with Sun Hop Fat
Mulatu Astatke is an Ethiopian musician and arranger best known as the
father and pioneer of Ethio-jazz music.In 2008, The Barbican, and then
Glastonbury, hosted a concert featuring four of Ethiopias most famed
musicians, key artists from what is now seen as the countrys golden
period of music, crystalising in the last days of Haile Selassie,
before finally being silenced as Mengistus Derg administration quashed
the country for nearly two decades. Mahmoud Ahmed had played the
country a handful of times, his still powerful vocal garnering him a
Radio 3 World Music Award. Gtachw Mkurya, an octogenarian saxophonist
whose timbre and technique is considered by some to pre-figure Ornette
Colemans free experiments by several years, has enjoyed a new lease of
life in Europe, hooking up with avant-punks The Ex. Almayhu Esht,
initially taking his lead from Elvis Presley, had never performed in
the UK, though he plays regularly for the ex-pat Ethiopian community
in the US. The last of the four, Mulatu Astatk, whose unique music
punctuated Jim Jarmuschs film, Broken Flowers, is in many ways the
most crucial figure in the countrys recent musical history. He had
played the UK for the first time in over 15 years just beforehand at
Cargo in April 2008 with London-based collective The Heliocentrics for
Karen Ps Broad Casting session, a gig that has culminated in a unique
new album for Strut Records Inspiration Information studio
collaboration series.Being away for a long time from the UK, I really
thought people had forgotten about or hadnt heard of Mulatu, he
states. At Cargo, there were so many younger guys giving me that
beautiful warm reception. They really loved my music and the band. For
the musicians to learn the Ethio-jazz classics like that in a day was
incredible. I have a lot of attraction to the UK I feel like I almost
grew up here during my teens. I love the chance to come over and play.
It was an excellent experience.It has taken Astatke over forty years
to start to attain the recognition he deserves. Born in 1943 in Jimma,
Ethiopia, he came over to North Wales at the age of 16 to continue his
further education, focusing initially on the sciences. Music quickly
caught his attention, and he was encouraged to pursue it by one of his
teachers. I tried trumpet, I tried clarinet, keyboard I was playing
everything there, he recalls. After I finished school, I went to
Trinity College in London. I started playing different clubs. I used
to hang out with Tubby Hayes, Frank Holder, Joe Harriot and Ronnie
Scott. It was a beautiful time. This was around 1957, the era of
London Is The Place For Me captured so astutely on the four Honest
Jons compilations that document the ensuing musical shifts that
happened in the wake of the SS Windrush. When I was in England, I
started seeing people coming from Ghana, Nigeria, Trinidad, trying to
promote and expose their music to a European audience, says Mulatu.
They had a connection with England because of the Commonwealth. That
also influenced me to concentrate on promoting Ethiopian music. It was
with that feeling that I went to America.For many Afro-American
artists of the era, Africa was a signifier; a metaphor and an
aspiration as much as a destination. Art Blakey, Yusef Lateef and
Randy Weston studied and played there, bringing a freshness to their
music on their return. Conversely, Nigerian Babatunde Olatunji, whose
percussion leant itself so memorably to Art Blakey and Max Roach
amongst numerous others, made the opposite journey, educating many
musicians in the US to understand the roots of his music.The
industrial and cultural strength of America ensured that their music
was re-appropriated in the most intriguing places. Mulatus story in
many ways underlines one of the core themes of 20th Century music, of
how increased globalisation and communication have sped up the process
by which ideas are exchanged and new developments evolve. It is also a
bitter irony that colonialisation and the slave trade, surely the
global economies darkest underbelly, meant that newly independent
African countries had the language and international links to spread
their creative ideas.For many years Ethiopia was a very closed country
and we never had this access of promoting our music and culture,
states Mulatu. I wanted to create something so I could be identified
like those musicians Id seen in England. Mulatu continued his studies
at Berklee College in Boston in 1958 (he was their first ever African
student) before moving to New York, forming a group called The
Ethiopian Quintet, around 1963. The band consisted of himself and
Afro-American and Puerto Rican musicians, and they recorded two
volumes entitled Afro-Latin Soul. Combining Ethiopian melodies with
12- note harmonies and Western Instrumentation, his idea was also to
underline the African roots of Latin music it was during the 60s that
ethio-jazz came to life, he remembers. one night wed be playing a jazz
club in New York, the next a Puerto Rican wedding North of the Big
Apple.In the radical musical scene of the Sixties, he met and hung out
with John Coltrane, who was intrigued to meet an African musician
blending music in this fashion. I met him in Birdland and sat and
talked to him for a while. He was so happy to discuss, really, with an
African musician. Coltrane was a cool guy very peaceful. That was my
impression. Mulatu later recorded an album with Coltranes second wife,
Alice, when she visited Ethiopia, though the tapes were sadly lost
during the destructive atmosphere of the Derg. After gigging around
New York, he returned to Addis in the late 60s and collaborated with
Poet Laureate Gabre-Medhin and even composed for the poets stage
works. He continued to set about making new arrangements of
traditional Ethiopian melodies and songs and was soon crowned the
Father of Ethio-jazz. Mulatus approach was a radical one, especially
for those musicians who had worked for Army and Police bands. As Addis
nightlife started to throng to the sound of modern Ethiopian pop, a
taut funk, soul and jazz hybrid with eerie pentatonic chords, state
musicians began to moonlight, and a small home grown recording
industry started to blossom, bucking the Emperors censorship policies.
