The Return of Live Music

After a recent very pleasant conversation with the always amiable Francis Falceto, I was fortunate to receive a CD containing all the publicity he had collected over his 20 years of promoting Ethiopian music. Amongst the many hundreds of scans and texts contained within I found a folder called ‘The Very Best of Ethiopiques’ which I immediately opened with great interest.

While other folders had many long and detailed articles relating to the Ethiopiques artists and the individual Ethiopiques releases, the folder I was browsing through contained mostly short and predicable reviews from mainstream media sources. Then I found this:

Forum Threat Title: ‘How much are the Ethiopiques Artists Getting?’
“Given that Union Square licensed the material from Buda (…) how much do you think the original artists/songwriters (or if dead, their families) are getting for their labours? (…) One option would be for Union Square to link up with Fairtrade to discuss partnership possibilities”.

The answer in the forum came not from USM but from the owner of the forum, Charlie Gillett, who replied “Hmm, I wonder what the folks at Union Square will make of this? As they are so far down the licensing line, I don’t think they have any moral responsibilities to the artists beyond paying royalties to Buda (…) Most of the artists would have recorded for session fees at best. I can’t imagine a royalty structure existing at the time.”

These are strange days for the music industry and a mainstream label like Union Square Music really took a big risk releasing an obscure project such as ‘The Very Best of Ethiopiques’, as it cannot be over emphasised how difficult times are at present with the internet and illegal downloads undermining legal trade.

Because of this, it seems that nowadays many artists are having to seek alternative business models to generate revenue. For example Radiohead left EMI to join mass concert organisers Live Nation, U2 made over $20m from the release of a 3D film their live concert in Buenos Aires, and Prince released his new album for free with a British newspaper then sold out London’s biggest concert arena 21 times. It is in this environment that we have to look at the Ethiopiques artists and ask “What did they get?”.

Well… It lead directly to the Ethiopiques headlining at Glastonbury 2008 and Womad 2009. To continuous successful solo tours for Mulatu Astatqé, Alèmayèhu Eshèté, Gétatchèw Mèkurya, and Mahmoud Ahmed. To Mulatu Astatqé releasing his first album of new material in 30 years. And finally going a good way to undoing some of the awful stereotyping done by Live Aid and firmly entrenched in public’s conciousness ever since.

As Charlie Gullitt correctly points our Union Square is “a straight forward commercial company, with no pretence of having a social agenda” so considering this, the whole affair really has to go down as quite the most remarkable experience for any ethical movement supporting the Ethiopiques artists and as such offers the yet another brave new workable business model for the changing music industry to consider.

Timjim 2009

Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/rainaffectedbaboonparade/ / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Free Love and War Songs? Gétatchèw Mèkurya

My girlfriend and I were watching the film “What’s Love Got To Do With It?” (1993), the story of Ike and Tina Turner, a couple of nights ago. After finishing the film, I eagerly went over to my record collection and said to her: “I know he was bad news, but I gotta play you something!”

So, I pulled out my best Ike Turner and the Kings of Rhythm record only to be abruptly stopped in my tracks:
“I don’t want to listen to that,” she exclaimed, “I don’t care if he is a genius or not. I’m not interested!”
This brings me to the unusual and unique example of Gétatchèw Mèkurya, a true individual in the world of Ethiopian music, who one day decided to transpose with his saxophone a traditional vocal style of Ethiopian war songs. Performing in a military cape and head gear resembling a lion’s mane, Mèkurya plays a music called ’shellèla fukara’, which involves shouting and howling, until you lose your throat into the instrument playing a music that spirals into less and less structure and inhibition. It is liked by Ethiopian audiences because they can recognise it as the vocal style of their war songs which is saying “We will kill you. We will cut the balls off you. We will do this, and we will do that,” (Francis Falceto) and when Mèkurya plays, each and every Ethiopian can hear behind the saxophone these lyrics shouted as loud as can be.

Gétatchèw Mèkurya started his pioneering adventures in music in 1952-3, a full 10 years before the beginning of the US Free Jazz Scene. Like all Ethiopians at this time, he was unfamiliar with music from the rest of the world (including the rest of Africa), and knew little or nothing of international Jazz Culture. He had been lucky enough to be recruited by the Municipality Orchestra of Addis Ababa where he had learned to play the saxophone performing in theatres and bands, and that was it. End of story. If we now fast forward to present day, Gétatchèw Mèkurya can be found playing with cutting edge Free Jazz Bands where his style is now compared to that of Ornette Coleman and Albert Ayler. Mèkurya loves playing with these bands (who love playing with him) as he is given the chance to blow and blow, competing with all, to see who can go furthest in their music. It is in this Free Jazz movement built on the morals of the 1960s civil rights movement that the war songs of Gétatchèw Mèkurya have found their home.

