OBSCURE ETHIO JAZZ MIX OF THE WEEK

Ethio jazz in not a music I know much about. I know Hailu Mergia and I know Mulatu Astatke, a little. That's probably the equivalent of knowing only Elvis and Chuck Berry as rock 'n' roll. If I was in Ethiopia and all that I heard of rock 'n' roll was Elvis and Chuck Berry, do you know what I'd do to learn more about it? Listen to more of it. So here we go, a mix of Ethio jazz. It's great, some down-tempo mourning sort of stuff, and some good ol' fashioned Ethiopian whacked out shit. It'll keep you guessing while feeding you two hours of music you ain't never heard before.

That photo up there, that's Asnakech Worku who is not on this mix. I just dig the image. She is Ethiopian, and recorded with Hailu Mergia who is on the mix, so there's at least that connection. The mix is below. An mp4 download or streaming online. Blast it on Friday in your cubicle. Start your weekend way the fuck away from here.

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Listen:
In Ethio Mood Again - Mix by Nicky mp4 (via Mediafire) at My Passion For Ethiopian Music
In Ethio Mood Again - Mix by Nicky (streaming) at Mixcloud Song list here

IT'S STONER ROCK SOMEWHERE

If you know anything about Mulatu Astatqé, you know that he is a central figure in Ethio-jazz, which is, as one would expect, an Ethiopian form of jazz. But that isn't really that accurate. While there may be some sort of structure or other technical reasons why his music is referred to as any kind of jazz maybe because of his musical education or the sort off folks he rubbed elbows with (like Duke Ellington), make no mistake, his music is nothing like Miles Davis or John Coltrane or any other Western jazz musician. It's weird, though not unsettling. It's other worldly. Hell, it's Ethiopian, that's enough to make it interesting.

If you dig the samples below, you ought to pick up the Éthiopiques compilation of his stuff. The full title is Éthiopiques, Vol. 4: Ethio Jazz & Musique Instrumentale, 1969–1974. You'll need it. Should a record store stock it (not likely), you might pass right by it because little of the text on the cover is in English. But it's worth checking out, His music is not really anything that has a reference point, in fact other Ethio-jazz releases are more often described with references to his music. In other words, what Chuck Berry is to rock 'n' roll, Astatqé is to Ethio-jazz. He's the portal.

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Listen:
Mulatu Astatqé - Yekermo Sew mp3 at Oh Color Me In
Mulatu Astatqé - Yegelle Tezeta mp3 at ATumblr (?)
Mulatu Astatqé – Éthiopiques 4: Ethio Jazz & Musique Instrumentale 1969-1974 (Full Album) (streaming) at YouTube

ADJECTIVES ARE A GATEWAY

Here we go. My foot just crossed the border with into get lost territory. Starting innocently enough, taking a dive into Soul Safari's Ethiopia tagged posts. Who knows, maybe he'll have an Mulatu Astatke post. Then I see a post from 2010 titled Getatchew Mekuria & The Ex -Ethiopunk. Ethiopunk?? Okay then, here we go.

First it was just Getatchew Mekuria and the Ex and the song "Almaz Yeharerwa". Smoking in a Velvets plodding way. But the sax, by Getatchew Mekuria, an Ethiopian legend I'm soon to learn, is awesome. Kinda gives it a plodding Velvets meets X Ray Spex feel. Time to backtrack. How did this well known Ethiopian sax player end up playing with a Dutch band?

It's all at Soul Safari: "The Ex, from Holland, often described as an avant-ethno-improv-punk band, toured Ethiopia twice and fell in love with its music. The Ex had their 25th year anniversary party in November 2004 and they invited Getatchew to perform there with the ICP, the Instant Composers Pool, for many decades Holland’s most amazing free-improvising jazz group." Sounds good. But how did they end up recording together? The answer, again, at Soul Safari. I won't be a spoiler, let's just say it was Mekuria's idea.  He was seventy years old at the time.

So far pretty cool, but who are The Ex? They formed in 1979, and already in the first paragraph of their bio, I'm kinda liking their their methodology. From their bio: "...choosing their instruments by drawing straws to decide on who-plays-what, and start from scratch. For the first half year the group concentrates mainly on an extended hit-and-run graffiti publicity campaign, the name being chosen based on the fact that it could be sprayed on a wall in two seconds flat!." Sounds good enough for another detour.

I checked out a video of The Ex playing in Ethiopia. A small portion of the audience seems to be into them, but the dominant expression of the audience is WTF bewilderment. That set me thinking about other unusual audience juxtapositions. By the time I think of Crime playing at San Quentin and the Cramps playing at Napa State Mental Hospital, the wheels are coming off. I can feel the whole night getting pulled out from under me.

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Listen:
Getatchew Mekuria and the Ex - Yeharerwa mp3 at Soul Safari
Getatchew Mekuria and the Ex - Eywat Setenafegagn mp3 at Internet Archive
Getatchew Mekuria - Tezeta mp3 at Soul Safari

AT THIS MOMENT, THIS IS THE SHIT

Yee haw! An Ethio-jazz inspired eighteen song mix from the ever boss Hearsay. Don't ask me why, and I know I'm not alone here, I'm a nut about this type of music. It's exotic, that's pretty obvious, but it's more the feel that I dig. For the duration of any length, when I hear this stuff, I am not of America, I become a world citizen. Sounds corny as hell, but after hearing this type of music I don't even give a shit about seeming corny. I'm a world citizen. Get out of my way. I have no time for your bullshit. I'm ready to jam.

