ethiopiques
(Tesfa-Maryam Kidane – Tezeta)
(Alemayehu Eshete – Teredtchewalehu)
I first encountered Ethiopian jazz, like a lot of people probably have, in Jim Jarmusch’s latest movie, Broken Flowers. Mulatu Astatke has a couple of standout tracks on the soundtrack to this movie (which is otherwise unremarkable, by the way) that I loved.
Not too long after, I also noticed Astatke and other striking music on the stereo at Horn of Africa, as well, on our many excursions out there. So, I poked around emusic for any Mulatu Astatke and found the Buda Musique Ethiopiques set of compilations. I first snagged Vol. 10. and just today snagged Vol. 8 as well, having listened to nothing but Vol. 10 all week.
Volume 10 is Tezeta — Ethiopian blues/jazz. It’s some of the most laid-back, relaxing music I’ve heard in a while. Volume 8, Swinging Addis is a little peppier — a compilation of 60’s jazz, swing and funk that makes you wonder if James Brown didn’t get a little help from some cross-continental influence.
It’s all really great stuff — varied and awesome. I am surprised to know so little about this, but I feel like there’s a whole world of 20th century music self-contained in Ethiopia that I’m just cracking the surface of. There are 20 volumes of this compilation (so far)!
You like Horn of Africa? Rock on! That is a great restaurant!
[...] layer to play samples of music I review, which I’ve added to my recent review of the Ethiopiques compilation. Let me know if it works. I think I’m done geeking out now. [...]
[...] I can’t remember how we ran across them — I think it was after I had been listening to the Ethiopiques compilation, and picked up the Broken Flowers soundtrack, which has some Mulatu Astatke tracks on it. It also has a song by Dengue Fever, called Ethanopium. Evidently the earlier incarnations of the L.A.-based band involved a submersion in Ethiopian jazz/blues (who could blame them?) and this was a song inspired by that style — it’s a pretty straight-up rip-off rendition of anything you’d find from Ethiopia during the 60s/70s. [...]