Biography

Mahmoud Ahmed

Since the European release of ‘Eré Mèla Mèla’ (1986 Crammed Discs / expanded and remastered 1999 Buda Musique), Mahmoud Ahmed (CD1/7,8 & CD2/12,13) along with Aster Aweke and Gigi, is without doubt the Ethiopian artist least unknown to the western public. This influential album, originally released in Ethiopia in 1975, was for years the only example of modern Ethiopian music known in the ‘west’ and has been praised by critics from the New Musical Express to The New York Times.

Such a positive note, struck about such a country at such a time, created plenty of reverb. The country had been so thoroughly trashed by the media’s feeding-frenzy, which spewed out a mix of horror and pious pity, bitter denunciation and humanitarian appeals, wallet-tickling clichés and refusal of identity. In one brutal swoop, TV-reality transformed Ethiopia into a cursed nation, forsaken by God and by man – this country founded on an orthodox Christianity that goes back 16 centuries. It must be remembered that those most closely concerned, the Ethiopians, were profoundly mortified to have been represented as beggars plagued by the whims of climate, haggard and empty-handed, marooned in an apocalyptic desert – they who for the most part inhabit lush, green highlands. They who had developed a strong and unique culture on a continent to which they barely belong.

Music, in particular, plays a strong integrating role in this society and Mahmoud is a true veteran of the scene; he began appearing with the Imperial Bodyguard Band in 1962-63 and has never stopped since, accompanied by just about every Ethiopian musician of note. His “melancholy blues, piercingly minimalist country airs, brassy, danceable urban jazz, heart-wrenching, off-key crooners: a rich and stirring patchwork of sounds, crossing afro-beat, latino-swing moves and Eastern arabesques” (Anaïs Prosaïc) have, more recently, been reappraised with acclaimed, energetic performances at Womad, and as a well-deserved and popular winner of the ‘Africa’ category at the BBC Radio 3 Awards for World Music in 2007.

Mulatu Astatqé

In the Ethiopian musical world, Mulatu Astatqé (CD1/2,3,6 & CD2/5) is atypical, totally unique and a legend unto himself. Musician, arranger, composer, innovator, melder of influences, organiser, Mulatu’s true distinction lies in his efforts for instrumental music – this in a country where culture and tradition virtually ignore it.

Born in south-west Ethiopia in 1943, at the age of 17 he seized the opportunity to study music in the UK and USA where he caught the latin and jazz bug. In New York he founded the ‘Ethiopian Quintet’ and recorded two LPs both entitled ‘Afro-Latin Soul’ (Worthy Records, 1966). These were a full six years before the Manu Dibango’s ‘Soul Makossa’, and longer still before the flamboyant entrance of Fèla Kuti.

He returned to Ethiopia at the end of the 1960s, when “Swinging Addis” was at its height, a pioneer already crowned with the laurels of overseas learning. However, for the past thirty years, Mulatu’s ambivalent position as a musician-scholar, an intimidating shadow and official musician throughout the various regimes, has hampered the full flowering of his talent. For Ethiopian audiences, rather than his personal output, it is his arrangements for Tlahoun Gèssèssè and others that have earned him recognition.

Alèmayèhu Eshèté

Along with Mahmoud and Tlahoun Gèssèssè, Alèmayèhu Eshèté (CD1/8,9) is one of the most prolific singers in Ethiopian recorded music. Star vocalist of the Police Orchestra from 1960, he became one of the first artists to leave that institution and join the young guard of independent bands. Often described as the ‘Ethiopian James Brown’ or the ‘Ethiopian Elvis’, for his style and stage presence as well as for his music, Alèmayèhu has long symbolised modernist Ethiopia: in love with rhythm’ n’ blues and soul music, but still keeping hold of the unique roots of millennial Abyssinia.

Gétatchèw Mèkurya

Gétatchèw Mèkurya (CD2/8,10) was not the only one to adapt those furious solos for the saxophone but he remains, in the annals of modern Ethiopian music, the symbol of shellèla. Nicknamed “Negus of Saxophone” and a real giant – both musically and physically – he even wears the symbolic trappings of the genre: a military cape symbolising the pelt of a killed animal, and headgear resembling a lion’s mane. Beyond the military references however, here we encounter a musical form that is daring, improvisational, angry and impetuous, where each melisma spirals dizzyingly towards less structure and greater freedom. Without resorting to clichés, shellèla saxophone was a sort of free jazz before its time. Gétatchèw remembers trying out the first heady strains in 1952-53 but still knows nothing of Ornette Coleman or Albert Ayler of the 60s.