Although unique in his own way, Gétatchèw Mèkurya is not the first to reveal this incredible dichotomy that allows traditional values to sit comfortably next to cutting edge modern ones. Sun Ra arrived at the same point travelling in the opposite direction, leaving his origins in the open Chicago Improvised Jazz scene of the 1960s and ending up in a separatist, traditionalist, afro-centric sect claiming it could save the world. If it hadn’t been for this, the musical innovations in improvisation and communal creativity as practised by Sun Ra would have elevated his name to the very top of the Jazz world. As it stands though, he remains a cult figure on the fringes, just as does Gétatchèw Mèkurya.

I heard Gétatchèw Mèkurya’s music before I found out they were based on war songs, and am now left in two minds. As anyone who has studied modern cultural theory knows, there are many routes to end up at the same artistic conclusion, some morally sound and others not. But to prefer the music of Duke Ellington to that of Charlie Parker just because of their private lives, though understandable, also leaves an uncomfortable feeling. With regards to Gétatchèw Mèkurya, who can say if it is possible to take a moral ‘high ground’ on his music, as even if in the past he was cut off from the Free Jazz movement, by now he must be more than aware of what it represents?

Timjim 2008

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The site for Ethiopian Amharic Addis Music online

Sleeve Notes by archivist Francis Falceto.

As in the rest of the world, for Ethiopia the 60s were the years of ultimate postwar modernity. They began in violence with a failed coup d’état (December 1960) in which The Imperial Body Guard, as well as many of the musicians that made up its bands, was implicated. But after this warning shot the ageing Emperor Haile Sellassie I compromised anddisplayed an increasingly progressive approach. Ethiopia became an international showcase of non-alignment and African unity, and Addis Ababa, capital and only metropolis of a very centralised empire, the very essence of modernist audacity. Music and its enjoyment were part and parcel of this spirit and, for once in tune with the world, ‘Swinging Addis’ sported the daring uniforms of the period: wide-leg or bell-bottom trousers, skinny ties, Afro or beehive hairdos, miniskirts and even the pill.

The main body of Ethiopian vinyl was produced in less than one decade: from 1969 to 1978. All in all, just under 500 45s and around 30 LP albums were released and of these, Amha Eshèté, creator of the Amha Records label, issued around 250 titles. In 1969, aged only 24, Amha decided to start his own record company and in so doing, to defy an Imperial decree that had granted a monopoly over the production and importation of records to Aghèr Feqer Mahbèr – literally ‘The Love of Country Association’ and the first Ethiopian national theatre.

“I had a gut feeling that it was the thing to do”, Amha recalled 25 years later. “I took the risk. Philips couldn’t have done what I did, because they were a big, official company, and a foreign one at that. But I was a young, independent, unknown and gutsy Ethiopian just starting out in the business. I could do things that they would never dare. I thought’nobody’s going to kill me for this. At most I might land in jail for a while.’ I talked my plans over with lots of people at the Haile Sellassie I theatre and, of course, at Aghèr Feqer Mahbèr. They all warned me that I was headed for serious trouble … In fact, I was already importing foreign records. I had my first records, two 45s by Alèmayèhu, stamped in India – it was nearby, and cheap. When the records arrived, Agher Feqer threatened me, brandishing the Emperor’s order, but without much conviction. They knew that they had produced almost nothing in the past years, and it all just died down. I didn’t even have to pay them anything, as they had claimed I should.”

After this showdown, the Ethiopian version of the battle between the ancients and the moderns, a real groundswell broke. Amha Eshèté had been right: undue privilege and paralysis had to give way to free enterprise and to greater creativity. Throughout the year 1970, the national press reported the controversies and unrest sown in Ethiopian society by the younger generation. The Emperor who had the last word on everything, probably assessed the seriousness of the conflict and decided to let those determined youths have their way.

As almost everywhere in Africa, it had been the western-style marching bands that prompted the birth of modern music, adapting and rearranging traditional music. The first bands were those of the Imperial Bodyguards, the Army and the Police Force, many distinguished by their impressive brass sections and all the historic singers, men and women alike, started out with these groups. However more and more “private bands” were formed and came to dominate the scene: the Girmas Band, All Star Band, Soul Ekos [Echos], Ibex Band (which later became the Roha Band), Wallias, Shebelle’s, Dahlak, Venus, Ethio Stars and Black Lion, just to name the most important.

