Eritrea, ancient province Ethiopia became independent at the beginning of the 90's and has lived a painful history. But nothing has ever prevented the people of Eritrea from singing, and not even the numerous famines. The People of the plain of Zula (Afar, Tigré and Saho) give rhythm to their everyday life in simple, repetitive singings. The leader, man or woman, throws a comment on rhythms (handclaps and kebero percussion), the others start again, insisting on the same rhythmic, as an obsessive loop. History the concern of protecting the culture and politics, stimulates more than a singer. " On one hand, he killed you, whereas on the other one he fed you " tells a Saho about Haile Sélassié. A kebero is a double-headed, conical hand drum used in the traditional music of Eritrea and Ethiopia. A piece of animal hide is stretched over each end, thus forming a membranophone. A large version of the instrument is also used in Orthodox Christian liturgical music, while smaller versions are used in secular celebrations.
Whether it conjures up legendary marathon runners, the rock-hewn churches at Lalibela, richly brewed coffee, Rastafarian spirituality, tumbling waterfalls or steaming hot springs, Ethiopia is a country famed for diverse reasons. Home to 82 million residents, the landlocked country is also birthplace to a multiplex of brilliant musics.
On this Rough Guide the ‘Golden Age’ of recorded Ethiopian music is paid homage to via tracks by seminal Ethio-jazz musicians Mahmoud Ahmed and Alemayehu Eshete. Other handpicked gems are selected from the Ethiopiques album series produced by Francis Falceto, an aficionado and scholar of rare Ethiopian records. The energetic music of saxophone prodigy Getatchew Mekuria references the long history of military brass bands in the country fused with a thoroughly modern rock ethos.
Dynamic London-based ensemble Krar Collective also make an appearance and rock the track ‘Ende Eyerusalem’ with their signature forthright attitude and soaring female vocals. On the track, ‘Sek’let (Crucifixion)’ Zerfu Demissie can be heard playing the begena, a large Ethiopia harp that reverberates thick and loudly, sounding almost electronic, like a futuristic synthesizer.
The Rough Guide to Ethiopia also considers some unique fusion projects that marry traditional Ethiopian grooves with dub, rock and punk sensibilities. Dub Colossus is the lovechild of UK musician and producer Nick Page and a host of established Ethiopian artists, including vocalists Tsedenia Gebremarkos and Sintayehu ‘Mimi’ Zenebe. Their sound is amped-up classic dub while Invisible System, a band headed up by UK based producer Dan Harper, explore a more experimental and darker sound and provide the excellent bonus album also.
This Rough Guide is soaked in the urban cool that pervades Ethiopian music, both traditional and modern. Traverse the grooves of the ancient mountain kingdom, from antique vibes to futuristic styles.
01.Bole 2 Harlem - Ametballe (4:58)
02.Dub Colossus - Guragigna (5:13)
03.Mahmoud Ahmed - Ohoho Gedama (4:46)
04.Getatchew Mekuria & The Ex & Guests - Musicawi Silt (4:22)
05.Orchestra Ethiopia - Datchene Koba (Trio Of Emblitas) (2:26)
Mulatu Astatke - New York-Addis-London [Full Album]
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.
Mulatu Astatke - Yefikir Tizita
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.
Abud Mu'tazz, São Paulo Abud (SP/BR) Dj, crate digger and producer highly influenced by Jazz, 70's Funk, Latin Soul and Afro Brazilian music.
The Middle Eastern music has always been present in my life. My mother, born in Aleppo, Syria, put K7 tapes of Arabic music when I was little. I had my first contact with the Ethiopian music some 10 years ago, when a friend put a CD written with no name and no cover to listen. At that moment, I was totally mesmerized by this music, with a Semitic dialectlike the songs that my mother listened. It was kind of James Brown singing in a different Arab progress with mysterious scales and very powerful metais.
A arrangements from that day, I began to research and figure out where it is coming this kind of music, until one day I heard a vinyl collection made by a French label and there were the answers to my questions. Had finally found the source of that mysterious music. Ethiopia came directly!
After my discovery, names like Alemayehu Eshete, Mulatu Astatke and became part of my set in jazz dances, at the time of the Berlin Club, in Barra Funda, where he was residing. Even without understanding what is said in the song, the way these artists sing is very expressive. It is essential as repertoire and cultural background to the development of my personal production. This mix down to my song search of Ethiopia, a very specific material selected especially on vinyl for you to travel without leaving your seat.
Abud Mu'tazz, São Paulo
Abud Mu'tazz - Ethiopian Soul & Jazz Selecta! (38:07)
playing the Begenna, the Harp of David from Ethiopia
The begena (or bèguèna, as in French) is an Eritrean and Ethiopian string instrument with ten strings belonging to the family of the lyre. According to oral tradition, Menelik I brought the instrument to the region from Israel, where David played on it to soothe King Saul's nerves and heal him of insomnia. Its actual origin remains in doubt, though local manuscripts depict the instrument at the beginning of the 15th century (Kimberlin 1978: 13).
