Ethiopiques S/D

amusingly, that makes ME a curmudgeon. will Curmudgeon now reveal that he is actually a dirty vicar?

Obviously there's a problem with non-Africans tendency to talk about "Africa" like it's a country instead of a continent, but so few people post on that thread anyway that breaking it into even smaller areas of interest would kill it. I don't know enough about Ethiopian music to talk about its similarities or difference in depth, but surely it has commonalities with Eritrean, Somalian, Kenyan, or Tanzanian music. I don't know, maybe more people would post on a Rolling West African thread, or a Rolling Nigerian Music thread, but I would be surprised.

i dunno, is talking about "american" music not useful? and don't people talk about "european" musical traditions? i agree, it's totally problematic in a lot of ways, but i don't know if it's entirely pointless.

Dirty Vicar, curmudgeon may revive the world music thread just for that.

I don't really like this concept of "African Music" - I don't think the stuff on the Ethiopiques records, or Ethiopian music generally, has anything to do with music from other countries in the continent. Talking about "African Music" seems to be about as useful as talking about "European Music".

I'm sure it's irritating for those who know their shit, but for someone less versed it's pretty nice to learn about the range of different styles and traditions.

well I don't know my shit, but having heard an ethio-jazz record I know it has nothing in common with either the Congotronics or Malian record I have also heard.

and don't people talk about "european" musical traditions?

they might do in the context of folk traditions, but no one would talk about "European Music" as a category including The Beatles, Planxty, some Roma musicians from Eastern Europe, a German oompah band*, or a Turbofolk outfit.

*as opposed to various oompah bands from other European traditions

Obviously there's a problem with non-Africans tendency to talk about "Africa" like it's a country instead of a continent, but so few people post on that thread anyway that breaking it into even smaller areas of interest would kill it

^^
This.

no one would talk about "European Music" as a category including The Beatles, Planxty, some Roma musicians from Eastern Europe, a German oompah band*, or a Turbofolk outfit.

no Westerner would, you mean

Getting back on topic, a good general rule with the Ethiopiques comps is that if the cover features people playing saxophones and/or electric guitars then it is worth getting. What is most interesting about the music the series compiles is the 1970s transplanting of various Western musical forms (primarily jazz and beat music) into the Ethiopian setting, subtly altering them in the process. I don't think this music bears any relation to Somalian or Kenyan music, though I would not really know. I understand that the non-Western music that the music on the Ethiopiques comps bears most comparison to is not really from African either, as there is meant to be some similarity in the way scales are used to music from the Arabian peninsula... but I'm not a musicologist and do not really understand all that scale talk.

That said, if you are interested in more traditional Ethiopian music, there will be an Ethiopique record for you. #11 ("The Harp of King David") is a truly fascinating record, this guy singing very quietly while playing some strange instrument with these deep resonating tones.

That's the begena, which is maybe my favourite thing about Ethiopian music. I'm with DV on this one though, Ethiopian music really has very little in common (as far as I can tell) with much else in the way of African music. Even Axumite music is pretty different from Eritrean music, and they're only something like 40kms away and were the same country 100 years ago.

Debo & Fendika, North American Tour going on now. Debo are an Ethiopian-American band influnced in part by Ethiopiques

had debo play at my fest cpl years back, the fendika azmari bet leader melaku is the dancer who regularly tours with getachew & the ex for any who saw that

article on debo by former ilxor cybele http://www.montrealmirror.com/wp/2011/06/30/reverent-grooves/

if you feel like popping up to boston tonight the debo horns will be playing with Group Doueh & Khaira Arby, guess this shld go over to the group doueh thread

That would be a nice gig to see. A publicist told me he saw the Debo Horns with Arby at South by Southwest and it was awesome.

