ETHIOPIAN MODERN INSTRUMENTAL (vinyl)

Description

Mulatu Astatke is both the godfather and the standard-bearer of Ethiopian music. His name, like Fela Kuti, Salif Keita, and Ali Farka Touré, has risen to the top of the list of African musicians. This talented vibraphonist is also recognized for the quality of his compositions, which blend jazz and traditional Ethiopian music. The centuries-old ethnocentric traditions of Ethiopians are undoubtedly the explanation for their strong musical identity, which is quite impervious to other African influences. The influence of Latin music, so important in West Africa and Congo, was rejected in Ethiopia, despite Mulatu Astatke's brilliant efforts. He was the first and for a long time the only Ethiopian to have studied music abroad (England and USA). In the late 60s, he brought back "Ethio-jazz," as well as a passion for Latin rhythms that was not easily shared by the Ethiopian public. As early as 1966, he released a single and two albums in the United States titled "Afro Latin Soul" (and a third LP, Mulatu of Ethiopia in 1972), with his Ethiopian Quintet composed of American and Latin American musicians (on Worthy Records). This was three years before Fela's first American tour and six years before Manu Dibango's breakthrough with his "Soul Makossa" in Western markets. All of this goes to show how much the history of the African continent's musical modernity should be re-examined in light of the Ethiopian adventure, even if this solitary spark had little connection, musically or ideologically, with the musical revolutions initiated notably by Ghanaian highlife, South African jazz, Congolese rumba, or, much later, by Fela's Afrobeat.