All this healthy turmoil was extinguished in 1974 with the fall of the Emperor and the arrival of a particularly brutal military junta. The golden era’s days were numbered and the country would soon wake up to a new regime of repression. Curfews put an end to any nightlife and record production plummeted, disappearing completely in 1978. The audio-cassette, introduced in 1975, became the only witness to a period of censorship and artistic decline – with unfortunately few exceptions and despite a copious output.

The cassette was to flood the Ethiopian music market. Just about anyone could set themselves up as a music producer but especially, and more frequently, as a copier and pirate. As if that weren’t enough, synthesizers were soon to replace not only electric organs but also the big institutional bands – who were simply done away with by the new regime. Censorship, curfews, propaganda, harassment of musicians and the forced exile of many artists decimated Ethiopian music for a long while.

But within all this, from 1973 into the 1990s and particularly after Amha Eshèté went into exile in 1975, there was still a number one promoter on the Ethiopian musical scene. This was the exceptionally creative Ali Abdella Kaifa. His mother owned the ‘Calypso Music Shop’, Ali re-named it the ‘Tango Music Shop’ and, for the next 20 years, he was known exclusively by his wonderful pseudonym, Ali Tango. Born in 1942, son of a Yemenite father and an Oromo-Yemenite mother, Ali Tango went on to publish dozens of cassettes. Whereas record sales generally leveled off at 1,000
or 2,000 copies, Ali Tango raised the sales of his cassettes to more than 100,000 copies – a dizzying level, in any country.

A sharp talent scout, it was he who discovered Aster Aweke, Nèway Dèbèbè and many others. He has also produced some of the greatest hits of major artists like Bzunèsh Bèqelè, Alèmayèhu Eshèté, Ayaléw Mèsfin and MuluqènMèllèssè. Not to mention Mahmoud Ahmed’s historic ‘Erè Mèla Mèla’. This much-envied ‘godfather’ also managed, throughout the trying times of the dictatorship, to protect his singers’ and his groups’ freedom of expression, often via somewhat risky manoeuvres.

The recordings were made with a minimum of technical equipment. A microphone for the singer, and another in the middle for the musicians; a two-track tape recorder, no re-recording or mixing, and usually recorded in clubs where, because of the curfew, the dinner bands performed in the early evenings. These gems are all the more precious for having been crafted in such difficult circumstances.

The Very Best Of Ethiopiques is released on Union Square Music’s Manteca label in the UK on August 13th 2007 and overseas soon after. Its catalogue number is MANTDCD245 and barcode 698458224521

Live Aid – Onwards and Upwards (Finally…)

Let me just begin by saying, it was conceived as a ‘rock’ music concert, it raised a final figure of over £150m, and the live broadcast was watched by an estimated 1.5 billion viewers across 100 countries.

The UK event featured contributions from artists from UK, US, Australia, Japan, Austria, Holland, Yugoslavia, Russia, Germany, and Norway, but did not feature a single African act. This was because the organiser’s held the belief at that time that broadcasting African artists would deter a mass audience (a philosophy since proven wrong). The closest that the UK event came to any kind of authentic African experience was the appearance of US Blues legend BB King and Nigerian Born Afro British Soul singer Sade.

The US event, as well as featuring a glut of UK artists, did at least involve an important Afro-American presence including: Four Tops, Billy Ocean, Run DMC, Bo Diddley, Albert Collins, Ashford and Simpson, Kool and the Gang, Patti Labelle, Eddie Kendricks and David Ruffen, and Tina Turner. But again, supporting these world famous legends was not a single African or Ethiopian act. A surprise considering that the US had a significant Ethiopian Diaspora population including Aster Aweke, Tesfa Maryam Kidané, Girma Bèyènè, Ayaléw Mèsfin, and even Ethiopia’s top record producer himself Amha Eshèté. These people were resident (and some were still musically active) in the US at the time of the Live Aid Concert.

The truth is, live aid was never conceived to promote Ethiopian music or to aid the Ethiopia music scene by giving its musicians the exposure they required to become more self sufficient. Even if anyone had tried to organise an Ethiopian presence (or better still an Ethiopian event), this would have been impossible as the golden era of Modern Ethiopian music was now suppressed under a military Stalinist regime (the greatest cause of the famine), forbidding all urban night-life and restricted artists from traveling abroad. Realistically, at the time the only hope was the displaced Ethiopian artists based in the US, which never happened.