Duke Ellington would pay a visit in 1973, performing with Mulatu at
one of his final live appearances in Africa. This era of creativity
would eventually die out as Mengistus repressive policies took hold.At
the time of the Derg, Mulatu was a board member of the International
Jazz Federation (IJF) an organisation that had links with UNESCO, so
this gave him a chance to travel, and offered him a certain amount of
freedom. He also took part in the National Black Arts Festival in
Nigeria, where he presented a music production called Our Struggle. It
was here that he witnessed live shows by Fela Kuti, and Sun Ra, a
musician hes been compared to, and, as it happens, whose trilogy of
Heliocentric Worlds albums gave Mulatus current collaborators their
name.The Ethiopiques CD series has since opened a new audience to his
Ethio-jazz experiments, but it wasnt until Jim Jarmuschs Broken
Flowers film that momentum started to gather, aided further by a Best
ofEthiopiques compilation released in 2007. Mulatus Inspiration
Information collaboration with The Heliocentrics can be legitimately
seen as the next step in a musical fusion, collaboration and cross
cultural blend that began the day young Mulatu arrived in the UK back
in the 1950s.When we came to the UK for the Ethiopiques gigs at
Barbican and Glastonbury, (The Heliocentrics) gave me and Joel Yennior
(Either Orchestra) some backing tracks and groove ideas to take away,
continues Mulatu. By listening to this, you can feel the talents of
different musicians from different backgrounds. Ethiopian, British,
American. Theres a new composition, Cha Cha, and Dewel, based on
Ethiopian Coptic Church music. The band took it and added what they
feel. Its a nice experiment. Theres also Chik-Chikka, which is a well
known traditional Ethiopian folk song.Having drawn plaudits from the
likes of Jim Jarmusch, Elvis Costello and Robert Plant, its a good
time for Mulatu and the other musicians who toughed it out, and we can
finally see this unique music as not austere, standing out on its own,
but as a part of the interactive whole, that has produced some of the
most gripping music in the latter part of the 20th Century.Its like
going back to the feel of the late 60s, it really feels like that, he
concludes. My own music has taken a very different direction with
Ethio-jazz. This album is mainly about tracing roots using the
original Ethio-jazz sound as a solid base. Tracing roots is no bad
thing, its great for the development of the music. And it has been
great working with these guys. They are all great players.2009 will be
an exciting year for Mulatu as the recognition of his music continues
to gather pace. He is continuing his long running and valuable
lecturing work as an artist-in-residence at M.I.T. in Boston, flying
the flag for Ethiopian music, its heritage and the unsung influence
that it has had on many forms of Western music. There are many
elements that pre-date classical music by many years the Meqyammia
which is a conducting stick used in 360 AD and the Kabaro, similar to
a timpani drum and used in the same way, less as a time-keeping
instrument, more as a feature of a composition. This again was part of
church music originating from 360 AD. Relating to jazz, the Derashe
tribe in Southern Ethiopia managed to play a diminished scale by
cutting different sizes of bamboo. You can hear Charlie Parker, even
Debussy using these scales. The Derashe used it in their music well
before the advent of jazz or classical music. Mulatu also has
ambitious plans for his own album releases. Following the
Heliocentrics collaboration, he will be finishing his solo album,
Mulatus Steps Ahead and has grand visions of producing an Ethiopian
opera: It will mix Ethio-jazz with the traditions of the Ethiopian
Coptic Church, explains Mulatu. Our church music is beautiful. People
need to hear it. This will be the next chapter in Ethio-jazz and it
will be great, I tell you!
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26/06/2019 Last update