Mulatu Astatke
Mulatu Astatke [ሙላቱ አስታጥቄ] (born on December 19, 1943; surname sometimes spelled Astatqé on French-language releases: Mulatu Astatqé) is an Ethiopian musician and arranger best known as the father of Ethio-jazz.
Born in the western Ethiopian city of Jimma, Mulatu was musically trained in London, New York City, and Boston where he combined his jazz and Latin music interests with traditional Ethiopian music. Astatke led his band Read Full BioMulatu Astatke [ሙላቱ አስታጥቄ] (born on December 19, 1943; surname sometimes spelled Astatqé on French-language releases: Mulatu Astatqé) is an Ethiopian musician and arranger best known as the father of Ethio-jazz.
Born in the western Ethiopian city of Jimma, Mulatu was musically trained in London, New York City, and Boston where he combined his jazz and Latin music interests with traditional Ethiopian music. Astatke led his band while playing vibraphone and conga drums—instruments that he introduced into Ethiopian popular music—as well as other percussion instruments, keyboards and organ. His albums focus primarily on instrumental music, and Astatke appears on all three known albums of instrumentals that were released during Ethiopia's Golden ’70s.
Astatke's family sent the young Mulatu to study engineering in Wales during the late 1950s. Instead, he earned a degree in music through studies at the Welsh Lindisfarne College and then Trinity College of Music in London. In the 1960s, Astatke moved to the United States, where he became the first African student to enroll at Boston's prestigious Berklee College of Music, where he studied vibraphone and percussion.
While living in the US, Astatke became interested in Latin jazz and recorded his first two albums, Afro-Latin Soul, Volumes 1 & 2, in New York City in 1966. The records prominently feature Astatke's vibraphone, backed up by piano and conga drums playing Latin rhythms, and were entirely instrumental, with the exception of the song "I Faram Gami I Faram," which was sung in Spanish. Though these records are almost indistinguishable from other Latin-jazz records of the period, some tracks foreshadow elements of Astatke's later work, and he is credited as having established conga and bongo drums as common elements in Ethiopian popular music.
In the early 1970s, Astatke brought his new sound, which he called Ethio-jazz, back to his homeland while continuing to work in the US. He collaborated with many notable artists in both countries, arranging and playing on recordings by Mahmoud Ahmed, and appearing as a special guest with Duke Ellington and his band during a tour of Ethiopia in 1973.
During this time, Astatke recorded another album in New York, Mulatu of Ethiopia (1972). Meanwhile, the bulk of his recorded material was being released on Amha Eshèté's eponymous Ethiopian label Amha Records in Addis Ababa, which released several Mulatu Astatke singles along with the 1974 album Yekatit Ethio-Jazz and six out of the 10 tracks on that year's Ethiopian Modern Instrumentals Hits compilation. Astatke's records appeared alongside releases by notable Ethiopian vocalists Mahmoud Ahmed, Tlahoun Gèssèssè, Alèmayèhu Eshèté, and others, all of whose music was influenced by the infusion of American jazz and Latin instrumentation that Astatke brought to Ethiopia.
By 1975, Amha Records had ceased production after the Derg military junta forced the label's owner and many other Ethio-jazz luminaries to flee the country. Astatke stuck around long enough to play vibes for Hailu Mergia and the Wallias Band's 1977 album Tche Belew (which featured the original classic "Musicawi Silt") before the Wallas also left Ethiopia to tour internationally. But by the 1980s, Astatke's music was largely forgotten outside of his homeland.
By the early 1990s, many record collectors had rediscovered the music of Mulatu Astatke and were combing stashes of vinyl for copies of his 1970s releases. In 1998, the Parisian record label Buda Musique began to reissue many of the Amha-era Ethio-jazz recordings on compact disc as part of the series ethiopiques, and the first of these reissues to be dedicated to a single artist was Éthiopiques Volume 4: Ethio Jazz & Musique Instrumentale, 1969–1974, Mulatu Astatke. The album brought Astatke's music to a new international audience, perhaps the largest in his career.
