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// Mulatu Astatke 
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Ethio-Jazzman
Ethiopian music legend Mulatu Astatke invented Ethio-Jazz. With a whole new generation of fans and collaborators he’s just as innovative today.
Master musician and composer, Mulatu Astatke, is fresh from Addis Ababa. He has flown into London from Ethiopia to do press on his forthcoming album Mulatu Steps Ahead and to attend DJ Gilles Peterson’s annual Worldwide Awards and celebrate Mulatu Astatke/The Heliocentrics’ Inspiration Information being voted Album Of The Year.
Half a century has passed since Mulatu Astatke first coined the name ‘Ethio-Jazz’ and remarkable as it might seem, his music is a greater source of inspiration than ever. For many of us - crate diggers and global music fans alike - Mulatu’s music seeped into our consciousness via Vol 4 of Francis Falceto’s seminal Ethiopiques CD series. That album led us to classic recordings like Mulatu of Ethiopia, the 1972 release on Worthy Records. Since then we’ve had The Collected Works of Mulatu Astatke and New York – Addis – London: The Story Of Ethio Jazz 1965-1975 plus the acclaimed soundtrack for Jim Jarmusch’s film ‘Broken Flowers’. Following on from his recent recordings with the Either/Orchestra and The Heliocentrics, there are unreleased, studio sessions with Basement Jaxx and Berlin based Jazzanova.
An early clip of Mulatu Astatke on Ethiopian national TV (ETV)
We rendezvous in the Barbican Centre. It’s a venue that has hosted his music and he’s proud to have played there. Mulatu has all the grace and the bearing of a cultural ambassador. There is a genuine warmth in his smile and I feel more than happy to be in the presence of the man who has given the world Ethio-Jazz. He is no stranger to London. In fact, his formative musical years were spent in this city. Alongside a formal musical education at Trinity College he was “good friends” with Soho’s jazz elite - Frank Holder, Tubby Hayes and Joe Harriott. It was an education that adequately prepared him for encounters to come on the thriving mid-Sixties NYC jazz scene.
The music from his forthcoming album, Mulatu Steps Ahead, is swirling around my head as we settle into the conversation. Recorded over a two year period, between 2008 and 2009, in London, Boston and Addis, Mulatu’s music is about balance. It’s how he combines cultures. He grins and declares, ‘Yes, it’s the compositions and the arrangements. It’s how we approach the music. Many people are doing what I am doing but they mostly feel like two cultures where one is superimposed on the other. It’s the character of the five tones of Ethiopian music within the twelve of western music and how that is written. I am very careful. You have to be sure you don’t lose the essence… the character… that belongs to the Ethiopian scales. The melodies of the notes must not be lost. I describe my improvisations as an explosion of the tones of Ethio-Jazz!”
Back in 1958, Mulatu was the first African student at Berklee College of Music in Boston and today he is an advisor for African scholarships at the school. In recent times he has participated in the prestigious Radcliffe Institute Fellowship at Harvard University and served as an Abramowitz Artist-in-Residence at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
“Right now I am back in Addis Ababa and it is very beautiful.” continues Mulatu. He is greatly relieved that that the dark, repressive days that span the end of HIM Haile Selassie’s reign and the dogmatism of his Marxist military successors have drawn to a close. He is working in TV, where he acts as a musical advisor and is very keen to revive his English speaking African Jazz Village radio show.
“I am happy to be home and I am working with the WALTA Information Centre on the World African Jazz Village, an institute that will do musical research, organize forums and festivals and teach advanced jazz studies. We will also teach people who just want to learn music, not just those who want to pursue music as a profession. We have access to an amphitheatre that holds 2000 people in the centre of Addis Ababa. We have many theatres and performance spaces but they have mostly been curated by authors and playwrights. The music has been neglected. We will work with young musicians and it will be a centre for the music of East Africa… not just Ethiopia.
“We already have twenty pianos but we need more resources. We are looking for sponsors now. When I am in London I would love to discuss with the Barbican the possibility of developing an exchange programme. It would be so interesting. Also when I am in the States doing my research I will be seeking assistance to develop the project. I am already talking to musicians and friends to get them to come over and have a holiday and teach for a couple of months. I would like to open the Village with a concert by myself with The Heliocentrics.”
Mulatu Astatke and The Heliocentrics live - Yekermo Sew
“Today, this music is so great in the world,” declares the Father Of Ethio-Jazz. “The British are playing Ethio-Jazz…Germans are playing Ethio-Jazz….the Dutch…the Americans….the Swedish… the Danish… they are all playing this music. I have played in Europe, Tokyo, Thailand, Latin America, Cuba, most counties in African and I am about to play in the only continent left - Australia. I am surprised with what is going on. A film company want to do a movie about me and Ethio-Jazz, Also, a book has just been published by UNISA in South Africa called The Making Of Ethio-Jazz. In America, where I work with Either/Orchestra I also opened the Timeless Composer/Arranger series at the Charles Luckman Fine Arts Complex in Los Angeles. It was so beautiful. Great musicians like Bernie Maupin, Azar Lawrence, Phil Ranelin and wonderful percussionists from Latin America.”
Mulatu Astake is above all an African musician. He is proud of his roots and he is as happy playing a club like Cargo as he is performing at the Glastonbury Festival or The Lincoln Center. So, if you are not aware of his music check out those old school Ethiopiques recordings and snap up the Heliocentrics set. If you’re a fan, then check the new album, seek out the book and try to score one of those limited edition Timeless Box Sets which also includes the excellent ‘Ma Dukes’ – a celebration of J Dilla’s music - and a tribute to the great Arthur Verocai.
Mulatu Astake – Mulatu Steps Ahead
is out on 29 March 2010 on Strut Records
Paul Bradshaw / Straight No Chaser
ethio-jazz
// ALSO
- Inspiration Information / 02
- Inspiration Information / 03
- Afrorock
- New Awards for World Music
- Gilles Peterson, Gilles Peterson DJ Chart - Worldwide selections
- WOMAD at the TOWER OF LONDON 19 & 20 September 2009 - win tickets!
- DJ Floro, Chart
- Quantic and his Combo Barbaro album launch tour starts Friday 5 June at the ICA
- Darbar Festival, Darbar | Arts Culture Heritage – Book
// ALL MULATU ASTATKE'S INTERVIEWS
Ethio-Jazzman
17/02/2010
// LINKS
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