Ethio-Jazz and Mulatu Astatke: Treasures of a Nation
by Trevor Clark
In the East African country of Ethiopia, the people are proud that they do their own thing. Being the only African country never to be colonized by a western power, the culture of Ethiopia has remained distinctive over the centuries. This is apparent in their music. For example, most of the traditional musical instruments from Ethiopia are not found elsewhere on the African continent (Zegeye 5). Many Ethiopians feel that their culture stands out as unique among the many other African ethno-linguistic groups. Therefore, in a country of such cultural purists, it is a wonder that ever since the 1960s the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa has been swinging with that most American of genres – jazz.
However, Ethiopian jazz or Ethio-Jazz for short, is not some American export that has been simply copied by a foreign people. The musicians who record and perform the music consider the genre to be a home-grown phenomenon with strong influences beyond the western sound of jazz. Yet the story of how a distinctive jazz sub-genre developed in the Ethiopian highlands is nevertheless a definitive example of the global world, and how different musics and cultures are profoundly and intimately entwined.
Many scholars have noted that jazz, the music that was developed by African Americans in the United States throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, had always incorporated the African aesthetic into its flavor and style since its beginnings in the American city of New Orleans. Ted Gioia, the renowned American jazz researcher, writes of the roots of the genre in the city when slaves were allowed to perform African rituals for the free people of the town. By the time Buddy Bolden, known as the first jazz musician, was performing in New Orleans around the turn of the 19th century, “this transplanted African ritual still loomed large in the collective memory and oral history of the city’s black community … These memories shaped, in turn, the jazz-performers’ self-image, their sense of what it meant to be an African American musician” (5). Even in the earliest of years in the story of jazz, the cultural exchange with Africa had already started. “By the time Bolden began playing jazz,” Gioia says, “the Americanization of African music had already begun, and with it came the Africanization of American music ... this dynamic, so essential to the history of jazz, remains powerful even in the present day, when African American styles of performance blend seamless with other musics of other cultures, European, Asian, Latin, and coming full circle, African” (5).
Other scholars have also noted that this exchange started early. The ethnomusicologist John Collins says in his article Jazz Feedback to Africa that the “jazzing up” of African music began when freed new-world slaves started returning to West Africa, along with Afro-American and Caribbean sailors who began visiting the ports along the African coast (176). After the invention of the gramophone and radio, and with the many foreign troops stationed in Africa after World War II - the globalization of music was rapidly underway. This new reality was revealed as African musicians began to integrate sounds of the west into traditional African styles. Collins proclaims that “with black American artists looking toward Africa for inspiration, acculturated African music was being turned back to its source” (187).
With such a profound African influence prominent in the development of jazz in the United States, it is little surprise that the music would eventually be heard in Africa. Ethiopian culture, however, stands out among the different African communities as being highly adept to resisting outside influence - so the account of how Ethio-jazz developed into its own style is an unlikely story.
In the 1960s the United States was experiencing a time of great expansion of social consciousness. The American crisis of civil strife and racial nationalism had hit critical mass, and the arts were not immune to change in the new cultural environment. Jazz, the musical style that African Americans had developed into a storied genre over the previous one hundred years, was no different. Even though the African aesthetic was already familiar in jazz, in a show of black national pride some African American jazz artists began to highlight African imagery and sound in their performance and recordings. African instruments began to appear in some of the jazz being heard at the time. Cross-rhythmic structure was beginning to be employed. The use of the pentatonic scales, traditional in African music, was becoming more common. To highlight the significance, African garb was worn during shows (Gioia 45).
At the same time at the Berklee School of Music in Boston, the famous art institution that focuses on jazz and other American music, a student from Ethiopia was immersed in the cultural moment - and integrating his own interpretation of the African aesthetic and sound into jazz. Mulatu Astatke came to the internationally renowned music school in 1962 to study jazz arrangement, which at the time was the only school in the world to house an academic program in the genre (Zegeye 15). He was the first African to attend the school, and there he honed his skills in jazz arrangement. According to Abele Zegeye, a leading scholar on Ethiopian jazz, “Mulatu was the first Ethiopian jazz music-maker to study abroad and thus be exposed to western musical trends” (3). However, Astatke saw how African American jazz artists were integrating African flavors into the genre and this confused Astatke as he did not consider them real Africans (Zegeye 17). He began to develop what he would eventually call Ethio-Jazz partially in response to these American jazz artists who were just beginning to integrate strong African rhythms, that Astatke - and everyone else from Africa - had been hearing their whole lives. At the time that Astatke was becoming an expert in American traditional jazz stylings, he was also heavily influenced by the flavors of Latin jazz. However, in agreement with the Ethiopian sense of national pride, the godfather of Ethio-Jazz never considered the sub-genre anything but wholly Ethiopian. “I use the Latin atmosphere, the Latin touch. But in my opinion I think Ethio-Jazz is African music” (Zegeye 17). It is noted by Zegeye that Latin 3/2 rhythms are already found throughout Africa, and especially in Ethiopian music, so the integration of these rhythms into Ethio-Jazz is not surprising (19).
