Mulatu Astatke Ethiopian musician (piano, organ, vibraphone, and
percussion), composer, and arranger Mulatu Astatke (the name is
spelled Astatqé on his French releases) is a household name in his
native country, where he is known as the father of Ethio-jazz, a
unique blend of pop, modern jazz, traditional Ethiopian music, Latin
rhythms, Caribbean reggae, and Afro-funk. After developing his sound
in the U.S. with a pair of highly influential mid-'60s releases, he
spent much of the '70s expanding the boundaries of Ethiopian music by
collaborating both home and abroad with artists like Mahmoud Ahmed and
Duke Ellington and releasing critically acclaimed music on Amha
Eshete's Amha Records. His popularity enjoyed a renaissance in Western
culture in the mid-2000s after his music was used in Jim Jarmusch's
film Broken Flowers. Mulatu continued to evolve creatively well into
the 2010s, and has maintained long-term collaborations with a number
of acts, including Boston's Either/Orchestra, London band the
Heliocentrics, and Australia's Black Jesus Experience. Afro-Latin
Soul, Vol. 1Born in 1943 in the western Ethiopia city of Jimma, Mulatu
studied music in London, New York City, and Boston, where he was the
first African graduate of the Berklee College of Music, and went on to
work with several acclaimed jazz artists, including a guest spot with
Duke Ellington in 1971. Further schooled in New York’s dance clubs
in the 1960s, Mulatu recorded three of his LPs in the city, Afro-Latin
Soul, Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 in 1966 and Mulatu of Ethiopia in 1972. Most
of his records were released by Amha Records, including several
singles and the 1974 LP Ethio Jazz. Mulatu's work brought a renewed
focus on instrumentation and rhythm to Ethiopian pop music,
shepherding in a golden age in that country's pop and jazz circles
from 1968 to 1974. He went on to found a music school and open his own
club, while staying active as an arranger, advisor, and DJ. In 2004 he
met the Massachusetts-based Either/Orchestra and formed a long-running
collaboration with the band. The inclusion of his songs on the
soundtrack of Jim Jarmusch's 2005 film Broken Flowers introduced
Mulatu to a whole new audience, and his increasing influence on
Western music could be heard in hip-hop acts like Quantic, Nas,
Madlib, and Kanye West, who have all sampled his music. Inspiration
Information, Vol. 3Never one to paint himself into a creative corner
and always expanding his musical vision, Mulatu collaborated with the
London-based psych-jazz configuration the Heliocentrics in 2008 on the
album Inspiration Information, Vol. 3, which included updated versions
of many of his classic compositions. Around the same time, he
completed a prestigious Radcliffe Institute Fellowship at Harvard
University, where he helped to modernize several traditional Ethiopian
instruments and also premiere part of an opera he'd been writing, The
Yared Opera. His work in Massachusetts also included an Abramowitz
Artist-in-Residence program at M.I.T., where he helped the school
media lab develop a modern version of a traditional Ethiopian
instrument, the krar. The largely improvised Mulatu Steps Ahead, which
featured collaborations with both Either/Orchestra and the
Heliocentrics, was released in 2010. Another outing, 2013's elegant
Sketches of Ethiopia, took the form of a jazz suite and was released
via the Jazz Village label. Working with longtime collaborators Black
Jesus Experience, Mulatu recorded 2016's Cradle of Humanity.
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01/03/2020 Last update