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| The Father of Ethio-Jazz - Mulatu Astatke - at the 2010 Melbourne International Jazz Festival |
One of Ethiopia's greatest jazz players has been in Australia taking part in this year's Melbourne International Jazz Festival.
The legendary Mulatu Astatke, 67, is one of the giants in the Ethiopian pop and jazz music production and arrangement industry and he made his Australian debut this week.
Two days before his sold-out show in Melbourne as part of the world-famous Melbourne International Jazz Festival, Mulatu was introduced to Australians on a Friday morning radio interview that was broadcast live for one hour.
The interview was broadcast from an outdoors location where the presenter, Jon Faine, asked the audience: “Can you welcome our guest here today – the Ethiopian jazz great to Melbourne”.
Mulatu was joined by thousands of Australians including hundreds of Ethiopian expatriates during the interview.
“I have been playing all over the world and Australia is the only place that I haven't been until now,” he told Jon Faine.
“I'm really enjoying myself and I hope my concert on Sunday will go well,” he said.
His concert on Sunday went more than just well.
Joined by a local Australian band by the name of The Black Jesus Experience, Mulatu performed in a packed theatre in central Melbourne, receiving frequent standing-ovation.
The whole concert was put together to give the Australian audience a taste of the Ethio-Jazz genre. To Ethiopian audiences it was a familiar sound of fine music reminiscent of Ethiopia. And to Australian audiences, it was a performance infused with traditional and contemporary musical notes that left them stunned.
Mulatu has produced some of the finest and most prestigious Ethiopian music compositions to date.
He started in the late 1950s recording several LPs - one of which - Mulatu of Ethiopia - has become a legend among DJs in recent years.
On piano, organ, vibes and percussion, with his arrangements and compositions, and as an agent provocateur, he has always been a pivotal figure with ubiquitous presence in the Ethiopian pop and jazz arena.
He is a club owner, music school founder, radio DJ, composer, arranger and instrumentalist.
Mulatu will no doubt go down in history as an exceptional musical innovator of the Ethiopian groove.
His distinct brand of Ethiopian music features some of the most soulful instrumentals ever recorded in the whole of Africa.
His music composition and arrangements signify gigantic artistic prestige as they are capable of bringing out the best of contemporary Ethiopian rhythms.
Mulatu is the first Ethiopian musician to study abroad in London and the United States where he became immersed in jazz music.
Upon his return to Ethiopia in the 1960s, Mulatu began experimenting with traditional Ethiopian rhythmic melodies, infusing them with jazz and creating a new genre known as Ethio-jazz.
He is consequently known around the world as the Father of Ethio-Jazz.
In 2005, Mulatu collaborated with Hollywood to create a movie with Ethiopian soundtrack. He arranged the music for the Hollywood Comedy/Drama production of Broken Flowers, bringing the soulful rhythms of Ethiopian music to the world of Western cinema.
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