As the genre was developed, it was Astatke’s plan to take the style back to Ethiopia and “upgrade and promote our music” (Zegeye 15). After graduating the Berklee School of Music, Astatke could have stayed in America and developed his music career. Instead, he moved back to his home country to make his mark on Ethiopian arts and culture. After forming several bands and opening up a club night at a local venue, Astatke soon became a household name in Addis.
Ethio-Jazz is performed using both western and Ethiopian instruments playing over Latin-tinged African rhythms. Western instruments include the Vibraphone, a personal favorite of Astatke, which is an idiophone that is struck by mallets and resembles a large xylophone. During an extensive interview with the Red Bull Music Academy in 2007, he said of the instrument, “vibes is not known well in Africa, even though it’s found in West Africa ... it’s a traditional instrument, which is very similar to a marimba. Vibraphone is a development of those instruments. It’s very strange to Ethiopia” (RBMA). Mulatu also implemented the storied Hammond organ and conga drums, and jazz staples such as the tenor saxophone and electric or stand-up bass. Other instrument standards of American jazz are used in Ethio-Jazz are jazz trumpet and electric piano. A traditional western drum set is common. In the aforementioned interview Astatke says that all these western sounds were “introduced when I went back home with these instruments and changed the arrangements” (RBMA).
Ethio-Jazz artists use these western instruments. But in order to Ethiopianize the genre, or as he put it “to try to create something different”, Astatke started composing his arrangements by including instruments of Ethiopian tradition (Zegeye 17). For example, the Kirar is an Ethiopian chordophone lyre-like instrument with a large bowl as its base. It can be plucked, strummed and even used with a bow. In Ethio-Jazz it is amplified to be able to be heard during performances. A ten string chordophone called the Bagana was also introduced by Astatke, but not without controversy (Zegeye 45). Traditionally used in Orthodox Christian mysticism in Ethiopia, some took it as a sign of disrespect when Astatke started using the instrument during jazz performance (Zegeye 45). The Mbira, which is an African plucked key piano from Zimbabwe, has a cousin in Ethiopia called a Tom, and both instruments are used in Ethio-Jazz – but with added strings and amplification. Astatke says of the instrument, “in Zimbabwe it is called the mbira, which is an entirely different type of African piano … In my experience, of all African instruments, the mbira is the easiest to develop, because you can easily tune it to a piano. So what I did was get seven mbira players, we tuned it to the vibes and it blended so nice” (RBMA). Flute sections are enhanced by the presence of two Ethiopian aerophones - the Mbilta which is a side-blown long flute, and the Washint which is a small bamboo flute with four holes to create the pentatonic scale (Zegeye 19). Also, the drums of Ethiopia grace the Ethio-Jazz stage. For example, the Kebero is a double sided membranophone that is hand held and accompanies the conga drums to form a unique sound.
An Electric Kirar:
An Electric Mbira:
The greatest Ethiopianization of jazz was the merging of the African five-tone (pentatonic) and Western (chromatic) twelve-tone scales. Musical scales may have any number of notes in-between octaves, and different musical cultures implement different systems in arrangement and composition. In the development of Ethio-Jazz, Mulatu Astatke said he was “trying to merge two different cultures. You have five, against twelve-tone music. You really have to be careful when you are playing this or you can easily lose it … it has to blend – the twelve-tone has to really sit nicely with the five tone” (Zegeye 17). This fusion of east-meets-west is what gives Ethio-Jazz its distinctive character. It has the flavor of American jazz, yet you instinctively know that you are hearing something unique. To the western ear, many of the melodies may conjure images of an Egyptian snake-charmer swaying in the hot desert sun with his horn’s pitch riding that familiar yet somehow foreign note scale.
