Ethiopian Jazz

I recently borrowed a cd from brixton library, a compilation of ethiopian jazz soul and big bands from the era 1969 to 1975. unknown to me this was a period of intense upheaval in ethiopian society (in fact unknown to me ethiopia even had such a musical tradition) with the end of the haile sellaisse years and the beginning of military dictatorship. The upshot of all this was some fucking amazing music. Now my question is do any of you guys have any of this sort of stuff? The cd talks about buda musique being the license holdera to the music and the artists include names like:

tesfa maryam kidane
mulatu astatqe
girma beyene
alemayehu eshete

...and many more..

would be nice to hear some more of this.

It's called Ethiopiques... and yes, I've got all the 17 volumes.
Amazing stuff

Mulatu Astatke is the absolute shit. I started listening to him 'cause there's a load of him on the Broken Flowers (Jarmusch) soudtrack/score. That compilation sounds great.

ps - i've just had a quick nose and for anyone with an emusic sunscription (worth having) all the Ethiopiques is up there

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Ethiopiques&search_type=&aq=f

Used everywhere (song: Temele by Alemayehu Eshete and Hirut Beqele)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b79mNnDMq6Q

http://ethiopiques.info/

all 17 volumes.....now that's what i call music!

now a few years ago i nearly went to a world music bar in east london that sounded pretty good but for the life of me i can't remember what it was called or where it was exactly....ring any bells?

Mulatu Astatke is the absolute shit. I started listening to him 'cause there's a load of him on the Broken Flowers (Jarmusch) soudtrack/score. That compilation sounds great.

Appears on this compilation:-
http://www.lunatune.com/africafunk.html
two volumes of amazing- great - funky deep music, love these.
also worth saying they are on Harmless records--quality compilations of genuine good shit.
http://www.discogs.com/label/Harmless
check this out, this is my kind of groove, nice one Clintsmoker!!!: -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDC7oMOnmCc&feature=related

Dunno if it's the same kinda stuff but this one's great

http://www.boomkat.com/item.cfm?id=53082

Wouldn't mind hearing some of that ethiopian stuff if you know what I mean

Great thread. Thanks!

all 17 volumes.....now that's what i call music!

now a few years ago i nearly went to a world music bar in east london that sounded pretty good but for the life of me i can't remember what it was called or where it was exactly....ring any bells?

Passing clouds...?

as far as I know we havent had much afrobeat on this forum,
now I know its Nigerian Clintsmoker but if I may,
check this out, Fela live in 1971 filmed by Ginger Baker, electrifying,
with just the best dancers and a mock battle at the end, hope you like.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-SQH94Pifc&feature=related

I've just been looking through and Ethiopiques 17 is incredible.

http://www.emusic.com/album/Tlahoun-Gessesse-Ethiopiques-Volume-17-Tlahoun-Gessesse-MP3-Download/10813150.html

as far as I know we havent had much afrobeat on this forum,
now I know its Nigerian Clintsmoker but if I may,
check this out, Fela live in 1971 filmed by Ginger Baker, electrifying,
with just the best dancers and a mock battle at the end, hope you like.
YouTube- Fela in performance (1971)

You should (prob have), go through the all docu on Youtube, about Fela and his Musical/Political activities in the 70's, in Nigeria. Amazing stuff,... he had 5 wives!

yeah, have read quite a bit already, the way he turned his enclosure into a separate state and called it the Kalakuta Republic, a true original.
funny thing is in the late 80's he played in Brixton, and I remember seeing posters and going 'eh?' was too busy with acid house ;-) to get to see the legend of Fela!

a friend suggested i go and check out someone he knew playing at balance once, he was a collector/dealer specialising in ethiopean jazz, afrobeat etc

utterly amazing, sometimes bonkers but truly vibrant music

strutt did some good nigerian comps a few years ago

hmmm.. you're kind of turning a thread about ethiopian music into a thread about afrobeat, which is a million miles (well over a thousand anyway) from the ethiopian stuff. the only thing that links it even vaguely is the syncopation that mulatu brought back from his travels with western big bands. for me the ethiopian stuff is all about the scale they employ as their natural starting point, as idiosyncatic to the country's music as the blues scale. Mulatu's a fantastic shoehorn into it but beyond the couple of proper albums he did in the early 70s which contain the dirty stuff with all the fat rhythm sections is a bunch of mindblowing artists whose recordings are far removed from Fela Kuti.

All that said I'm just geeking out; I'm massively into both afro beat and the stuff that Ethiopiques has, thankfully, gone to town on rereleasing. It's hard to imagine getting to hear a lot of that any other way. Broken Flowers was a necessarily annoying "late to the party" moment as a bunch of beats and breaks diggers had been on Mulatu for a good decade before that, but if it meant more people got into Mulatu's extraordinarily filthy grooves then there could have been worse springboards i guess. But beyond Mulatu, on the Ethiopiques label, is a ton of stuff that shares the same hypnotic scale and goes much further out from the music of our culture. I recommend Volume 7, Mahmoud Ahmed as a standout among literally days of listening.. I think it's at Volume 25 or something now. Wicked stuff. I'd also say keep an eye out for Mulatu himself, he still plays in London. I saw him at Cargo about a year ago, with the Heliocentrics.. it was absolutely mindblowing.

good post P.Js.
sorry that was my fault.

Like i said mf, just geekin out, don't mind me...! On the afrobeat tip - once you can rinse Fela's umpteen albums and got into his life story and politics, cos he is a force of his own really! - there are some awesome compilations out of Ghana as well as Nigeria which show what impact Fela's afro-beat had on nearby countries... the Ghana Soundz compilations are superb, infectious, chubby tracks that'll knock your socks off. Check out The African Brothers, Oscar Sulley and Rob among others.. mad stuff.

hey it's all good to read regardless of which direction this thread goes....always a pleasure to get the nod in the direction of some more brilliant music. My connection is pants at home so i can't do youtube until work which is a shame but i'll defo be checking this stuff out more in the future and all of the other links.
if anyone knows of a night out /club/bar where this kind of music might be played could they let me know please? thanks.

Just checked this thread - and wanted to let you know that I'm in a band that plays ethiopian jazz (Mulatu's stuff and much more) in London. We're playing this Friday in Kilburn and the next one at the New Empowering Church in Dalston - check out our myspace: http://www.myspace.com/theabyssquartet.

Maybe see you there!
DubWizard

sounds cool. would like to

weird to bump into this thread as I've only recently started listing to this:

An ex got it for me many moons back.

I also got an itch :-