His Western audience expanded even further when the 2005 Jim Jarmusch film Broken Flowers featured seven of Astatke's songs, including one performed by Cambodian-American rock band Dengue Fever. National Public Radio used Astatke's instrumentals as beds under or between pieces, notably on the program This American Life. Hip hop artists have also sampled Astatke's songs extensively, samples can be heard in the works of for example Nas, Damian Marley, Kanye West, Cut Chemist, Quantic, Madlib, Oddisee, and Knaan.
After meeting the Massachusetts-based Either/Orchestra in Addis Ababa in 2004, Mulatu began a collaboration with the band with performances in Scandinavia in summer 2006 and London, New York, Germany, Holland, Glastonbury (UK), Dublin, and Toronto in 2008. In the fall of 2008, he collaborated with the London-based psyche-jazz collective The Heliocentrics on the album Inspiration Information Vol. 3, which included re-workings of his earlier Ethio-jazz classics with new material by the Heliocentrics and himself; Mulatu Astatke & The Heliocentrics.
In 2008, Mulatu completed a Radcliffe Institute Fellowship at Harvard University, where he worked on modernizations of traditional Ethiopian instruments and premiered a portion of a new opera, The Yared Opera. Mulatu also served as an Abramowitz Artist-in-Residence at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, delivering lectures and workshops, as well as advising MIT's Media Lab on creating a modern version of the krar, a traditional Ethiopian instrument.
On February 1, 2009, Mulatu Astatke performed at the Luckman Auditorium in Los Angeles with a band that included such notable jazz musicians as Bennie Maupin, Azar Lawrence, and Phil Ranelin. Mulatu also 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. On May 12, 2012, Mulatu received an honorary doctor of music degree from the Berklee College of Music.
Born in the western Ethiopian city of Jimma, Mulatu was musically trained in London, New York City, and Boston where he combined his jazz and Latin music interests with traditional Ethiopian music. Astatke led his band Read Full BioMulatu Astatke [ሙላቱ አስታጥቄ] (born on December 19, 1943; surname sometimes spelled Astatqé on French-language releases: Mulatu Astatqé) is an Ethiopian musician and arranger best known as the father of Ethio-jazz.
Born in the western Ethiopian city of Jimma, Mulatu was musically trained in London, New York City, and Boston where he combined his jazz and Latin music interests with traditional Ethiopian music. Astatke led his band while playing vibraphone and conga drums—instruments that he introduced into Ethiopian popular music—as well as other percussion instruments, keyboards and organ. His albums focus primarily on instrumental music, and Astatke appears on all three known albums of instrumentals that were released during Ethiopia's Golden ’70s.
Astatke's family sent the young Mulatu to study engineering in Wales during the late 1950s. Instead, he earned a degree in music through studies at the Welsh Lindisfarne College and then Trinity College of Music in London. In the 1960s, Astatke moved to the United States, where he became the first African student to enroll at Boston's prestigious Berklee College of Music, where he studied vibraphone and percussion.
While living in the US, Astatke became interested in Latin jazz and recorded his first two albums, Afro-Latin Soul, Volumes 1 & 2, in New York City in 1966. The records prominently feature Astatke's vibraphone, backed up by piano and conga drums playing Latin rhythms, and were entirely instrumental, with the exception of the song "I Faram Gami I Faram," which was sung in Spanish. Though these records are almost indistinguishable from other Latin-jazz records of the period, some tracks foreshadow elements of Astatke's later work, and he is credited as having established conga and bongo drums as common elements in Ethiopian popular music.
In the early 1970s, Astatke brought his new sound, which he called Ethio-jazz, back to his homeland while continuing to work in the US. He collaborated with many notable artists in both countries, arranging and playing on recordings by Mahmoud Ahmed, and appearing as a special guest with Duke Ellington and his band during a tour of Ethiopia in 1973.
