Ethiopian jazz/Blues : what You NEED to know about it !

[Guerilla Electro]

This music is all about a very particular " mood " , for lack of a better term , it really feels "ancient " , and there is this permanent nostalgic feeling that is omnipresent , giving a ruly haunting vibe to those recordings .



try to get past the guy's talking between the tracks , there are some real wonders , those obscure Ethiopian jazzmen of the 70's could hang with the best:





Some cool playlists : just press next to skip tracks , next to the play button:



This was a really prolific scene , so everything can't be great ( as with any genre ) but there are so many gems, it's worthgetting loston a YT rabbit hole , you can start by searching forthe Ethiopiques compilations .(the 10 first volumes have great stuff in it ) , these compilations did a lot for popularizing this genre , as they did for me 30 years ago .

 

[Jared Purdy]

This music is all about a very particular " mood " , for lack of a better term , it really feels "ancient " .



try to get past the guy's talking between the tracks , there are some real wonders , those obscure Ethiopian jazzmen of the 70's could hang with the best:







cool playlist :

I've got a decent collection of South African jazz men, but I've never so much as seen an LP by any Ethiopian jazz musicians, though I have heard some of the material. Fabulous stuff!

 

[Guerilla Electro]

but I've never so much as seen an LP by any Ethiopian jazz musicians,

There are hundreds , maybe more of LP's : artists like Mulatu Astatke ( vibraphone ) or organist Hailu Mergia have been recording up to recent times , they even have a YT channel !

 

[Jared Purdy]

There are hundreds , maybe more of LP's : artists like Mulatu Astatke ( vibraphone ) or organist Hailu Mergia have been recording up to recent times , they even have a YT channel !

Yes, but to find the LPs in a store, the store has to have them! I don't do Discogs anymore. Shipping is outrageous.

 

[Guerilla Electro]

I lived in Africa 20 years ago and nobody knew what vinyl records were , I kept looking for old records but could never find any.
They made the jump from cassette tapes to Mp3 around the time I was there.