When it all comes together, the result is distinctive in jazz. A famous example is that of “Yèkèrmo Sèw (A Man of Experience and Wisdom)” by Mulatu Astatke. This cover of a song by jazz great Horace Silver is instantly recognizable to even casual jazz fans, and has become a standard in the canon of the genre. The celebrated saxophone note pattern ambles down the pentatonic scale while the drum pattern switches from the 2/3 rhythm to the groovy and stylistic funk drumming reminiscent of a James Brown break.
Another tune that brings all the flavors into one pot is simply called “Ethio-Jazz” by Mulatu Astatke. This song is a perfect example of how Latin jazz flavors were incorporated into the genre. The guitar lick rocks the pentatonic scale, while the drum line follows a Latin 2/3 pattern.
The Ethio-Jazz scene, centered in the country’s capital of Addis Ababa, began to flourish in the late 1960s. Nightclubs and dancehalls were swinging nightly with the sounds of the newest Ethiopian musical movement. This was possible because Emperor Haile Selassie was frantically renewing the capital’s downtown in the last days of his regime in an attempt to prop up his failing government (Zegeye 24). The scene is Addis Ababa was in full swing, when a critical blow struck the musical community in Ethiopia. In 1974 a military junta toppled Haile Selassie and formed a pro-Soviet regime that put serious restrictions on everyday life in the country (Zegeye 24). The arts became strictly controlled. Only government approved material would be publicly performed or broadcast. According to the junta, music was to be used as an “instrument for class struggle and revolutionary agitation” (Zegeye 24). A harsh curfew was implemented, which all but shut down the club scene in the capital. Many of Ethiopia’s artists left the country, especially Ethio-Jazz musicians. Although the developing Ethiopian jazz scene of the 1970s was halted in its tracks, the fact that there was an artist exodus from the country has made Ethio-Jazz popular in the diaspora. Ethiopian expats have helped establish scenes in jazz hubs like London and New York. As a result the genre has a large following by fans around the world, and scenes have popped up in interesting places. For example, the Addis Ababa Band is an Ethio-Jazz group from Denmark, and Mulatu himself has sat in with the band Black Jesus Experience from Melbourne, Australia. The genre has been sampled by electronic artists such as Cut Chemist and MadLib. Hip-Hop and Reggae artists Nas and Damien Marly sampled Mulatu’s famous “Yègellé Tezeta” on their 2010 song “As We Enter”. Other hip-hop artists that have sampled Ethio-Jazz include Kanye West, Common, and by the Somali rapper K’Naan.
Although most Ethiopian jazz musicians left the country after the coup, Mulatu Astatke stayed behind. He remained performing Ethio-Jazz during allowed hours, and when the communist government began to let music be taught in state sanctioned schools - Astatke earned a position teaching. According to Zegeye, soon after the military junta was finally overthrown in 1991 Astatke opened up the Mulatu Astatke African Jazz Village in Addis Ababa to teach and encourage the arts (29). To this day the school teaches Ethio-Jazz and holds concerts and exhibitions. Of a recent show a New York Times article said, “before the concert, Mr. Astatke spoke enthusiastically about the future of the genre he invented and the next generation that is embracing it. ‘There are a lot of young musicians playing Ethio-jazz,’ Mr. Astatke said in his low, raspy voice. ‘It’s developing, which I think feels great.’”
This represents a full circle for Ethio-Jazz, and for jazz itself. After all, “the African Diaspora gave birth to jazz, smitten African musicians adopted it to their own purposes, and jazz replenishes itself by looking to them – the circle never closes” (Zegeye 31).
References Cited:
Collins, Edmund John. "Jazz Feedback to Africa." American Music 5.2 (1987): 176-93.
Doyle, Richard B. "In Ethiopia’s Capital, a Resurgent Jazz Scene." New York Times 16 Nov.
Gioia, Ted. The History of Jazz. New York: Oxford UP, 2011. Print.
"Mulatu Astatke, Ethiopian Knight." Interview by Monk One. Red Bull Music Academy. Lecture Series, 2007. Web. 24 June 2016.
Zegeye, Abebe. Mulatu Astatke: The Making of Ethio Jazz. Pretoria: UNISA, 2009. Print.