Tesfa-Maryam Kidane - My Life In Music [2005]

    
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Tesfa Mariam Kidane / Tesfa-Maryam Kidane / Tesfamariam Kidane / Tèsfa-Maryam Kidané

       A well seasoned Eritrean-American artist who has made the Washington D.C. area his home for the last three decades is embarking on a mission. Tesfamariam is one of the pioneer Eritrean saxophonists who had left a musical footprint in the sixties and early seventies at the advent of "modern" music in Asmara and Addis Ababa. 

       Essentially Tesfamariam was amongst the number of Eritrean artists who were key contributors to the development of modern music in Ethiopia. A league of creative greats such as, Saxophonist/bass guitarist Fekaddu Andemeskel, lead guitarist Tekle Adhanom, lead guitarist/vocalist Tewolde Reda, composer Abubakar Ashaker ( Kbur Zebegna Band), Composer/Teacher Colonel Girmay Abdu (Kbur Zebegna Band), and vocalist & percussionist Tekle Tesfazghi. And later, the Roha band that consisted of mostly Eritrean members lead by the creative and entrepreneurial minded guitarist Selam Seyoum.

       Finally, after several years of self imposed hiatus, Tesfamariam has put a long awaited CD together that chronicles his life in music aptly entitled My Life in Music.

      Tesfamariam's CD stands out in more ways than one. In fact one would be hard-pressed to find another Eritrean "instrumental" album to compare it with. Eritrean musicians produced music in the past daubed "instrumental", by and large nothing considered distinctive or groundbreaking. As far as I can tell none attempted to produce an original composition however mediocre it may have sounded. All were an instrumental version of older songs sang by one vocalist or another.