Ethiopian Music

(a) There are many different ethnic groups within greater Ethiopia, each with distinct musical and artistic traditions. (They would likely not sound incredibly different to a newcomer -- as different, perhaps, as two songs from the same record -- but they are nonetheless rigidly identifiable.) And as with the US, the fact of one ethnic group (Amharas) being politically dominant did not necessarily translate into a musical dominance. In fact, I think this may be one instance where one gets closer to the truth by viewing things as an uninitiated newcomer: if you listened to music in five different Ethiopian ethnic traditions in a row, you would still perceive something sort of centrally "Ethiopian" uniting them -- in fact, you'd perceive this more strongly than the average Ethiopian, unencumbered as you'd be by culturally differentiating between those ethnic traditions. This makes it harder to pick any sort of "main line" of an Ethiopian musical tradition: but it also means there's more than one, and in sum they amount to rather complex and vibrant whole.

(b) It's easy to forget that Addis Ababa, up to the '73 revolution, was one of those now-lost Great Cosmopolitan Cities, like Havana or Beirut or Kabul or Rio in their cultural heydays. Christgau seems to recognize this with his imagery of bourgeoise clubs, but then he forgets it in his analysis. The music reflected in the Ethiopiques series was born during the tail end of the cosmopolitan system and somehow managed to thrive into the first decade of Mengistu Hailemariam's Marxist regime (despite legal restrictions): this, obviously, is why it's a cosmopolitan music. This was the period during which Ethiopians and people throughout the third world suddenly got their hands on the new toolkits of foreign musics -- and, even more generally, the period during which traditional cultures around the world suddenly opened up to foreign, cosmopolitan, cultural influences. Compare with Brazil during the same period. What Christgau is doing is the exact equivalent of listening to Os Mutantes and other Tropicalia-era stuff and proclaiming that Brazil doesn't have a musical tradition that's much it's own: one would suspect that anyone making such a claim just isn't aware of (or in Ethiopia's case doesn't have access to) the traditional form that the artists in question were suddenly combining with this sudden profusion of other options, other options made possible by the new availability of recorded, widely- distributed, inexpensively-imported music (and clothes, and films, and books, and ideas in general) from other parts of the world.

(c) The Armenian thing, however, goes something like this: Haile Selassie went to Israel (in the 20s or 30s, I think), and ran into an Armenian brass band who had fled the situation in Armenia. He really really liked them, so he invited them back to Ethiopia to serve as his royal band. Their influence on the use of horns, which figure heavily in the Ethiopiques-era stuff, is fairly large. "Traditional" Ethiopian stuff, though, doesn't use horns.

(d) Funnily enough this comes down to Robert Christgau versus Mengistu Hailemariam FITE. One particular goal of the Marxist government was a sort of nationalist education program in traditional culture, within which students took many courses in music and dance (from each regional tradition). This created a pretty big cadre of cultural artisans, and state events and particularly state-run television during the latter portion of that regime was positively crammed full of traditional performance. I doubt Christgau has ever seen any of these.

(e) What I've never figured out is how much people are actually missing Ethiopian-invented material in the Ethiopiques-era stuff, due to forgetting that Ethiopia was, throughout the colonial period, an uncolonized cultural power, and a lot of what they think of as coming from elsewhere is actually Ethiopian in nature. (Jamaica and Rastafarianism are very very key to this.)

(f) It's damned if you do, damned if you don't: why, in the first place, the focus on Ethiopia having a traditionalism musical heritage? It seems like he sees an African nation as by nature a source for "indigenous" music, as opposed to self-conscious artisan music. He may even think noting that Ethiopia bucked that trend is some kind of compliment, but really I think the whole issue is a bad way to go about approaching "foreign" music.

(g) Sorry for the essay. If we lived in the future I would somehow post an hour of instantly-loading state-TV performance video on this page and that would be enough to convince you that Christgau, while he's vaguely right about the cosmopolitan nature of the stuff he's talking about, really should have like looked for anything else from the country before deciding that nothing else exists. What's doubly baffling is that if you look at "traditional" stuff side by side with "cosmopolitan" stuff, they're really not that different in the least. (Similarly, listening to Bollywood musical numbers and traditional Indian music side by side reveals them to be obviously part of the same tradition, only with new approaches filtered in.) So where did Christgau think all of the non- cosmopolitan elements of the Ethiopiques stuff was coming from? I think he thinks it's from "the Middle East," as he says: he seems to think it's a newly-minted hodgepodge when in fact it's in many senses a traditional hodgepodge, one whose elements were sorted out well before America's foreign-influence "hodgepodge" coalesced into a music we nonetheless think of as uniquely American.