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Listen:
Akalé Wubé – Jawa Jawa mp3 at Hearsay 2010
Woima Collective – Puno mp3 at Hearsay 2010
Imperial Tiger Orchestra – Emnete (Live) mp3 at Hearsay 2010
Mulatu Astatke – Emnete mp3 at Hearsay 1970, the Big Daddy
The whole thing:
Endengena - 18 song mix at Hearsay Available as a full download, streaming, or individual mp3s

NOT FROM THESE PARTS

Hailu Mergia is not a name I knew before today. I was looking for something else altogether, and saw a link to Awesome Tapes From Africa, a site that lives up to it's name, on someone's blog roll. Hadn't been there for a while, so what the hell. Scrolling stopped on a Hailu Mergia post, because it looked like something that might be interesting. It was interesting. Fu-huck was it. The song that's posted (alas, streaming only) is one of those songs that you can't really fit into a genre. There's just too much going on. Mergia was Ethiopian, the album is from 1977, that much I know. As far as what he sounds like, you can hear jazz, Ethio-jazz, funk, afro-funk, reggae and just about everything in between. If the song is any indication of what the whole LP is like, my shopping list just got longer. I have no idea what planet it was recorded on.

After further digging, I ran into another song of his, "Musicawi Silt", that the Daktaris covered a few years back, Totally figures (mumble mumble, those Daptone affiliated eggheads). It's a great song, so we're two for two, but that's when it's the Pyramids on Bandstand all over again. In other words, deflating. A later Mergia cut revealed a sound steeped in low budget synth. Still confounding, but yikes!

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Listen:
Hailu Mergia and the Walias - Tche Belew (streaming) at Awesome Tapes From Africa
Hailu Mergia and the Walias - Musicawi Silt mp3 at Mixtape Riot Go there to get it.
Hailu Megia - Shillela mp3 at Ethiopian Review
The Daktaris - Musicawa Silt (streaming) at YouTube
The Daktaris - Super Afro Beat mp3 at ATumblr (?)

OH, WHAT THE HELL

You know, you make mixes of random music, right? Maybe you at least occasionally set your listening gizmo on shuffle? Hopefully you get what I mean when I say that even music of different genres can be lumped together in a mix that creates a certain feel. Maybe not. Regardless, I heard a song at Diddy Wah that just slayed me and sent me digging. "Arabian Blues" by Jimmy Beck and his Orchestra isn't blues really at all. It's as exotic as the name sounds, but not entirely in an Arabian sort of way (as if I know what Arabian blues would sound like). It's hard to describe, but the sax in it is what kills me. I'm sure it has something to do with the scale it's playing, or some other musician mumbo jumbo, but I dig it and I don't really care why. Mix meat it was, and off I was, trying to find suitable music to sandwich it between.

"Arabian Blues" reminded me of Mulatu Astatke, aka the big shot of Ethio-jazz, for whatever the reason, again, maybe just the feel. So a couple of his songs were thrown in for good measure. Then there was Brazil's Os Incrivels' "Nao Resta Nem Ilusao" which, when I first heard it about a year ago, also reminded me of Astatke. That was a good start. Alas, the next selections may have to wait. A Haitian mix posted by Sofrito isn't downloadable, but completely awesome nonetheless, and that type of stuff would totally fit. Good enough that I'm taking a gamble and ordering Haiti Direct, a recent compilation from Strut that, if it isn't the same music that's in the Sofrito mix, is different enough (judging by the samples at Strut) to grab my attention. Stop the presses: I'm buying something.

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Listen:
Jimmy Beck and his Orchestra - Arabian Blues mp3 at Diddy Wah
Mulatu Astatke - Yekermo Sew mp3 at Oh Color Me In
Mulatu Astatke - Yegelle Tezeta mp3 at Antinomian
Os Incriveis – Nao Resta Nem Ilusao at Melting Pot
Haiti Direct Selection - 44 minute mix (streaming) at Sofrito

Lights out, light up.

Troll the MP3 blogs enough and you'll run into posts about Mulatu Astatke, often referred to as the father of Ethio-jazz (or Ethiopian jazz). Though the jazz tag is really a little misleading, his music is indefinably other-worldly. Without knowing anything about him, it would be hard to peg the orgin or era of the sounds that you're hearing.

Much like Quentin Tarintino's serendipitous inclusion of Dick Dale and other surf music in Pulp Fiction's soundtrack, Astatke's music has enjoyed a slew of new attention from the inclusion on the soundtrack to Jim Jarmusch's Broken Flowers. If you haven't seen the film, it is highly recommended that you listen first context-free.

Mulatu Astatke - Yègellé Tezeta, Yèkèrmo Sèw, and Tezeta at Diddy Wah