Mulatu Astatke — Mulatu
Mulatu of Ethiopia · 1972
Label: Worthy Records / Strut · Genre: Jazz / Ethio-Jazz · From: Addis Ababa, East Africa
Mulatu Astatke studied at Berklee College of Music in Boston — the first African student admitted. He brought jazz harmony, Latin percussion, and Western arrangements back to Addis Ababa and fused them with Ethiopian pentatonic scales and traditional rhythms to create Ethio-jazz. Mulatu of Ethiopia, recorded in New York in 1972, is the pivotal album where that fusion fully crystallised. The title track opens the record with Mulatu’s signature vibraphone weaving across congas and organ, mapping out a sound that belonged to no single continent.
Did you know: Astatke’s recordings were largely unavailable outside Ethiopia for decades because the Derg military government that seized power in 1974 had no interest in distributing them internationally. A French producer discovered hundreds of Ethiopian recordings deteriorating in Addis Ababa archives in the 1990s, leading to the landmark Éthiopiques reissue series that brought Mulatu’s music to a global audience.
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