Jazz

Mulatu Astatke + Black Jesus Experience ‎– To Know Without Knowing (2020)

2020-11-09T16:04:00Z

Mulatu Astatke + Black Jesus Experience ‎– To Know Without Knowing (2020)


1 	Mulatu 	6:21
2 	Ambassa Lemdi 	5:52
3 	Kulun Mankwaleshi 	7:47
4 	Living On Stolen Land 	10:56
5 	To Know Without Knowing 	7:35
6 	Lijay 	5:24
7 	Blue Light 	3:35
8 	Mascaram Setaba 	5:53
9 	A Chance To Give 	5:46

Bass – Richard Rose 
Chorus – Addisalem Taye, Corry Harper, Mearge Abate
Congas, Shaker – Olugbade Okunade
Drums – James Davies 
Flugelhorn, Trumpet – Ian Dixon
Flute – Dominique Chaseling
Grand Piano – Bob Sedergreen
Guitar, Chorus – Zac Lister
Lacquer Cut By – Connor Dalton
Masinko – Haftu Reda
Shaker, Wood Block – Kahan Harper
Tenor Saxophone – Peter Harper 
Vibraphone, Congas, Electric Piano – Mulatu Astatke
Vocals – Enushu Taye, Vida Sunshyne

It is easy to affirm that composer and orchestra leader Mulatu Astatke is the central figure in Ethio-jazz, still active at the age of 76. For a second time, he shares an album with the Australian band Black Jesus Experience (listen also to the album Cradle of Humanity, released in 2016). Let’s also remember that Ethio-jazz had its heyday in the ’60s and ’70s, until revolutionary violence put this singular movement on the back burner. Expatriated to Europe and North America, these visionaries from Addis Ababa gradually resumed their service and Ethio-jazz has regained its status since the beginning of the millennium. Let us also affirm that the work of composer and multi-instrumentalist Astatke is among the most important in jazz from Africa, along with those of South Africans Abdullah Ibrahim (Dollar Brand) and Hugh Masekela. Here is further striking proof of this. Astatke and his antipodean colleagues offer here a wonderful experience of modern jazz with melodic inflections of the Nile, at the confluence of the musical traditions of East Africa and the Levant. Hip hop and R&B ornaments, and poetic declamations expressed in English and Amharic language, fit perfectly into this context. Everything flows from the source on this second collaboration, the communion is perfect between the musicians – keyboards, guitar, vibraphone, percussion, trumpet, flute, saxophones, vocals, and rap. This fusion is no less typical of the Afro-jazz crossbreeding that illuminated the ’80s, with the fervour and cohesion of the ensemble that one should expect. Let’s take advantage of it while Astatke is still in full possession of his means. --Alain Brunet, panm360.com

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Mulatu Astatke - Ethiopiques Vol. IV (1998)

2010-02-10T15:11:39Z

Mulatu Astatke - Ethiopiques Vol. IV (1998)


1. Yèkèrmo Sèw (A Man of Experience and Wisdom)
2. Mètché Dershé (When Am I Going to Reach There?)
3. Kasalèfkut Hulu (From All the Time I Have Passed)
4. Tezeta (Nostalgia)
5. Yègellé Tezeta (My Own Memory)
6. Munayé (My Muna)
7. Gubèlyé (My Gubel)
8. Asmarina (My Asmara)
9. Yèkatit (February)
10. Nètsanèt (Liberty)
11. Tezetayé Antchi Lidj (Baby, My Unforgettable Remembrance)
12. Sabyé (My Saba)
13. Ené Alantchi Alnorem (I Can’t Live Without You)
14. Dèwèl (Bell

Tèklè "Huket" Adhanom - Guitar
Fèqadu Amdè-Mesqel - Flute, Sax (Tenor)
Mulatu Astatke - Arranger, Composer, Congas, Vibraphone
Girma Béyéné - Keyboards
Haylu "Zehon" Kèbbèdè - Bass
Tèsfa Maryam Kidané - Sax (Tenor)
Tésfayé "Hodo" Mékonnen - Drums
Tèwodros Meteku - Sax (Tenor)
Giovanni Rico- 	Bass
Yohannès Tèkolla - Trumpet
Andrew Wilson - Guitar
Girma Zèmaryam - Drums

