A Deep Meditation

Mulatu Astatke - Ethiopiques, Vol. 4- Ethio Jazz & Musique Instrumentale, 1969-1974

Seriously chill, eastern flavor psych jazz. Grape Juice Jess B hipped me to this cd, Gotsta gives props. Diggers and Portishead fans take note.

Loving this right now. Gully Jazz. Couchsurfing in another dimension, etc. I'm feeling this, and seeing as how I splurged on some more zip disks for the MPC...

But I can't hype this enough.

A Little Background From allmusic.com

To some, the term "Ethiopian jazz" might seem impossible; after all, it's a very American form. But what's truly surprising isn't the fact that these musicians play jazz so well, but the range of jazz they manage, from the George Benson-ish guitar workout of "Munaye" to the twisting sax of "Tezeta." Really, though, it's more Jimmy Smith than Duke Ellington in its aim (although Ellington is on the cover, on stage with Mulatu Astatke, the bandleader behind all these selections). The grooves often smoke rather than swing, with some fiery drumming, most notably on "Yekermo Sew," and throughout the guitar is very much to the fore as a rhythm instrument. Perhaps the most interesting cut, however, is "Yekatit," from 1974, which is Astatke's tribute to the burgeoning revolution which would oust Emperor Haile Sellassie. Some of these pieces, certainly "Dewel," has seen U.S. release before; the track appeared in 1972 on Mulatu of Ethiopia, which was Astatke's third American LP, showing that jazz aficionados, at least, had an appreciation for what he was achieving in the horn of Africa. Given that many of his musicians had graduated from police and military bands, they knew their instruments well, and had plenty of practice time, which shows in the often inventive solos that dot the tracks. Varied, occasionally lyrical, but interesting throughout, this shines a fabulous spotlight on a hidden corner of jazz.

A Little Background From Wikipedia:

Mulatu Astatke (surname also spelled Astatqé) is an Ethiopian musician and arranger. He is known as the father of Ethio-jazz. Born in 1943 in the western Ethiopian city of Jimma, Mulatu was musically trained in London, New York City, and Boston, where he was the first African student at Berklee College of Music. He would later combine his jazz and Latin music influences with traditional Ethiopian music.

He has worked with many influential jazz artists such as Duke Ellington during the 1970s. After meeting the Massachusetts-based Either/Orchestra in Addis Ababa in 2004, Mulatu began a collaboration with the band which continues today, with the most recent performances in Scandinavia in summer 2006 & London, New York, Germany, Holland, Glastonbury (UK), Dublin and Toronto in summer 2008. In the autumn of 2008, he collaborated with London-based Psyche-Jazz collective, The Heliocentrics on an album 'Inspiration Information Vol. 3' which included re-workings of his earlier Ethio-Jazz classics with new material by The Heliocentrics and himself. Mulatu's signature instrument is the vibraphone.

In 2005, his music appeared on the soundtrack to the Jim Jarmusch film Broken Flowers. In addition, Volume 4 of the Ethiopiques series is devoted entirely to Mulatu's music. Mulatu has also produced songs for many artists from East Africa, including Mahmoud Ahmed.

Mulatu released a two-disc set to be sold exclusively to passengers of Ethiopian Airlines, with the first disc being a compilation of the different styles from different regions of Ethiopia and the second being studio originals.

In 2007 and 2008, Mulatu completed a Radcliffe Institute Fellowship at Harvard Universityopera, "The Yared Opera."¹ Mulatu also recently served as an Abramowitz Artist-in-Residence at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, MA. In addition to a lecture and workshops, Mulatu served as an advisor to the MIT Media Lab on creating a modern version of the krar, a traditional Ethiopian instrument, for which he will return to MIT briefly in spring 2009 to check on its progress.² where he worked on modernizations of traditional Ethiopian instruments and premiered a portion of a new

On February 1, 2009, Mulatu Astatke performed at the Luckman Auditorium in Los Angeles with a band including such notable jazz musicians as Bennie Maupin, Azar Lawrence, and Phil Ranelin.