Known as the instrument of noblemen, monks and the upper class and performed by both men and women, the begena was used primarily as an accompaniment during meditation and prayer. Though commonly played in the home, it is sometimes played in the framework of festive occasions. During Lent, the instrument is often heard on the radio and around churches.
Begena is accompanied by singing voice only. The singer may compose his or her own texts or they may be taken from the Bible, from the Book of Proverbs, or from the Book of Qine, an anthology of proverbs and love poems. Subject matter includes the futility of life, the inevitability of death, saints, mores, morality, prayer, and praises to God. The song's duration varies according to the text, the audience, and the persistence of the player. Though many texts are of a religious nature, the instrument is not used in the Ethiopian Orthodox church services, even if it is seen occasionally in religious processions outside the church.
Because of the instrument's relatively intimate and sacred role in society, the begena is not very common to find. Meditation and prayer are very private, personal endeavors, and hearsay suggests that the instrument is played by very few and is a dying art. However, in 1972, the Yared Music School in Addis Ababa began formal instruction in the begena. Since 2004, evening courses are organized and the begena is still played.
The begena has ten strings. However, different musicians use varying numbers of strings to play the begena. For example, begena teacher Memhr Sisay Demissae uses all ten strings to play the begena, while other players may use five or six of the strings. The left hand is used to pluck the strings.
When all ten strings are plucked, one method of tuning the begena is to tune each pair of strings to one of the pitches in a pentatonic scale. When using five of the stings, only the first, fourth, sixth, eighth and tenth strings are tuned and plucked to give sound. Finally, while playing the begena using six strings, the left hand plucks strings one, three, four, six, eight, and ten (starting from the left side when facing the instrument). The pointing finger plucks strings three and four while the other fingers are in charge of controlling one string each. The remaining strings are used for the finger rests or stops after the strings have been plucked, allowing the plucked string to vibrate.
The begena may also be played using a system called girf, wherein a plectrum made of horn or wood is used to pluck the ten strings of the begena. Megabe Sebhat Alemu Aga plays begena both by using his fingertips and girf.
The begena is characterized by a very specific buzzing sound, due to U-shaped leather pieces placed between each string and the bridge. The thong for each string is adjusted up or down along the bridge so that the string, when plucked, repeatedly vibrates against the edge of the bridge.
Regular followers have probably noticed that the usual Christmas present is late this year, but it does not mean that it will not arrive.
And here it is !
It is only fitting that we end the year with a short overview.This time, it is a compilation of the recent work of the bands whose music is influenced by the Ethiopian sound.
I am not going to bore you a lot. You have come to know most of the authors form this compilation through the posts on my blog, but there is something completely new as well. You will find out for yourself what it is.
I wish you lots of health, happiness and love in the new year. And lots of interesting music, of course.
B.
cd
1
01 - Nadav Haber - Nanu Nanu Jazz (6:13)
02 - Elias Negash - My Eyes Are Hungry (6:55)
03 - New Constellations - Rift Valley (4:51)
04 - Ethioda - Araray (5:09)
05 - Akalé Wubé - Kidus à cent dix (5:17)
06 - Akalé Wubé - Gab's Trap (4:00)
07 - Imperial Tiger Orchestra - Che Belew
(4:02)
08 - Arat Kilo - Ankober Hotel (3:42)
09 - Les Frères Smith - Yègellé Tezeta (My Own
Memory) (4:58)
cd
2
01 - KAZANCHIS +1 - Bilemo Bilee (6:00)
02 - KAZANCHIS +1 - Agerwa Wasa Magana (5:36)
03 - KAZANCHIS +1 - Astawusalehu (5:34)
04 - Feedel Band - Girl from Ethiopia (7:35)
05 - Feedel Band - Arayas Mood (8:24)
06 - Black Flower - Upwards (4:58)
07 - The Shaolin Afronauts - Abyssinian Suite,
Pt. 1 (5:28)
08 - The Shaolin Afronauts - Abyssinian Suite,
Pt. 2 (5:07)
09 - The Shaolin Afronauts - Abyssinian Suite,
Pt. 3 (3:44)
"Last August, I spent a week or so in Eritrea during the country's annual cultural festival. I was alone and documented a lot—buidings, food, the names of internet cafés, among other things. Hunting for music, I spent a lot of time in a small music shop opposite the Asmara post office. I was looking for RnB, but fell in love with the cover artwork of the EPLF (Eritrean People’s Liberation Front) cassette tapes instead. Recorded in the ‘70s and ‘80s, the songs were sung, performed, recorded and distributed among the various EPLF contingents during their 21 year struggle against the Ethiopian occupation and its infamous Derg, before winning independence in 1991.
The silky voiced Tefono and female freedom fighter Abrehet Ankere were among the most popular singers as well as the much-loved Wedi Tikul,. The songs are still listened to today—mostly on cassette tape—and even the saddest lyrics move along happily with a popcorn kind of rhythm."
—NJ Stallard
tracklist :
01 - Kede'At Deki Hager — Fihira
02 — Ayresanayon 77 — Tefono
03 — Wahiz Gu'zo — Zemach
04 — Ab Bebeynu Ewan (Fechew version) — Wedi Tukul