Mahmoud Ahmed,Abraham G. Medhin, and Ali Birra Saturday July 30 at DC Star, 2135 Queens Chapel Rd. NE, Washington DC

Did this series wind down?

series still ongoing

been biting my tongue for ages waiting till the announcement was officially made but very happy that francis is receiving this year's womex award for professional excellence for his work on Ethiopian music
http://worldmusiccentral.org/2011/08/04/francis-falceto-wins-womex-2011/

Very cool indeed.

all the album covers,upcoming album info and some links here http://www.womex.com/realwomex/2011/Francis_Falceto.html#recording

Just talked last night to Selam Seyoum Woldemariam, founder and member of the Ibex and Roha Band and guitarist with Mahmoud Ahmed since 1974. They're on Ethiopiques #7

H, come back

ha, was just abt to send you an email
are you making it to the mahmoud show? he's great live
selamino is a v nice guy

Missed Mahmoud again (was getting ready to head out of town). Ugh. Discovered that his guitarist Selamino (birth name -Selam Seyoum Woldemariam) also plays at a restaurant near me every weekend. I gotta go see him play. He was nice to me when I chatted with him on the phone.

Not on Ethiopiques I don't think, but this guy Hailu Mergia just had a tape reissued by Awesome tapes from Africa. He's a cabdriver now at Dulles airport in the W. D.C. area

http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/artsdesk/music/2013/06/21/awesome-tapes-from-africa-reissues-songs-from-hailu-mergia-local-cab-driver/

man, give the guy a gig! that youtube clip is awesome.

I'm just listening to #14 which I hadn't heard before. Very good record. Still wishing I knew exactly which #s were essential. Think this was anyway, so might need to get a physical copy.

Had a chance to buy a number of them cheaply a few years back. Possibly around the time Zavvi was a physical shop in London. Not sure which I already have. Think it's 3, 8, 9, 13, whichever harp of King David is, the one that was recorded specially for the series which i think is either a teen or an early 20s.

Think I inevitably need more and also need to pick up the Kenya Special set which came out a couple of months back.

i've heard tche belew by mergia + it's fab. i'm def gonna check out the new one.

this week the first worldwide release of Ethiopian jazz and funk band Hailu Mergia and the Walias' "Tche Belew” comes out on Awesome Tapes From Africa LP/CD/Digital/Cassette.

Recorded in 1977, the album went on to become one of the most celebrated of all Ethiopian pop recordings from the golden age of Addis Ababa’s live band scene, not to mention a "holy grail” LP that collectors trade for ~$4000 on eBay.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/goingoutguide/music/feedel-band-reviving-a-robust-sound/2015/03/26/dcda5618-cda8-11e4-8c54-ffb5ba6f2f69_story.html

Ethiopians living in DC and playing "classic" Ethiopian sounds live

http://www.africanhiphop.com/vinyl-records-ethiopia-cultural-artifacts-festished-commodities/

excerpt:

As we were going in and out of stores in Merkato, the largest open-market in East Africa located in Ethiopia’s capital Addis Ababa, talking to various shop owners who were identified as record suppliers, we realized the process was rather shadowy. We were talking to most of them as if we were chasing to buy illegal goods or blood diamonds. None of them had the vinyl records close at hand. They were hidden away, in their homes or some obscure place. Arrangements had to be made to meet and buy at later time. It seemed like an ambiguous adventure.

After exploring for sometime, we found reliable contacts. This one vinyl record retailer was telling us that he only had 70 records left after a clean up from a regular foreign collector. On top of that, the price of a vinyl record in Birr [Ethiopian currency] has rocketed. The suppliers were sitting on a goldmine with foreign buyers who will pay any price for African vinyl records. “They want them, there is a high demand for East African music. That’s all they keep asking for and they’ll pay any price,” the supplier said, with a nonchalant attitude, arms crossed across his chest.

As it turns out others count at a high price cultural material we discount.

We were stunned, even more when we realized that the highly inflated market price didn’t respond to haggling. To a point of reckoning that vinyls, in this town, presumably have become a fetished commodity. The wondering wouldn’t stop: could it be that prices are based on real value, or on the assumption of dealing with rarefied artifacts, or is the market merely dictated on high demand against low supply? Nonetheless, regardless of what the market says, it can’t be ignored that “predilection for vinyls is criticized as an antiquated, expensive, elitist practice of compulsive hoarding, which in turn fuels dubious and artificially inflated markets dealing in rarefied artifacts of technology and media”.

limited edition 7 inch on Max Whitefield’s Philophon imprint now available -- Ethio-jazz legend Hailu Mergia’s first recordings in decades

been really into the king david harp volume recently

Tesfa Mariam Kidane ( sax player on many of the Ethiopiques albums originally recorded between 65 and 72) will be sitting in with the Feedel Band in DC Sunday night July 5th at Colombia Station.