Oh, and also: H in Addis Ababa should really be commenting on this thread -- he's spent infinitely more time there than I have, and his job, if I remember correctly, is with a sound/music production team. Your estimation of my rightness in the above rambling would probably plummet dramatically if he went through and corrected the factual inaccuracies or misrepresentations that I'm quite sure are in there.

Central example of traditionalism: here is an Eritrean guy holding a kraar. The kraar in various forms appears in most greater-Ethiopian traditions (as this guy's being Eritrean sort of demonstrates). (Although his is sort of a fancy-modern kraar: I can't find a picture online of the proper sort.)

Re the mish-mash he talks about, Ethiopia had a long history of trade across the Red Sea and you will find many linguistic, musical & cultural links with – a lot of what to him sounds MidEastern is the (or a) traditional ‘Ethiopian’ sound insofar as it evolved there over the centuries. The Armenian connection does add some interesting links – the jazz scene in Syria for example was dominated by Aremenian so you will find similarities in the horn arrangements. I would differ with Nabisco on that there is a common Ethiopian thread; most Ethiopian music draws from the Amhara, Tigre and to a lesser degree Gurage traditions. Music from the Gambela region or that of the Konso ppl for example does sound vastly different.

There’s a wonderful book Abyssine Swing (think it is available on Amazon) by Francis Falceto, the editor of the Ethiopiques series that follows the development of music here through the 20th century. Great photos and provides a useful overview.

Nabisco, where did that Aster=Shania characterization come from??

Nickn – if you’re still around, I think Gigi’s album is great. Easiest thing might be to link to an article I wrote about her a couple years back http://www.afribeat.com/cont_gigi.html

Finally, since I found this thread after promising to recommend stuff to RS, the best place to start is the Ethiopiques series. Since it is now up to 14 volumes I’ll try to pick some highlights as a starting point.

3 – Compilation of different singers so you get a sense of the different singers out there. Muluken Mellesee is one of my favorite singers from that period and he has an amazing song ‘Hedech Alu’ on that one.

6 & 7 – Mahmoud Ahmed, one of the greatest Ethiopian singers. #7 'Ere Mela Mela' is generally considered the classic but #6 ‘Almaz’ edges it out for me

14 – Getachew Mekuria – the (still) reigning King of Ethiopian saxophone, pioneered this sort of honking proto-freejazz style called shellela based on 1) the maskinko, a one string viol used by azmaris (minstrels) and 2) ‘fukkera’ improvised chants that were used to build up courage before battle – swaggering blustering threats to the enemy.

BTW, how separate do you think the different musical traditions are, at this point? My view on this is probably slanted, because most of my experience of it is from the Mengistu national-music era, where everything was always roped off: like, here's an Amhara song; now here comes the Gurage part; etc. Obviously they're not that different in the grand scale of things, but it always seemed like there were efforts being made to maintain them as distinct "traditional" styles. (I usually like the Gurage stuff best, actually.)

My favorite Ethiopian 70s track remains "Good Aderegegnye," but I think I'm spelling that wrong and consequently can't google to remind myself who it was by.

guragegna is like the soul music of ethiopia, much funkier, more upbeat. I think everyone I know loves it.

re seperation of muisc - well, it is still pretty roped off, ppl work in one tradition but as part of their set will always have at least, e.g one gurage song.

I think the song must be "Gud aderegegn' can't remember who did it but will post when i remember.

re your Dad hangin' with Mahmoud, remember Addis is a small town so everyone knew/knows each other. My folks knew him and were not part of 'swingin' artists' scene.

i mean addis anywhere between 4 and 5 million and it still fels like a village where everyone knows our business and you bump into the same ppl 10 times a day

Q. One thing you see a lot with Ethiopian bands that never winds up on recordings is this live-performance comedy thing: the band plays a figure and then stops, and the singer interjects amusing lines -- bum bum dum DUM (quick sentence) bum bum dum DUM (quick sentence) bum bum dum DUM (quick sentence) / Amharic-speaking portion of audience bursts into riotous laughter / non-Amharic portion asks what's so funny / Amharic-speaking portion offers confusing translation often involving a hyena metaphor. Are there any recordings that include this sort of thing? Not that it'd be much use to me, but I just wonder.

