Either/Orchestra to perform in Ethiopia and Uganda

Hey, H., this might interest you (or were you even possibly involved with organizing it?), if you are even in Ehthiopia at all these days. Don't we have someone else posting from Ethiopia sometimes, or am I imagining things? (No, I'm not thinking nabisco.)

This is a press release, I guess, but still interesting.

December 29, 2003

Either/Orchestra to perform in Ethiopia and Uganda

Ten piece jazz/Latin/African ensemble from Massachusetts is the first
US artist invited to the Ethiopian International Music Festival in
Addis Ababa

Trip to include clinics and concert at Yared School of Music and free
concerts for students and public

The ten-piece Either/Orchestra (E/O) will be the featured
artist at the Ethiopian International Music Festival in Addis Ababa,
January 12-24, 2004. In its third year, the Festival is produced by
the Alliance Ethio-Francaise, who expand its scope beyond Ethiopian
musicians this year by inviting the E/O. The E/O will be the first
American large jazz ensemble to play in Ethiopia since the Duke
Ellington Orchestra in 1973. Concerts will include Ethiopian music,
American jazz and collaborations between the E/O and Ethiopian
musicians. Along with a ticketed event, the E/O will play various
free concerts for students and the public, and perform, teach and
study at the Yared School of Music. The trip will also feature a
visit to Kampala, Uganda, for a concert at the National Theater at 7
pm on January 19, under the aegis of the Alliance Francaise in
Kampala.
"We feel very fortunate that forces on three continents have
come together to make this trip possible," says E/O leader Russ
Gershon. "Everybody in the band is looking forward to visiting
Africa, hearing Ethiopian music at its source, and meeting Ethiopian
musicians and civilians."
The Somerville Mass. based E/O, founded in 1985 by
saxophonist/composer Gershon, has gained the attention of the
Ethiopian and Ethio-phile music community by interpreting Ethiopian
popular music. Gershon came to Ethiopian sounds through singer
Ahmoud Ahmed's Ere Mela Mela and by the compilation Ethiopian Groove:
The Golden 70s, assembled by French producer Francis Falceto, who
also curates the well-received 15 volume Ethiopiques series for Buda
Music.
After the E/O included the Ethiopian Suite, composed of three
popular songs from the early 1970s, on its 2000 release More
Beautiful than Death, Falceto contacted Gershon, beginning a
relationship between French promoter and American bandleader. Since
the mid 1980s, Falceto has harbored a desire to honor and revive the
classic Ethiopian big band tradition of the 1950s through 70s. The
popular music scene in Addis was halted under the Derg dictatorship
of 1974-1991 and sputtered during the subsequent period of the
Eritrean war of seccession in the 1990s. In the Either/Orchestra,
Falceto found a group of high-caliber musicians who were already
taking this music as a source of inspiration. Gershon and the E/O
have been drawing material from Falceto's extensive collection of
out-of-print LPs and cassettes, and Falceto has introduced the E/O's
work to a number of the major Ethiopian artists.
Gershon has also received several calls from expatriate
Ethiopian musicians living in the Washington DC area, where there is
a large Ethiopian community, including calls from the composers of
songs the E/O has recorded. "The response from the Ethiopians has
been overwhelmingly positive and supportive," he reports. "A couple
of these older expatriates actually heard our versions of their songs
on the radio and just flipped out. They ask, when can I come and
play with your band? And other Ethiopian musicians living in the US,
including members of the Admas Band, the top Ethiopian band here,
have been really impressed by the way we have captured the essence of
the music." Falceto says the older Ethiopian artists in Addis are
"almost literally speechless" when they hear the E/O's renditions of
their music.
Falceto elaborates, "the Either/Orchestra has been the first
US artist invited because they are among the first Western musicians
to have considered Ethiopian music as part of the 'World Groove
Heritage' (together with other international artists like Kronos
Quartet, Susheela Raman...), to play and record it - and in a
wonderful manner. They will be a big and unimaginable surprise for
the Ethiopian audiences (and foreign too, since being the capital of
African Union, Addis Ababa is also full of foreigners from all over
the world. The biggest density of embassies in Africa). Last but not
least, the meeting between American musicians paying tribute to
Ethiopian music, and Ethiopian musicians should be a fantastic
adventure, hopefully full of lessons for both sides."
"Ethiopian music works really well as jazz, " says Gershon,
"because rhythmically it is anchored in the wider African sense of
polyrhythms, of 3 against 2 time, often expressed in 3/4 and 6/8
meters. Also, one of the most characteristic elements of Ethiopian
traditional music are the particular pentatonic scales they employ,
which for the Western ear range from familiar sounding to quite
exotic. When these modes are used as the basis for harmony, you wind
up with lots of the chords that are common in modern jazz. Because
of the particular history of modern music in Ethiopia, there is a
strong tradition of pop bands with big horn sections, and even a very
unique and definite Ethiopian saxophone style. A man named Getachew
Mekurya transposed a kind of war chant onto the tenor sax in the 50s
and came up with a style that actually prefigures Albert Ayler's by a
few. Getachew will be playing at the festival, and I hope to play
with him. In the end, the music reaches us because all jazz and
Latin musicians are deeply connected to African music through the
history and tradition of what we do."
Ethiopia possesses an ancient, rich and somewhat insular
culture, in part because its dominant central region features
inaccessible, mountainous terrain, isolating and protecting the
country over the centuries. Ethiopia is the only African country
never to have been colonialized by a European power, except for six
years of nominal Italian rule during the Mussolini era. "Ethiopia
has had a very hard time over the last thirty years, leaving the
country in tatters, " says Gershon. "I have been told by Charles
Teller, an international development researcher and professor who
spent eight years there, that there is a sense of hopelessness,
particularly among the young people. Professor Teller feels that the
image of a top American ensemble treating Ethiopian music with care,
respect, and a sense of cultural history, collaborating with
Ethiopian musicians, will be a very positive piece of diplomacy for
our country at this point in history. We will be doing some
teaching at the Yared Music School in Addis while we are there, and
looking for other ways to interact with the community."
The E/O's most recent CD is Neo-Modernism (Accurate 3284), which is
currently at #4 in the College Media Journal jazz chart. All About
Jazz: New York writer David Adler includes it among his 10 "Best New
Releases for 2003." Kevin R. Convey writes in the Boston Herald that
Neo-Modernism is "a now-searching, now-searing display of swing,
drive, precision, power, individual expression and ensemble dynamics.
It's a potent cocktail, especially when the band heads toward outer
dimensions."
In the All Music Guide, Alex Henderson calls it "yet another reason
to be excited about the Either/Orchestra," and Irwin Block of the
Montreal Gazette declares that it "sizzles with energy and begs for
more from this cracker-jack unit."
Participation of the Either/Orchestra in the Ethiopian
International Music Festival has been made possible in part through
support from The Fund for U.S. Artists at International Festivals and
Exhibitions, a public-private partnership of the National Endowment
for the Arts, the U.S. Department of State, and The Rockefeller
Foundation, with additional support from the Doris Duke Charitable
Foundation, and administered by Arts International.

