Ethiopia is located in Eastern Africa, bordering Sudan, Eritrea, Jibuti, Somalia, Kenya, and South Sudan.
The Amharic language is the official language of the Republic of Ethiopia. It is also spoken in Eritrea. The Amharic language is popular with many reggae musicians, who are Rastafarians. They learn Amharic because they consider it to be a sacred language. Musicians like Lincoln Thompson and Misty in Roots have written songs in Amharic.
The roots of Ethiopia’s jazz tradition can be traced back to the 1950s with Nerses Nalbandian. When tasked to compose music for Ethiopia’s National Opera Theatre, Nerses Nalbandian had to figure out how to harmonize local sounds in big band arrangements without destroying the music’s authenticity. Ingeniously, Nalbandian set about solving this complex task, given Ethiopian music’s unique scales, by borrowing from Western instrumentation.
Mulatu Astatke later expanded upon these developments by combining the unusual pentatonic scale-based melodies of traditional Ethiopian music with the 12-note harmonies and instrumentation of Western music. Mulatu Astatke gave birth to Ethio-Jazz or Ethiojazz, a fascinating combination of modal melodies and diminished harmonies with a funk six-beat groove. Indeed, Ethiojazz was a quirky Ethiopian interpretation of funk, soul, jazz, and rock.
In the early 1970s, Ethiopia experienced a golden age of popular music with the rise of Ethio-jazz At the center of the scene was vocalist Mahmoud Ahmed. His 1975 album Erè Mèla Mèla is a classic album from the golden age of Ethiopian music, and was the first East African release from that era to be embraced by a wide-ranging Western audience. In the late 1990s, dozens of Ahmed’s recordings were reissued on the popular Éthiopiques compilations put together by French label Buda Musique.
Ethiopian Musicians
Gigi, Girma Beyene, Mahmoud Ahmed, Minase Hailu, Mulatu Astatke, Neway Debebe, Roha Band, Saliha Sami, Seleshe Damessae (a.k.a. Sileshi Demissie, Seleshe Demassae).