Nabisco, I was saying that I've never seen that in the band context, only in the azmari bets. (losse translation, azmari bet = minstrel home) where the azmaris will riff on the crowd, use 'semmena worq'(wax & gold) to, through punning and layered meanings, coment on daily life, politics etc. I don't think any of this has ever been recorded (the experience is such a part of it that wouldn't really translate to recordings)

Vol. 2 of Ethiopiques is devoted to modern azmaris and has some interesting pieces on there, Tigist Assefa's "Toutouye" is the most explicitly sexual song ever done in Ethiopia. I would not advice playing that for your folks unles syou want to be slapped upside the head. Danny Teka's "Bob Marley" is hilarious as he tells the story of how his brother left him to find success as Bob, while Danny stayed home with the sheep.

Thanks

Saturday September 18th

For the first time in New York City
Legendary World Music Award Winner
MAHMOUD AHMED
Ethiopian Music Legend Icon

at
SOB'S

Yeah figures it'd happen after I move across the country. Dammit.

He has done DC shows over the years, but they're usually only publicized in flyers left at Ethiopian restaurants and in D.C.'s Ethiopian newspaper.

L.A. has Ethiopian restaurants and an Ethiopian community, I wonder if he's doing a gig there also?

And apparently he has played NYC before-- and he was just at the Chicago jazz fest

So a weekend for ethiop music in NYC
Friday night got Debo Band and Fendika at Joe's Pub, Debo is a Boston based big band put together by Danny Mekonnen, the repertoire is ethiopian music tho the band is a mixture of americans and ethiopians, presented them at my festival a cpl years back, Fendika is an azmari bet in Addis Ababa and got singers and dancers from here performing with Debo. If anyone saw the Getachew/Ex tour the owner of Fendika, Melaku who is performing with Debo was the dancer on the tour

Fri Sep 17 - Joe's Pub - NYC
Sat Sep 18- Balliceaux - Richmond, VA
Sun Sep 19 - Crossroads Music - Philadelphia
Thu Sep 23 - Burnside Park Music Series - Providence, RI
Sat Sep 25 - Global Union - Milwaukee
Sat Sep 25 - Martyr's - Chicago World Music Festival
Sun Sep 26 - Navy Pier -Chicago World Music Festivalv

Mahmoud is a phenomenal live performer and one of my all time favorite voices, he played DC a cpl weeks ago, not sure if he has another show there. His west coast shows were cancelled due to travel issues may be recheduled
(and yeah he played NYC 2 years ago as part Lincoln Center Outdoors, as I organized that show was a lil peeved when I saw the flyer)

Oooh by coincidence I'm going to be in NYC from 18th! You there, H, or are you literally "in Addis"?

literally in Addis

I'm actually arriving on Saturday evening, so there's every chance I'll be fast asleep by the time the concert starts. We'll see...

Awww man, I wish I knew about that M. Ahmed show in DC. DC has a huge Ethiopian population but, as I noted above, the shows only seem to be advertised via postcards in Ethiopian restaurants, an Ethiopian language newspaper available only at Ethiopian shops and restaurants, and there might be a one time a week AM radio show in Ahmaric. I love Ethiopian food, but if I don't go have it for a few weeks, I seem to miss out on events. H,' do you have any DC contacts who could keep me in the loop? When I found a postcard in January for a Teddy Afro show that month at the 6,000 seat DC Armory, and blogged about it for the City Paper it got linked to by several websites and got tons of comments from Ethiopians.

hmm, there are a cpl mailing lists, will get back to you on best way to be up to date

speaking of Teddy, I am quite surprised by the few tracks that have heard from his upcoming album, was never a huge fan and thought the majority of his stuff was just watered down pop reggae but this is a much more rootsy approach, lots of traditional instruments, much more instruments period and less reliance on synths. actually really looking forward to hearing the whole thing

Thanks. Someday I need to familiarize myself with the DC Ethiopian musician community that perform at various Washington DC area restaurants and write about them in the paper/website.

RIP Getatchew Mekurya

Some mentions of him here on this thread:

Ethiopiques S/D

https://folklife.si.edu/magazine/admas-sons-of-ethiopia?fbclid=IwAR0hS_x4YAs9D_JSPjkPNJyj5O5fxU8Yaks4-SJhzzxR_4g1YFn25gRSCHI

In 1984 , 4 Young Ethiopians in DC recorded an album that rearranged golden era sounds with their DC & elsewhere influences - highlife, disco, Brazilian Jazz, reggae. They added 80s synths and drum machines too

The album is now reissued

Oh, that’s my interview/ Article on them

Oh, that’s my interview/ Article on them

Has anybody come across a source for the Ayalew Mesfin Complete Works on cd other than the label which is charging $26 for p+p?
Hoped there might be something thisi side of the Atlantic that would therefore have much cheaper postage but is the lable keeping the cd version solely to themselves. Am seeing the lp version coming from other sources.

Nope