Ethiopiques S/D

http://www.afropop.org/radio/radio_program/ID/666/Ethiopia%20Part%201:%20Empire%20and%20Revolution

saw mahmoud ahmed play outdoors yesterday, GREAT performance!!

JEALOUS!

he was awesome! and the band was smoking hot.

and people were going nuts. clearly a big event for the ethiopian community. much happiness all around.

just noticed in the latest wire issue (aug, 2007) that manteca will be releasing ‘the very best of ethiopiques’. 2 cd’s / 28 tracks. should be a useful taster for someone like me who hasn’t heard any of the series so far. (not too sure about the elvis costello quote on the front though).

link

also.....here’s an e-music dozen dedicated to ethiopiques:

e-music 12

really can't recommend #21 ("ethiopia song," solo piano) enough. listen to it while the nights are still hot. if they're hot where you are.

Yeah, I'll second the recommendation for #21 -- really gorgeous stuff! Don't know exactly what to call it, but I love it all the same. Is there anything else like this?

I'll third the recommendation on #21: Definitely hints of blues and jazz, but using Ethiopian scales. Kind of hard to describe. Great night music.

yes. haunting.

jazzbo, that's what's so interesting and great about #21 -- there are elements of it that sound *almost* bluesy, *almost* jazzy, *almost* gospel-y, but it seems kind of doubtful that she's actually heard all that much of those kinds of music. It's like she's inventing those genres from scratch.

Exactly.

let's not get carried away here. she studied music in europe, chances are she heard jazz.

hmm, yeah, probably -- but I guess what I mean is that her music doesn't sound tied down to anyone's conception of jazz/blues/gospel. it seems to be coming from a more personally expressive place. if you know what i mean.

Mahmoud Ahmed, Neway Debebe, Maritu Legessese, Setegn Aregaw, Kuribachew W/Mariam...and more at the Washington D.C. Armory September 8th for an Ethiopian Millenium Celebration

(more than 25 Artists including dancers and musicians )

oh, fuckin a, that sounds awesome!

go see mahmoud ahmed!!!

(and everyone else)

i totally will. i guess alemayehu doesn't play anymore, but i would give my left nut to see him perform.

You have exactly one week to learn how to dance skista.

alemayehu does perform, you just have to come to ethiopia to see him

fyi re the new best of ethiopiques 2 CD set, stellar reviews so far

http://www.unionsquaremusic.co.uk/reviews.php?ALBUM_ID=1017&LABEL_ID=2

http://ethiopiques.info/

everyone who can't get to DC or Ethiopia is invited to my place on Sept 9 for a millennium celebration, we'll be playing mahmoud and tibebu workye and mulatu astatque and gigi and teshome mitiku

http://www.ethiopianmillennium2000.com/millennium.html

The website does not list the names of the performers (in English at least) I had to e-mail them several times before I could find out the names listed above.

You know, I was just thinking that I was surprised they've done a volume of Tigrigna music, but never a comp of trad Gurage stuff, which I think their audience would REALLY go for -- and then some YouTube clicking around videos of Gurage music leads me to Tewodros & Abraham's "Gurageton," which is ... okay, I just get a kick out of seeing an MC clutching a carafe of tej!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhZjrxUpxfE

Wow, reggaeton has reached the Gurage people of Southwestern Ethiopia.

The dancing in that video totally kicks ass.

I like the ending too.

And tell us about that drink? I guess I could just look it up, since you gave the name.

Mmm. Honey mead something or other.

It's v. good.

Really need to get the rest of the series. I scored about half of them in the Great Tower Bankruptcy Firesale.

Yea, Tej is good. Busy with family I missed the big Ethiopian show with Mahmoud Ahmed and many others last night. Maybe I can make the outdoor event near the Washington Monument this week--I think there will be music at it.

Out of curiosity, how do people who like the Ethiopiques vintage stuff feel about late-80s/90s/current material -- i.e., the more laid-back digital-keyboard style?

i do not know it at all!

Just a random example of Ethiopian semi-trad pop (as opposed to, you know, more global pop sounds) -- Netsanet Mekonen. This just seems like one where you can hear plenty of continuity from the kind of stuff on Ethiopiques:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=tPFkqZKm_sI

Sadly, 90% of Ethiopian-music comments boxes on Youtube are now flamewars involving someone called EritreanBabe. On the plus side, some guy has a bunch of "old-school" TV clips that are basically like Ethiopian Soul Train, and some guy has done a "Habesha Idol" clip that involves him putting in fake teeth and doing a solid speaking imitation of an older-generation Ethiopian.