For more information, please visit either-orchestra.org.

Personnel:

Tom Halter - trumpet
Colin Fisher - trumpet
Joel Yennior - trombone
Jeremy Udden - alto sax, flute
Russ Gershon - tenor, soprano sax
Henry Cook - baritone sax, flute
Greg Burk - keyboards
Rick McLaughlin - bass
Harvey Wirht - drums
Vicente Lebron - congas, percussion

Ethiopian Songs Played by the Either/Orchestra

1. Amlak Abet Abet (Teshome Sissay)
2. Musicawi Silt (Girma Beyene)
3. Feker Aydelmwey (Ayalew Mesfin)
4. Yezamed Yemaed (Teshome Meteku)
5. Alchalkum (associated with Tlahoun Gessese)
6. Awash (Ali Birra)
7. Ambassel (traditional)
8. Keset Eswa Bichet (Muluqen Mellesse)
9. Bati Lydian (Mulatu Astatque)
10. Beber Ayegazam (Bizunesh Bekele)
11. Anchim Endelela (Bakta G. Hewot)
12. Anchi Hoyer Lene
13. Wetetie Mare (traditional)

1, 2, 3 featured on More Beautiful than Death (Accurate Records 3282)
4. on Afro-Cubism (Accurate Records 3283)

--
Russ Gershon
Accurate Records
343 Medford St. Suite 4A
Somerville MA 02145 USA
tel: 617 776-7093
fax: 617 776-7493
http://accuraterecords.com
http://either-orchestra.org