Tlahoun Gèssèssè

Let’s say it straight away: although he is still unknown to Western audiences, for Ethiopians Tlahoun Gèssèssè (CD1/12 & CD2/2,9) is THE VOICE. Even more than Mahmoud Ahmed, Alèmayèhu Eshèté or Mulatu Astatqé, Tlahoun is the absolute and unequalled icon for an entire country, rising above its ethnic or linguistic divides. The first-ever pan-Ethiopian star, he has embodied such non-stop unanimity since the end of the 1950s that he is a role-model and a point of reference. Aside from the phenomenal and innate power of his vocal talent and his presence on-stage, several factors have contributed to the rise of this living legend.

Born in Addis Ababa on 27 September 1940 to an Amhara father and an Oromo mother, Tlahoun’s membership in both of his country’s major ethnic groups facilitated his adoption by the Ethiopian public. Although most of his songs are sung in Amharic, his recordings in Oromo have been many. Tlahoun heads up the list of Ethiopian discography – no fewer than 73 songs recorded on vinyl, not to mention his 150 to 200 early songs recorded and sold as tapes from the end of the 1950s, plus a dozen original cassettes released since the middle of the 1970s.

In 1954 he joined the prestigious Hagèr Feqer Mahbèr Theatre and four years later he was recruited by the no less prestigious Imperial Body Guard Band, certainly one of the most modern and creative bands of the post-war period. It should be noted that in imperial Ethiopia it was absolutely impossible to set up as an independent singer or band. There was no alternative other than to join an institutional band, e.g. those of the Army, the Police or the Addis Ababa Municipal Theatre, all more or less under the control of the Emperor and his bureaucracy. It was not until the end of the 1960s that the first independent small rock and soul ensembles timidly began to appear.

It was with the Imperial Body Guard Band that Tlahoun earned his stripes, racking up hit after hit and building a repertoire so emblematic that every Ethiopian recognises in Tlahoun the spokesman for his own emotions, whether they be to do with love or political innuendo. The latter got Tlahoun into serious trouble with successive rulers, despite (and because of) his popularity. In particular, he was arrested and imprisoned after the failed coup d’état of December 1960 in which the Imperial Guard was heavily implicated. His hit song of the time, “Altchalkoum” (I can’t stand it anymore), veiled as a lover’s complaint, was in fact a protest against the imperial regime. Banned under Haile Sellassie, the song was again outlawed during the military-Stalinist ‘Derg’, because, stubbornly attached to its liberty of expression, the Ethiopian public is unequalled in its ability to express itself and make demands via the double-meaning of the slightest refrain. During this dark time for Ethiopia, Tlahoun, like many artists, was regularly harassed by the authorities who, between censorship and propaganda, saw no other role for the artist than to follow orders.

Tsegué-Maryam Guèbrou

Born Yèwèbdar Guèbrou on 12 December 1923 in Addis Ababa, into a literary family, Tsegué-Maryam Guèbrou (CD2/1) in no way belongs to an azmari, or troubadour, heritage but was initially part of Ethiopian high society, a mix of imperial nobility, distinguished civil servants, courtesans and opportunists – a hotbed of power and intrigue, intelligence and glamour. Like her father before her, she was educated in Switzerland where she first learned piano and violin. She returned to Ethiopia in 1933 but in May 1936 Mussolini’s troops occupied Addis Ababa and in early 1937, the young Yèwèbdar and all her family were deported to Italy – several members of this illustrious family had already gone underground to join the resistance against the fascist occupiers.

In Cairo after the war, and under the tutelage of Polish violinist, Alexander Kontorowicz, she was again able to take up her musical studies but, suffering from the stifling heat of the Egyptian capital, Yèwèbdar returned to Ethiopia in 1944. Alexander Kontorowicz made the same journey. This is not insignificant, since Emperor Haile Sellassie immediately
appointed him as his Musical Director, entrusting Kontorowicz with the reorganisation of the Imperial Body Guard Band and with responsibility for organising concert evenings at the Palace. Kontorowicz stands out as one of the foreign teachers who most influenced the development of modern music in Ethiopia.

The Emperor, however, upset that one of his sons wanted to become Yèwèbdar’s benefactor and sponsor her piano studies in England, vetoed this project and Yèwèbdar sank into a deep depression. Her health declined to the point that she was administered the last rites. From then on she withdrew from the world and, in September 1948, secretly fled the capital to become a nun where she took the name Emahoy Tsegué-Maryam. But her health could not survive monastic life, so she agreed to teach in an Addis orphanage and was there able to take up music again. She made several recordings, the proceeds of which were always donated to the poor.