To some, the term "Ethiopian jazz" might seem impossible; after all, it's a very American form. But what's truly surprising isn't the fact that these musicians play jazz so well, but the range of jazz they manage, from the George Benson-ish guitar workout of "Munaye" to the twisting sax of "Tezeta." Really, though, it's more Jimmy Smith than Duke Ellington in its aim (although Ellington is on the cover, on stage with Mulatu Astatke, the bandleader behind all these selections). The grooves often smoke rather than swing, with some fiery drumming, most notably on "Yekermo Sew," and throughout the guitar is very much to the fore as a rhythm instrument. Perhaps the most interesting cut, however, is "Yekatit," from 1974, which is Astatke's tribute to the burgeoning revolution which would oust Emperor Haile Sellassie. Some of these pieces, certainly "Dewel," has seen U.S. release before; the track appeared in 1972 on Mulatu of Ethiopia, which was Astatke's third American LP, showing that jazz aficionados, at least, had an appreciation for what he was achieving in the horn of Africa. Given that many of his musicians had graduated from police and military bands, they knew their instruments well, and had plenty of practice time, which shows in the often inventive solos that dot the tracks. Varied, occasionally lyrical, but interesting throughout, this shines a fabulous spotlight on a hidden corner of jazz. ---Chris Nickson

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Mulatu Astatke - New York - Addis - London (The Story of Ethio Jazz 1965-1975) [2009]

2010-07-14T12:09:27Z

Mulatu Astatke - New York - Addis - London (The Story of Ethio Jazz 1965-1975) [2009]


01. Yekermo Sew
02. I Faram Gami I Faram
03. Emnete
04. Mulatu
05. Fikratchin with Menelik Wossenatchew
06. Yegelle Tezeta
07. Asiyo Bellema feat. Frank Holder & Niaaza Alsherif
08. Girl From Addis Ababa
09. Lanchi Biye with Tilahun Gessesse
10. Yefikir Tizita
11. Yekatit
12. Ebo Lala with Seifu Yohannes
13. Wubit with Muluken Melesse
14. Shagu
15. Dewel
16. Netsanet
17. Kasalefkut Hulu
18. Mascaram Setaba
19. Ene Alantchie Alnorem
20. Tezeta

Ethio jazz. That's what Mulatu Astatke called his style of music when he invented it back in the 1960s, and it means exactly what it implies: Ethiopian melodies played on Western instruments with room for improvisation. Astatke was a pioneer for his country's modern music. His concept of instrumental music as an end in itself was a bit foreign in his homeland, where singers rule the popular music sphere, and he was among the very first musicians from Ethiopia to learn about music while abroad. He started playing as a teenager at school in Wales, and after a stint at London's Trinity School of Music, he jumped the Atlantic for a brief stay at Boston's Berklee College of Music, ultimately winding up in New York City in the mid-60s. There, he was exposed to sounds he simply couldn't have heard back home in Addis Ababa, and his exposure to jazz and Western harmonic concepts led him to formulate Ethio jazz, the perfect hybrid of the traditional and the modern.

His first attempts to forge his new genre occurred in the U.S., and his band members were mostly Puerto Rican. You can tell by listening, too. The several tracks here lifted from his two Afro Latin Soul LPs bear a strong stamp of boogaloo, Latin jazz, and other Americo-Caribbean forms. When he returned to Ethiopia, he arrived at a time when the country was opening up as never before, and Addis Ababa was as cosmopolitan as cities came, boiling with cultural restlessness that fed a vibrant nightlife. Recording resources were limited, but in 1969, Mulatu began cutting tracks for Amha Eshèté's Amha, the first independent label ever established in the country. He worked primarily as an arranger, but frequently wrote and recorded instrumentals to serve as B-sides for vocal songs, some of which are being issued here for the first time outside Ethiopia.

