Mulatu Astake & his band will play the closing live show at The Rhythm Weekender in The SugarClub on Sunday 16th October, Doors 7pm.

Ethiopian musician/arranger Mulatu Astatke has seen a well deserved resurgence of interest in his music of late, regarded as the father of ethio-jazz, Mulatu’s journey in music has spanned the best part of 50 years and looks like it is going to continue for some time still.

He was muscially trained in the UK & USA in the 1950s/60s.  He combined his love of jazz and latin music with the traditional sounds of his homeland. He is directly responsible for introducing percussion, keyboards and organs into popular music recorded at the time in Ethiopia.

Arriving in Wales in the late 1950s to study engineering, a young Mulatu decided against this qualification and opted to study music instead.
He studied in London’s Trinity College of Music before moving on to further his studies in percussion and vibraphone at the presitgious Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts.

Whilst there he was drawn to the sounds of latin and  jazz music and by the mid 1960s released two albums of that ilk  titled Afro Latin Soul Vol. 1&2 during his time in New York around 1966/7. These musical influences inspired and motivated Mulatu creatively and the music he studied and listened to in America led to him becoming  instrumental in popularising the use of  congas and bongos in music made in Ethiopia.

During this time he collaborated with many musicians in his homeland and in the USA, recording with Mahmoud Ahmed and even performing as a special guest with Duke Ellington and his band when they toured Ethiopia.

Amha Eshèté’s Ahma imprint based in Addis Ababa was responsible for putting out most of his work in the 1970s. During this period he recorded with the very best vocalists from his country which included  Mahmoud Ahmed, Tlahoun Gèssèssè, Alèmayèhu Eshèté. These recordings and  sessions were heavily influenced by the latin jazz influenced sounds that Mulatu has brough home with him.

This rich period of creation had all but ceased by the mid-late  1970s with the rise of communist military council The Derg taking control of Ethiopia after the removal of Haile Selassie (thousands were imprisoned and executed under this regime which remained in power until 1987). As a result of this junta taking political and military power the majority of musicians in the country were forced to flee and abandon their livelihoods, Mulatu stayed on though.

The 1980s were notable for the droughts and famine in his country and this coupled with political and socio economic factors put a stop to his recording output. That was until in the 1990s beat diggers and record collectors  began to start demanding copies of his early 1970′s work (notably the vinyl recording “Mulatu of Ethiopia”) leading to the natural progression of a selection of his back catalogue being reissued by a french label  Buda Musique more than 20 years after the original releases.

“Ethiopiques” was the name of this series and the 4th instalment focussed exclusively on the work of Mulatu Astatke, this in turn brought his music to a much larger and more diverse audience then had been previously familiar with his work.

Another huge catalyst in the resugence of interest in his music was the 2005 Jim Jaramusch film ‘Broken Flowers’ which starred Bill Murray and used no less then seven of Mulatu’s tracks for the soundtrack, NPR also used his instrumentals as backing music to interviews and to bridge programming while it aired. Popular producers who have explored his catalogues and sampled from him include Kanye, Cut Chemist, Nas & Damien Marley, Quantic and K’naaan.

The demand for his music has continued to gain momentum leading to Mulatu being requested to play and perform his music live at concerts globally. He recently collaborated with Malcolm Catto and The Heliocentrics for  a record on Strut which revisited his earlier work for which he became renowned and new music they had written while in the studio.

Mulatu Astake & his band will play the closing live show at The Rhythm Weekender in The SugarClub on Sunday 16th October, Doors 7pm.