Girma Bèyènè

Though he only recorded four songs as a vocalist, the figure of Girma Bèyènè (CD1/4 & CD2/6) dominated the heyday of vinyl record production (1969-1978). Whereas the name of Mulatu Astatqé appears in only 40 or so recordings, Girma is credited as the arranger of more than 60 titles and participated in at least 25 other tracks as pianist or composer. Beyond the statistics however, it is the differences in their styles which counts. The prolific, self-taught Girma innovated by simply modelling the lightness of pop into the image of a changing Ethiopia … seized by the foreign devil. His playing is entirely inspired by Anglo-American pop. Simple and effective, he was a man of his time.

After a brief stint at the Haile Sellassie Theatre, Girma got his real start with the Ras Band, later moving to the Girmas Band and the All Star Band. However it was with Alèmayèhu Eshèté and the Alèm-Girma Band in the early 70s that he reached his greatest output. Finally, in 1981 during a concert tour in the USA with the Wallias Band, he chose to stay, forsaking the ‘paradise’ of Mengistu Haile Mariam, president of Ethiopia and leader of the infamous ‘Derg’ or committee of military officers which ruled the country 1974-1991.

Admired for his musical elegance as well as for his taste in clothes, Girma none the less met one of the saddest fates in Ethiopian music. Though his countrymen still remember his charming voice and his instinct for pop, they have completely forgotten his role as an innovator. This modest, self-educated man, the son of a good family and leading independent arranger of the 1960s, sank into the limbo of the anonymous Ethiopian diaspora. We hope that éthiopiques will contribute to bringing him the recognition he is due.

The Walias Band

Active from the early 1970s until the beginning of the 1990s The Walias Band (CD1/10) is a seminal band on the Ethiopian scene. Made up of musicians from the Venus Band (so called because they were employed by the Venus Club) and later Shèbèlé’s Band (from the Wabi Shèbèlé Hôtel) it was one of the first independent groups able to impose their own name upon the venues that hired them. Its longest lasting members were the saxophonist Mogès Habté, bass-player Mèlakè Gèbrè, drummer Tèmarè Harègou and trumpeter Yohannes Tèkola. Girma Bèyènè was also an active member of Wallias.

In 1981 The Walias Band was the first modern Ethiopian group to tour the community of Ethiopian exiles in the USA. Deciding not to return to Mengistu’s dreadful ‘paradise’, Girma Bèyènè, Mogès Habté, Mèlakè Gèbrè and Haylu Mergia chose to remain in exile on the East Coast. There Mogès released a CD accompanied by a booklet rich in biographical and historical information. In it he credits his major influences: King Curtis, Junior Walker and Maceo Parker. For a further ten years Yohannes Tèkola et Tèmarè Harègou continued to play, making the Wallias Band, together with the Roha Band and Ethio Star, one of the best modern groups during the sombre ‘Derg’ period.

Bahta Gèbrè-Heywèt

Born April 1943 in Adigrat, Tigray province, Northern Ethiopia, Bahta Gèbrè-Heywèt (CD1/5) became a singer after a successful wager: egged on by friends, he was selected, along with Girma Bèyènè, from a field of 70 candidates, to become a singer with the Ras Band. He was barely 18 years old. The Ras Band was then one of the first hotel bands composed entirely of Ethiopians – excellent musicians who came from the first Imperial Body Guard Band and who had resigned after the failed coup d’état of 1960. The Ras Hotel was the city’s most elegant, but competition was fierce and in 1965 the orchestra was lured away by the brand new Ghion Hotel and renamed the Ghion Band. In 1972 Bahta gave up singing to become an accountant at the Ambassador Cinema. He still lives in Addis Ababa and hopes one day to
return to the stage.

Ayaléw Mesfin / Black Lion Band

With about twenty singles and a dozen tapes released since 1974, Ayaléw Mesfin (CD1/11) deserves a retrospective collection of his own, so distinct is his style: passionate, almost angry and ultra-fast – a sort of crypto-punk before its time. Indeed his first band was named Fetan Band – Speed Band. Singer, author, composer, arranger, he was later a faithful member of the Tequr Ambessa / Black Lion Band, every bit as speedy. Ayaléw Music Shop is still one of the best-stocked shops in Addis Ababa with collectors’ items from the golden years – though the singer left some years ago to try his luck in the USA.

Muluqèn Mèllèssè / Dahlak Band

The phenomenally precocious Muluqèn Mèllèssè (CD2/7) was just 13 when he began his singing career in 1966. Like many vocalists of the period, he began with one of the Police bands, and went on to sing with the first wave of non-institutional groups founded by nightclub owners. Emigrating to the United States, Muluqèn abandoned his career in the mid-1980s and embraced Pentacostalism. Ethiopian nostalgia fuels endless rumours of a comeback, but none has yet materialised.