Pianist, arranger, singer Girma Beyene who was on Ethiopiques 8, will be in DC and NYC and maybe elsewhere in October. From 1981 till some time in the 90s, he had left music and was living in DC. Some time in the 2000s he moved back to Addis, I think. Since around 2008 I think he has been playing again, including a bunch of gigs in Paris (some excerpts are on Youtube).

I saw another old-school Ethiopian perform this weekend-- guitarist Selamino Woldemarian w/ a keyboardist doing Ethiopian and jazz standards.

For those who don't read the yearly Rolling Global World thread:

So this past Friday I saw Ethiopian piano legend Girma Beyene with DC based Ethiopian group Feedel Band. Despite an arrogant soundman who wouldn't make Girma's gorgeous, melancholy voice and piano louder in the mix, the show was very nice. Ethiopian singing star Mahmoud Ahmed was in the crowd, and Girma's producer, Francis Falceto, the curator of the Ethiopiques series was also there.

A short US tour for Girma, who had lived in DC from 1981 to 2010. NYC show coming up. He's been just hanging out in DC.

I met Falceto briefly at the show and after-show

Nice. I recently filled in some gaps in the series I had, though it's still only the first fourteen total now all told.

Falceto also used to curate a festival in Ethiopia with H in Addis (his ilx posting name)

pianist/singer, composer of "Muziqawi Salt" Girma Beyene is doing one last gig in DC with Feedel Band tonight; and one over the weekend in Richmond, VA before he heads back to Ethiopia (and occasional trips to France to play with a band there, and hang with his producer, Francis Falceto, the curator of the Ethiopiques series )

Several selections from various volumes ofEthiopiques incl. on one of my favorite albums this year, Rough Guide To Ethiopian Jazz
info, incl. gist of the music as one participant hears and plays it, audio excerpts, etc. http://www.worldmusic.net/store/item/RGNET1350/

Here comes another historic addition to the Ethiopiques CD series with the upcoming release of its 30th volume next month featuring legendary Ethiopian singer and songwriter Girma Bèyènè.

"After 25 years of silence, the legend Girma Bèyènè is back alongside one of the greatest ethio groups, Akalé Wubé," the announcement said. "Under the direction of Francis Falceto (director of the famous Ethiopiques series Buda Musique) Girma and Akalé Wubé came together and recorded this album in order to immortalize this renaissance."

A digital release of Girma's new album, which is entitled Mistakes on Purpose, is scheduled for January 13th, 2017 by the French world music record label, Buda Musique, while a vinyl release is set for February 3rd, 2017.

I saw on Facebook that Ethiopian drummer Temare Haregu, who played with Hailu Mergia and was a founder of the Walias Band and can be heard on an Ethiopiques compilation or 2, has passed away.

― curmudgeon, Friday, December 30, 2016 4:38 PM (sixteen minutes ago

Just saw pianist Girma Beyene again,with the Feedel Band. They have another gig or 2 in NYC coming up. Then Girma heads to Paris for his album release party (with a French band) before heading back to Ethiopia.

http://legacy.washingtoncitypaper.com/bestofdc/artsandentertainment/2017/best-ethiopian-guitarist-legend-guests-in-a-small-space

Selam from Éthiopiques 7: Erè Mèla Mèla is playing every Friday night, just outside Washington DC.

jelly

Girma Yifrashewa has some very Tsegué-Maryam Guèbrou -like passages

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mb4F817xLTA

Thanks. Yifrashewa and his influences seem to have very old-school Ethiopian piano roots I know little about

http://www.emahoymusicfoundation.org/about

Emahoy Tsegue Maryam Guebrou

In early 1960s Emahoy lived in Gondar studying the religious music of St Yared, composer and father of Mahlet, the early Ethiopian religious music

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/10/arts/music/girma-yifrashewa-pianist-composer-at-issue-project-room.html

http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/23241-mulatu-of-ethiopia/

Originally released in 1972 and newly-reissued, the groundbreaking Mulatu of Ethiopia

Not an Ethiopiques release as such, but it seems like a good place to discuss it