FESTIVAL - Main Program: GETATCHEW MEKURIA & THE EX & GUESTS

Základní

11. 6. 2011 - 20:05

Ethiopia, Netherlands

Stavanice Island

THE ETHIOPIAN SAXOPHONE MASTER IN COLABORATION WITH LEGENDARY DUTCH PUNK ROCKERS AND SPECIAL ETHIOPIAN DANCING GUEST

Primal and shamanic, Mekurya's playing evokes something of saxophonists Ornette Coleman and Albert Ayler, with all their passion and in-the-moment invention (though none of Ayler's extended altissimo screeching), with a shot of honking tenor men Big Jay McNeely and Willis Jackson thrown in for added funk.

Video

But the relationship is an illusory one: Mekurya's style developed in complete isolation from the US free jazz it distantly and tangentially resembles, and is entirely Ethiopian in origin and form. It's based on a specialised genre of traditional vocal music sung by warriors before going into battle—pumped up, epic, threatening and boastful, harsh and hoarse-voiced—with discursive modal improvisation at its core. Unlike its US resonances, it's mostly performed in 3/4 time, from slow and menacing through fast and furious. The instrumental variant developed in Addis Ababa dancehalls in the early to mid 1950s.

Archive Video

Mekurya was amongst the first musicians to play instrumental shellela, and he remains its most revered saxophonist. In 1955, when, aged 20, he joined the house band at Addis' Haile Selassie I Theatre, he was already experimenting with the form. He took its tradition seriously, and would often appear onstage in a warrior's animal-skin tunic and lion's mane head-dress—and he sounds like he looks in the photos.