Mulatu Astatke – “Yegelle Tezeta”

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Mulatu Astatke
Strut Records
(2009)

Mulatu Astaqe. Let me say that again… moo’la-too ə-sta’kā. His music is still in my head. My mind’s hands feel its different textures. My lungs expand and contract along with its rhythmic tension. I observe its underbelly. I taste it like wine swishing it around, but never spit it out. It’s too good to spit out.

About a decade ago, when I first heard his music, it was like meeting an alien and falling in love at the same time.  I could never quite figure it out. Why is this so good? Why do they play that way and why does that way seem so different? On paper, it seems like a simple fusion: Jazz melding with funk rhythms and Coptic church melodies, which are ultimately based on pentatonic scales much like the blues. So why is it so much bigger than its summed parts? Let’s take a look…

At sixteen years of age, Mulatu’s parents sent him to North Wales to further his studies. His parents had hopes of him becoming a pilot. Yet once exposed to the school’s music program, his teachers persuaded him to delve into music full time. Mulatu then made his way to London, soaked up their jazz scene, then decides to study in America: the epicenter of jazz. The only jazz program at the time was the Berklee College of Music. Where, for all you trivial pursuit fans, he was the first African student enrolled. From there he goes to Harnett National Music School in New York City, where not only were his influences broadened, but the very concept of Ethio-Jazz first comes to fruition.

Geographically speaking, Ethiopia is an isolated country with no major seaports or thoroughfares, thereby escaping the colonization by Western powers that so many other African nations had to deal with. Italy did make an attempt between 1936 and 1941, but it was ultimately unsuccessful. I believe this isolation allowed Ethiopia’s cultural identity to remain intact, even while being thrown into a musical blender. Strut’s compilation, entitled “Mulatu Astaqe – New York-Addis-London The Story of Ethio-Jazz 1966 – 1975″ provides the proof with Mulatu’s earlier recordings from New York. Using Puerto Rican musicians on his first attempts at creating Ethio-Jazz demonstrates that, while he was obviously on to something, it wasn’t until he took it back home and recorded with Ethiopian musicians that his idea became fully realized.

There are very few records that I can listen to, at any time, in any mood and this is one of them. Although the majority of these tracks were released on the well received Buda Musique’s Ethiopiques series Vol. 4, put into the chronological context of his career, they are given an added depth with the understanding of how this genre organically developed each time Mulatu changed his location on this little planet of ours. If you are looking to dive into Mulatu’s world, this is an excellent starting point. These were the golden years of Ethio-Jazz and Strut picked all the right tracks. I highly recommend buying a physical copy of this compilation because of the excellent job they did with the liner notes and track notes. Explaining what these songs are about and their history within Ethiopian culture gives me a much closer connection to the songs then I previously had. Miles Cleret, who wrote the liner notes, gives a wonderful breakdown of Mulatu’s history and gives us reason to believe that there is no other being worthy of the name Mulatu. Surely, he is one of a kind.

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For more info, visit: http://www.mulatu-ethiojazz.com and http://www.strut-records.com

via Paul Dreux Smith, 28 October 2009 7:36pm | 1 |