and-the-global-journey-of-ethiopian-music/