So, while debate continued to rage over what ‘should have happened’ at the 1985 LiveAid concerts, Ethiopians themselves were forced to wait in isolation until finally becoming a democratic republic in 1994. However, the former Ethiopia was partitioned into Ethiopia and Eritrea and a new war broke out (lasting until 2000) that continued to stifle creativity and the development of a domestic music industry. That brings us up to present day, past the release of Francis Falceto’s ‘The Ethiopiques Series’ from 1997onwards, and up to the recent release of ‘The Best of the Ethiopiques’ (2CD) 2007, the first attempt to cross over modern Ethiopian Music to a mainstream Western market. But will either of these European based re-issues finally succeed in gaining Ethiopian Music the recognition it deserves?

Cuban music was equally in a long term state of decline with its forgotten legends about to pass away, until Ry Cooder initiated the project that was to grow into the ‘Buena Vista Social Club’ gaining massive publicity and the rest is history. Although this article started out as a criticism of the missed opportunity of Live Aid, perhaps in fact, now is the only time it has ever been (and will ever be) possible to elevate the living legends of modern Ethiopian music to their rightful place in world music. So if Elvis Costello, Robert Plant, Patti Smith, Tom Waits, Damon Albarn, Brian Eno or anyone else who has publicly stated admiration of modern Ethiopian music is reading this… Keep up the good work and more.

Timjim 2008

Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/chimchim/ / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

“If you do something you get problems. If you do nothing you are cool” (French Saying)

If you check out Benjamen Walker’s ‘Theory Of Everything’ Podcast on 10.02.06 (now unavailable) you can listen to a very interesting interview with Francis Falceto, assistant compiler of ‘The Very Best of Ethiopiques’ and compiler of the original ‘Ethiopiques series’. In this interview, despite everyone’s common intention to promote Ethiopian Modern Music, nearly all the interviewees get side-tracked into the issue of ‘who has the right to promote’ Ethiopian music and the problems of representing a culture that is not your own.

As Francis Falceto states “If I like something I need to share it…” and with regards to his reason for publishing the ‘Ethiopiques series’, simply that “I could not see anybody taking care of it so I went ahead…”. Russ Gershon of the Either / Orchestra then equally harmlessly explains how he was listening to Ethiopian music, incorporated it into their set, got great success off even small town audiences, and ended up performing live in Ethiopia with some of the original artists.

But there is a strange taste that remains in the back of the mouth at the same time as the heart warms to such stories. Mulatu Astatqé sums this up perfectly as he is unable to avoid expressing his discontent that it has not been the Ethiopian government or Ethiopians themselves who have been responsible for the recent rise in popularity of modern Ethiopian music. Astatqé claims Ethiopians “don’t look up to their own cultural assets”, a curious occurrence considering moments earlier Falceto claims Ethiopians are “very proud and strongly nationalist”.

As a British citizen who spent nearly 10 years collecting Polish 60-70s R’n’B / Funk / Soul, whilst living in post-communist Poland, I can sympathise greatly with Francis Falceto here. Francis Falceto first heard Mahmoud Ahmed’s ‘Ere Mela Mela’ in 1984, 13 years before the release of the first record in the Ethiopiques series, and whilst the Ethiopian born Mulatu Astatqé is correct in all he says, he also has lived in both the UK and the US, gaining exposure to the mechanics of a western music marketing industry. While everyone would love an ‘Ethiopian’ to be in charge, the question of what should allow (or exclude) people from being able to represent Ethiopia remains beyond all.

When the Either /Orchestra played in Ethiopia, Francis Falceto tracked down Bahta Gèbrè-Heywèt, who then went on to sing in public for the first time in decades, and by all accounts had the most fantastic time. The Ethiopia in which this concert took place was not the isolated and restricted word that existed up until democracy arrived in 1991, but was a world where young Ethiopians wish to be part of world teen culture joining in with global youth fashion and eager to make music “of an equal quality to the rest of the world” (The Rough Guide to World Music 1994). When Mulatu Astatqé returned to Ethiopia in the 1960s, Ethiopia was equally a place joining in with world culture with numerous bands imitating UK and US pop acts.

Right at the very beginning of the podcast, Francis Falceto expresses how it is his belief that when it comes to music “It’s ridiculous to write about it” and people need only to listen as “that’s enough”. However, it is he who has written the incredibly extensive liner notes to the Ethiopiques series (and much more). This just goes to prove that it is one thing saying something and another actually making it happen in the real world, and while we can all talk about ideal situations, they somehow always remain just out of reach.

Francis Falceto finishes off the podcast by saying:
“If you do something you get problem (sic), if you do nothing you will be cool.”
Bringing a small smile to my face (as I hope to anyone who has ever tried to change anything through music) and causing a nod of acknowledgement to all the kindred souls out there, wherever they may live.

Timjim 2007

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