Ethiopia: Another Nation Under a Groove

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The term 'world music' suggests sounds that are esoteric and unfamiliar — neither of which applies to Ethiopiques, one of the hippest acts of the summer of 08 that recently played both London's high-tone Barbican theater and the rather more déclassé Glastonbury Festival. And even though the music is certainly not from round these parts, its hooks and grooves are ones any veteran soul-boy or jazzer can relate to: funky brass, swirling organ, growling sax, rippling congas, ecstatic vocals — this is not the sound of a national culture struggling to make itself heard over the global noise of pop. Rather, these are artists who 40 years ago itched to be part of it, who dressed like doo-wop boys, played funk, jazz and RnB in Ethiopia's hotel bars and nightclubs and were stars of a scene that, for a while, was known as "Swinging Addis."

Onstage, the natty-tailored, balding guy on vibes is jazz arranger Mulatu Astatqé, who once played with Duke Ellington. The priest-like one in the robes is Mahmoud Ahmed, who became Ethiopia's most popular singer, and was once the spitting image of the young Sam Cooke. Alèmayèhu Eshèté still has the yelp (if not quite the glorious pompadour) of his James Brown days. And, draped in his colorful military cape and now somewhat mangey, lion's mane crown, the shamanic Gétatchèw Mèkurya would catch the eye in any age, a Sun Ra for the Horn of Africa and beyond.

Performing together for the very first time, these four artists, backed by the Boston-based Either/Orchestra, are playing a series of gigs this summer under the banner of Ethiopiques, the title of a growing catalogue of recordings from the Swinging Addis days unearthed by Francis Falceto, a French promoter of avant-garde and world music for whom this music has been a passion since he first heard Ahmed's record Erh Mhla Mhla played at a party in 1984. "I sent tapes of it to all my radio and DJ friends and they all replied 'What is that? Where is it from?' Nobody knew it, not even those specializing in African music." Starting at Paris's only Ethiopian restaurant, Falceto set out to find Ahmed and to rescue as many recordings of the music he could lay hands on. Along the way he has come to understand the remarkable story of its creation.

Falceto's first trip to Ethiopia in 1985 was not encouraging. Eleven years of military dictatorship under Colonel Mengistu and a dusk-to-dawn curfew had all but extinguished Addis Ababa's nightlife. The few hotels in the capital offering live entertainment were mostly the haunt of business and diplomatic flotsam and hookers, while the music was desultory generic pop, played on cheap synthesizers. "It took several trips and several more years before I understood what had happened," says Falceto. "These big bands were dead. They just didn't exist any more." Incredibly, the vibrancy of Addis's musical life in the 60's and 70's owed its all to the municipal and military bands that were sponsored by the emperor Haile Selassie until his overthrow in 1974.

On a visit to Jerusalem in 1924, when still a prince, Selassie had been charmed by a marching band of forty Armenian children, exiled orphans of the Ottoman genocide, and arranged to adopt them as his court musicians. The boys were tutored by European music teachers and pretty soon brass bands were busting out all over: the Police Orchestra, the Imperial Bodyguard Band, the Army Band, the Selassie Theater Orchestra or the Municipality of Addis Band. After Italy's brief occupation ended in 1941 — Ethiopia is the only country in Africa that has never been colonized — the country began to open up to outside influences under Roosevelt's lend-lease program. Thanks to visiting teachers and a new American army base in Asmara, Glen Miller gained a lot of fans there. Then in the 60's, JFK's Peace Corps volunteers arrived carrying new vinyl and whole new generation's worth of attitude and beats.

Until this time, Selassie had kept Ethiopia's cultural life on a tight rein. Live music was entirely the domain of the state bands, members of which could end up in jail for leaving barracks to play a nightclub. Importing or pressing records was also a state monopoly. "Up until the late 60s, it was impossible to have your own band," says Falceto. "But even the emperor at some point thought it was better to let these youngsters go ahead." The effect was startling. The state bands added guitars and keyboards and started dressing sharp. Ahmed and scores of other singers found themselves fronting groups that were now playing home-cooked RnB and jazz, progressing within a few years to soul and funk, yet still clinging to their native Amharic language and the traditional five-note Arabic scale. Out in the audience, afros and bell-bottoms were worn; girls got grounded for wearing mini-skirts. "Just like in Europe, in America and in Swinging London," says Falceto. "It was the same fight between the ancient and the modern like everywhere else."

Then in 1974, with the coup, it was all but silenced. Some artists, like Ahmed and Astatqé found work abroad, others like Alèmayèhu Eshèté and Tilahun Gesesse were made to sing with military bands who were by now back in uniform and playing state-approved music. "Imagine you are a teenager," says Falceto. "This is your time of night for cruising or to visit a club, to dance, to drink, to meet, but suddenly you can't because there's a curfew and it lasts for 18 years. This means that nobody in Ethiopia under 50 has any idea what happened in the 60s."

Those years of repression, civil war and famine have blighted the world's image of Ethiopia and the musical life of Addis today is mired, according to Falceto, in poor imitations of Michael Jackson and Madonna. "They are very ambivalent to their own musical roots even now," he says, "it seems like it belongs to the past backwardness." His Ethiopiques project has been slowly building a following among western audiences. So far there have been 23 CDs as well as an award-winning Very Best of ... album while Jim Jarmusch used a couple of Mulatu Astatqé songs to great "What IS that?" effect on the soundtrack of his film Broken Flowers. Will this new series of concerts heralds a Buena Vista Social Club kind of renaissance for Ethiopian music? Perhaps. But just as important, says Falceto, is that the music finds an audience in its homeland and among the country's diaspora communities. "Ethiopiques is a bridge between the generations," he says. "This was their parents' music — and it's groovy."

Ethiopiques will be appearing at New York's Lincoln Center on August 20 and at the Festival of World Cultures, Dun Laoghaire, Ireland on August 22.