for anyone in teh Boston area

free lecture/demonstration
Friday, September 28, 3 pm : "From Azmari to Jazz and Pop: Ethiopian Traditional and Modern Music." New College Theatre Rehearsal Studio, 10-12 Holyoke St. For more information, call 617.495.8676.
http://140.247.118.196/lfp/details.cfm?EVENT_ID=7194

Either/Orchestra with special guests Hana Shenkute, Setegn Atanaw, Minale Dagnew and Mulatu Astatke
The Somerville Theatre
Davis Square, Somerville MA
September 29, 2007: 7 pm tix: $28
http://www.worldmusic.org/concerts_event_indiv.php?p_seq=624

also, was rereading the thread and saw this
"volume 10 - tezeta - is also fantastic. A beautiful Seyfou Yohannes track "
reminding me that the Seyfou Yohannes track, Tizeta, was sampled for Common's "The Game"

hi H!

Out of curiosity, how do people who like the Ethiopiques vintage stuff feel about late-80s/90s/current material -- i.e., the more laid-back digital-keyboard style?

i like it all right; i don't know anywhere near as much about it as i do with the golden age jamz but those dudes are playing and singing around here all the time. i am not 100% into the types of keyboard sounds they tend to use, and i miss the sweat and funkiness and guitars. some of the arrangements are pretty kickass though.

"laid-back"?? most of that stuff is speeded up and laid-back is not what i'd call it, personally i find most of it an abomination, some really talented singers and some musicians out there but the arrangements and lack of songwriting on most of it really depresses me

i like some of the new stuff, Burntface, the ethiop hiphop guys out of (atlanta?) have some nice tracks, Off track just majes me giggle, friends loved the bole 2 harlem album which left me kinda cold but no antipathy

Gigi has done some fabulous work, the Gigi album with Wayne Shorter, Pharoah Sanders, HYerbie Hancock, Henry Threadgill + ethiop musicians really did more than anything to push what was being done contemporarily forward, the acoystic album she did Abyssinia Infinite also did a lot to push boundaries but tho ppl are impressed its easier to churn out another quickie synth-based studio album than anything else

right now i'm all at abt the budos and their mix of funk with ethiop styles, highly recommended

oh, and hello back mr slutsky

H, our man in Addis Adaba. (There really needs to be a full on FAP there.)

Schedule it before the end of the year, and it can be H and my mom, at least.

Laid-back = a lot of the more recent stuff I hear over here, at least, draws as much on Ethio jazz stuff, which calms it down a little -- but I think a lot of the "laid back" feel just sits in the difference in feel between guitar + bass + punchy horns (on 70s-era stuff) and mellow digital synth settings (toward the late 80s or whenever). But it might also be a matter of what crosses the ocean (haha and deemed sedate enough to play & sell in restaurants)

new Ethiopiques sub-label has just released a DVD with The Ex and Getatchew Mekuria... here's a bit of the promo...

The DVD ‘11 Ethio-punksongs’ by French filmmaker Stephane Jourdain will be out in october. Its a registration of the practices with the Ex and Getatchew mixed with the concert at the Banlieues Bleues Festival in Paris. It will be out on Ethiosonic, (Buda Musique) the new sublabel of the Ethiopiques series, compiled by Francis Falceto. There are also concerts planned for december. A.o. The Africolor Festival in Paris, Transmusicale in Rennes, State X in Den Haag and others.

They also have a collab CD out on Terp, I haven't heard it but I did hear a fantastic show that they did together, this Ethiopian phase of The Ex is maybe my favorite stuff of theirs since 1983-84.

so 'bisco, hook me & yer mom up, we'll go out and establish exactly how our families know each other and/or are related etc

teh Ex/Getachew CD is excellent, did 2 shows with 'em back in january for my festival, Francis Falceto who does Ethiopiques thinks the 2nd show was the best concert he's seen in Ethiopia in over 20 years of coming here, audience going batshit, was excellent

ethiosonic is new imprint so ethiopiques will focus exclusively on vintage stuff and ethiosonic will do more recent stuff, the ex/getachew dvd (which is v. v. good) is the second release, 1st which came out cpl months back was either/orchestra backing up Mahmoud Ahmed, next releases most likely more electronic based

will wait to think out what i want to say re synth stuff and then post that

I was listening to a Mulatu Astatqe record from the later 1990s yesterday. It is dreadful synth jaxz, the Ethiopiques' Tutu.

should there be a separate thread for non-Ethiopiques style Ethiopian music?

Vol. 4 -- which includes songs featured in the Bill Murray film, Broken Flowers -- is full of spooky, groovy, noir-ish jazz. It's a fantastic, leftfield record.

8/18/08 - Millennium Park, Chicago, IL
8/20/08 - Lincoln Center, New York, NY

2 American shows left on sax man Getatchew Merkuria's US tour with the Ex. I guess I should get Ethiopiques #14 that he's on...