During this time, Astatke recorded another album in New York, Mulatu of Ethiopia (1972). Meanwhile, the bulk of his recorded material was being released on Amha Eshèté's eponymous Ethiopian label Amha Records in Addis Ababa, which released several Mulatu Astatke singles along with the 1974 album Yekatit Ethio-Jazz and six out of the 10 tracks on that year's Ethiopian Modern Instrumentals Hits compilation. Astatke's records appeared alongside releases by notable Ethiopian vocalists Mahmoud Ahmed, Tlahoun Gèssèssè, Alèmayèhu Eshèté, and others, all of whose music was influenced by the infusion of American jazz and Latin instrumentation that Astatke brought to Ethiopia.
By 1975, Amha Records had ceased production after the Derg military junta forced the label's owner and many other Ethio-jazz luminaries to flee the country. Astatke stuck around long enough to play vibes for Hailu Mergia and the Wallias Band's 1977 album Tche Belew (which featured the original classic "Musicawi Silt") before the Wallas also left Ethiopia to tour internationally. But by the 1980s, Astatke's music was largely forgotten outside of his homeland.
By the early 1990s, many record collectors had rediscovered the music of Mulatu Astatke and were combing stashes of vinyl for copies of his 1970s releases. In 1998, the Parisian record label Buda Musique began to reissue many of the Amha-era Ethio-jazz recordings on compact disc as part of the series ethiopiques, and the first of these reissues to be dedicated to a single artist was Éthiopiques Volume 4: Ethio Jazz & Musique Instrumentale, 1969–1974, Mulatu Astatke. The album brought Astatke's music to a new international audience, perhaps the largest in his career.
His Western audience expanded even further when the 2005 Jim Jarmusch film Broken Flowers featured seven of Astatke's songs, including one performed by Cambodian-American rock band Dengue Fever. National Public Radio used Astatke's instrumentals as beds under or between pieces, notably on the program This American Life. Hip hop artists have also sampled Astatke's songs extensively, samples can be heard in the works of for example Nas, Damian Marley, Kanye West, Cut Chemist, Quantic, Madlib, Oddisee, and Knaan.
After meeting the Massachusetts-based Either/Orchestra in Addis Ababa in 2004, Mulatu began a collaboration with the band with performances in Scandinavia in summer 2006 and London, New York, Germany, Holland, Glastonbury (UK), Dublin, and Toronto in 2008. In the fall of 2008, he collaborated with the London-based psyche-jazz collective The Heliocentrics on the album Inspiration Information Vol. 3, which included re-workings of his earlier Ethio-jazz classics with new material by the Heliocentrics and himself; Mulatu Astatke & The Heliocentrics.
In 2008, Mulatu completed a Radcliffe Institute Fellowship at Harvard University, where he worked on modernizations of traditional Ethiopian instruments and premiered a portion of a new opera, The Yared Opera. Mulatu also served as an Abramowitz Artist-in-Residence at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, delivering lectures and workshops, as well as advising MIT's Media Lab on creating a modern version of the krar, a traditional Ethiopian instrument.
On February 1, 2009, Mulatu Astatke performed at the Luckman Auditorium in Los Angeles with a band that included such notable jazz musicians as Bennie Maupin, Azar Lawrence, and Phil Ranelin. Mulatu also 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. On May 12, 2012, Mulatu received an honorary doctor of music degree from the Berklee College of Music.
