Mulatu Astatke - Mulatu of Ethiopia (2022 Strut Records Reissue Vinyl LP)

Mulatu Astatke - Mulatu of Ethiopia | Vinyl LP - 2022 Strut Records Reissue (STRUT129LP, remastered by Frank Merritt/The Carvery, Pallas)

Mulatu Astatke grew up in Jimma, Ethiopia, studied music in London, then enrolled at Berklee College of Music in Boston as the institution's first African student. He moved between New York and Addis Ababa throughout the 1960s and 70s, absorbing jazz, Latin rhythms and traditional Ethiopian music simultaneously. By 1972, when he recorded Mulatu of Ethiopia in a downtown Manhattan studio with producer Gil Snapper and a group of New York session players, that synthesis had crystallised into something that had no obvious precedent.

The Ethiopian pentatonic scale — a five-note modal system without the half-steps that define Western harmonic movement — runs through every track. Astatke layered it over jazz rhythms, Latin percussion and funk-inflected bass lines, producing a sound that was simultaneously ancient and entirely contemporary. Seven tracks: three Astatke originals ("Mulatu," "Kasalefkut-Hulu" and "Chifara"), and four arrangements of traditional or pre-existing material. "Kulunmanqueleshi" is a traditional wedding song. "Dewel," meaning "bell" in Amharic, is based on Ethiopian church music. The album was originally released on Snapper's Worthy label in an edition so small it became a crate-digger's obsession by the mid-1990s. Ethiopian Airlines sponsored the original pressing and used it as in-flight music. After the 1974 military coup suppressed Ethio-jazz in Ethiopia for a generation, the music resurfaced internationally through the Éthiopiques CD series beginning in 1998.

This 2022 Strut pressing was remastered by Frank Merritt at The Carvery from the original master tapes and pressed at Schallplattenfabrik Pallas.