Astatke brought a unique skill set back to Addis with him, where he was able to employ musicians who'd grown up with the music he was so consciously modernizing. The resulting music is simply brilliant, fresh even decades later. The way Mulatu harmonized horns, combining pentatonic Ethiopian melody with Western chord concepts, sounds like no one else-- the music seems both ancient and modern at once, befitting the mixture of raw ingredients. This compilation is utterly intoxicating from the first note to the last-- preternaturally funky, haunting, complex, memorable, exciting, and unique, Ethio jazz easily transcends the era in which it was made.

"Mulatu", from his 1972 LP Mulatu of Ethiopia, recorded in New York with members of Mongo Santamaria's band during a visit to the States, is a brilliant signature track, a darkly funky tune with a hint of Caribbean shuffle, snaking sax solos, Mulatu's own cloudy vibraphone, and a bit of wah-pedaled Wurlitzer. The stately, smoky "Netsanet" is drawn from 1974's Yekatit: Ethio Jazz LP, the very first Ethiopian LP to be conceived as an album in advance (as opposed to a collection of 45 sides). Like the other songs from that album, it has a weighty solemnity to it that betrays the difficult revolutionary period during which it was recorded. My favorite Mulatu track, "Ené Alantchie Alnorem", was previously featured on Buda Musique's Ethiopiques Volume 4 compilation, and it still kills here. It is a song without a solid core: its fluttering electric piano, flute, and drums spin in an ethereal wash, held together by wind sound effects and a heavy sonority, and the descending piano line that outlines the chords feels like it's falling and catching itself on each beat.

A handful of vocal tracks dot the compilation, and they're all outstanding as well. "Ebo Lala" features Seifu Yohannes putting on his best Bollywood-inspired show, huffing and puffing over a heavy Latin beat and blasting horn section. "Wubit", featuring Muluken Melesse, has a cool, funky crime jazz strut, a sick breakdown, and a quintessentially Ethiopian melismatic vocal-- that this song has remained hidden from all but a few collectors in Ethiopia until now is almost criminal. Even Mulatu's very first foray into recording, the Latin-tinged instrumental "Shagu", bears his unmistakable signature, playing its cycling piano riff two octaves lower than in most Latin music and featuring a dark, mysterious vibraphone lead playing between Ethiopian pentatonics and modal concepts nicked from post-bop jazz.

Ethio jazz was never a commercial success in Ethiopia. That Ahma and Philips Ethiopia even saw fit to release any of it is a credit to their commitment to art over commerce, and even today it remains little-heard in its homeland. But Mulatu was a master craftsman and one of the most supremely inventive composers of a time when an awful lot of creative music was being made around the world. He's still going today, guesting on radio shows and teaching in Addis, and he released a great album with London's the Heliocentrics as his backing band earlier this year. But even if he'd disappeared after 1975, his legacy would be sealed. ---Joe Tangari, pitchfork.com

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Mulatu Astatke – Mulatu Of Ethiopia (1972)

2010-07-13T15:09:19Z

Mulatu Astatke – Mulatu Of Ethiopia (1972)


A1 Mulatu 	5:00 	
A2 Mascaram Setaba 	2:40 	
A3 Dewel 	4:00 	
B1 Kulunmanqueleshi 	2:05 	
B2 Kasalefkut-Hulu 	2:25 	
B3 Munaye 	3:15 	
B4 Chifara 	7:00

Mulatu Astatqé (also sometimes spelled Mulatu Astatke, as he is on the liner notes to this release) might be most known to international audiences through his tracks on the excellent Ethiopiques CD anthology series of Ethiopian music. Long before those tracks were compiled for that series, however, he had an American release with this 1972 instrumental album, on which he's billed as "Mulatu of Ethiopia." Like much of the best of the circa-early-'70s contemporary Ethiopian music on Ethiopiques, it's a fine, at times captivating blend of late-'60s American soul and jazz with Ethiopian music, resulting in something not quite comparable to anything else. It is undeniably funky, with wah-wah guitar and organ aplenty. There's plenty of contemporary jazz in the arrangements, too, the sax runs sometimes showing the influence of the likes of John Coltrane. Yet there's a melancholy minor cast to the melodies that marks this off as something quite different, and the rhythms likewise have irregularities that are more African than American. The only major strike against the LP is its short running time, with the seven tracks adding up to a mere 26-and-a-half minutes or so. --- Richie Unterberger, Rovi

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