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Tezeta
Mulatu Astatke Lyrics
We have lyrics for 'Tezeta' by these artists:
Asnaqètch Wèrqu እሱ ርቆ ሄዶ ፍቅሩ ከኔ ቀርቶ እሱ ርቆ ሄዶ ፍቅሩ ከኔ…
Helen Berhe መድረሴ ነበር ወደኸኝ ሲጨንቅህ ያኔ ባልወድ አደል ወይ ያንተን እምባ ማየት…
King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard with Mild High Club Tezeta, tezeta Tezeta, tezeta Remember, remember Tezeta, tez…
King Gizzard And The Lizard Wizard; Mild High Club Tezeta, tezeta Tezeta, tezeta Remember, remember Tezeta, tez…
King Gizzard The Lizard Wizard Mild High Club Tezeta, tezeta Tezeta, tezeta Remember, remember Tezeta, tez…
Mahmoud Ahmed ትናንትናን ጥሶ ዛሬን ተንተርሶ ነገንም ተውሶ አምናንም አፍርሶ ይመጣል ትዝታሽ ጏዙን አግበስብሶ…
The lyrics can frequently be found in the comments below or by filtering for lyric videos.
Alieu Bah
This somber joint takes me back to Addis and taking that long bus trip to Shashemane - in the hope of renewal and ever new openings. I’ll never forget sitting at Wonder Cafe in the Bole area at noon time when I discovered this beautiful and eloquent piece of light. It was such a long meaningless day. Meant everything in the end. Peace to Mulatu and all those on the set.
William Trakas
❤
Ahmed Mohmoud
Beautiful story bro and well-wrote . Where are you now? Wish you the best , I just discovered this yesterday and I canr stop listening it.
Chris S
This may be my favorite musical recording of all time.
As a westerner, it's hard to understand the context surrounding the 'tezeta' or 'tizita' genre. It's often compared to American blues because it's a simple form that can be manipulated by a musician to evoke specific feelings of longing or nostalgia. But I'm guessing this comparison is probably missing a lot of context that an Ethiopian person would have. Some 'tezetas' don't sound anything like this recording, but they do evoke a similar mood.
It's also hard to find information about this specific recording. It seems that it appeared on Astatke's album "Plays Ethio-Jazz" but the credits on the back of that LP don't even list Astatke as having played any instrument on the track. And the track says "Opracawonie Janusz Szprot" next to it. That seems to be Polish for "developed by Janusz Szprot" or "elaboration of Janusz Szprot" or something like that. Szprot was a Polish pianist. Is he the one playing piano on this track? It would be kind of a bummer to find out that Astatke didn't even play on this recording.
I'd love to know more about this specific recording session. Who played sax? [Edit: It looks like it was Tesfa Mariam Kidane] What other tracks were recorded during this session? The music is magical in itself, but the recording quality is so perfect - that dusty, intimate feeling really enhances the mood of the music. Would love to hear more tracks recorded at this session, if there are any.
ice la honk
@riseagainphoenix you guys might enjoy this. I thought it was a great idea. They made lots of videos with that vibe in mind: https://youtu.be/s_VDxDdbVbo
JYLO.
Also one of my favorite recordings of all time.
Studio Magnétique
The recording quality just oozes character. It is as close to perfect an example of catching a mood on tape as I've ever heard. It is quite simply beautiful.
Chris S
@riseagainphoenix Thank you for your insight into the recording!
riseagainphoenix
I believe he's the bandleader/conductor and arranger for all of the songs on the Ethiopiques vol. 4 CD, so he might not necessarily have played an instrument on every track but he "created" each one, so to speak. They put the CD together by combining a bunch of old collectors' vinyls of early Astatke, so more info about the recording session might be forever lost to time. But I really agree with you about the sound quality of this recording! That old, almost muffled sound to it really does enhance the nostalgia--it feels like hearing a grandparent or elderly neighbour play a record from another room through a wall. I love it, thank you for highlight that.
vascosousa96
I was listening to this song in the bus, when a thought crossed my mind. My beautiful dog, forever young in my deepest wishes, will someday suffer the same fate as my previous dog, the natural process of death. Interestingly, while listening to it, and instead of freaking out about it of feeling sad, I realized just how lucky I am to have such an amazing companion by my side, and how proud I'll be to accompany him through the end of his life cycle. Love you Baco 🐕❤️