There exists, among Ethiopia’s numerous vocal genres, a form of singing that is purely warlike: epic and declamatory, harsh and hoarse-voiced, it is known as shellèla. In the past, and up until the 20th century, it was de rigueur to belt out a shellèla before battle, in order to galvanise one’s troops. Anybody could sing a shellèla and the genre, to this day, is well-loved by Ethiopians.

Sèyfou Yohannès

Sèyfou Yohannès (CD2/11), who died at age 26, recorded just six songs on vinyl. An independent pioneer he, along with Alèmayèhu Eshèté, was dubbed the Ethiopian James Brown. Sèyfou sang in particular with the Soul Ekos, the quintessential non-institutional band and his aura of Ethiopian soul-man is perceptible in this version of Mèla Mèla.

Tèsfa-Maryam Kidané

The saxophonist Tèsfa-Maryam Kidané (CD1/1) was one of the most remarkable stylists of his generation and between 1965 and 1972 emerged as a brilliant, inspired player. He has an “American” ear, influenced by the American radio programmes broadcast from the US base in Asmara and, with an eye toward improving his playing, was one of the first Ethiopian musicians to go to the USA. Today he still works there, mainly in the clubs of the Ethiopian and Eritrean diasporas.

Menelik Wèsnatchèw

Menelik Wèsnatchèw (CD1/13) started out in 1961 at the Haile Sellassie I Theatre under the brilliant tutelage of Nersès Nalbandian, before joining Girma Bèyènè’s Ras Band in late-1965 / early 1966. He belongs firmly to the modernists who made their first, bold mark in the 1960s. In 1979, he took up a job in Sudan, leaving behind the Wallias Band and the comfort of the Hilton to flee Mengistu’s Ethiopia, and with a brief Egyptian interlude in 1983-85, he remained in exile in the Sudan until the fall of the dictator.

Tèwèldè Rèdda

A distinguished krar (lyre) player, Tèwèldè Rèdda (CD2/3) is also a pioneering guitarist, with a highly individual sound and phrasing. Tèwèldè joined the Eritrean resistance before going into exile and, since 1989, has been living in Holland, where he has refugee status. Having been responsible for one of the early musical anthems that led up to Eritrean ndependence, one can only hope that an Eritrea finally at peace, and at peace with itself, will one day grant him his rightful place among the country’s musical greats.

Alèmu Aga

Although commonly known as “King David’s Harp”, the bèguèna is not actually a harp, but an oversized lyre with ten strings. It is also probably the oldest musical instrument played in Ethiopia. According to legend, it is descended from the harp that the future King David played 3,000 years ago to soothe the insomnia of his father-in-law Saul, the first King of the Hebrews. And David’s grandson Menelik I, the son of Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, is said to have introduced the bèguèna into Abyssinia at the same time as founding the Solomonic dynasty.

Converting in the 4th Century, Ethiopia was one of the first Christian realms in history and the close ties that link the bèguèna to Ethiopia’s Coptic Orthodox religion lend a certain credence to this legend. Until the 20th Century, it was played mainly by monks or educated clerics, and by the nobility. Emperors Téwodros (Theodore II), Menelik II or Haile-Sellassie were all known to dabble in it.

Precisely because of its sacred and aristocratic origins, the bèguèna took a serious nosedive under the Stalinist and anti-religious dictatorship that ruled Ethiopia after the 1974 overthrow of Haile-Sellassie. For nearly 20 years, it was banished from the radio waves and from television, its playing confined to private homes and Alèmu Aga (CD2/14) in particular, was forced to abandon the bèguèna classes he was giving at the National Music School.

Alèmu was born in 1950 to a modest family in Entotto, in the highlands surrounding Addis Ababa. He sings religious songs, fables, folk-tales, and his own poems. The words’ multifarious meanings evoke life’s vanity, societal problems, or deliver veiled critiques. This art of double-entendre is a means of self-expression deeply rooted in the Ethiopian psyche. Known as ‘wax-and-gold’, it is related to clerical teachings and is the result of the difficult conditions imposed upon freedom of speech in a country chronically beset by political turmoil, internecine struggles, endlessly shifting alliances between feudal rulers, princes, petty kings and other warlords, all of which have forced poets, writers and artists to hide behind their poetic license. Meditative, devotional or uplifting for some, “mind-blowing” for others, bèguèna music is without doubt an otherworldly experience for Western ears.

Francis Falceto, Le Val David, France