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Cairo Times, Egypt, 24-08-2000
Reprinted in World Press Review, USA
Francis Falceto documents the golden age of Ethiopian groove
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Most people have given up hoping they'll ever hear anything positive coming out of Ethiopia. In the world's mind the country has become equivalent to either famine or war--and not irregularly both. Who would have thought that in the 1960s, just as there was a Swinging London, there was a Swinging Addis, complete with Elvis imitators, miniskirts and Abyssinian James Browns.
"The first time I encountered modern Ethiopian music was in 1983 at a party in Paris," says Francis Falceto in a cafe in Addis Abeba. "One friend had been sent Mahmoud Ahmed's album Ere Mela Mela. When he put the record on, a hush fell over the party. Nobody had ever heard anything like that before!" As a jazz musician sideways involved with the music industry, Falceto went to Addis in 1984 to persuade Ahmed to give a few concerts in Europe, not realizing the music would become his life's passion. Now the 51-year old Frenchmen is the compiler of Ethiopiques, an already eight-part series to save the legacy of the golden years of modern Ethiopian music.
Muluqen Melesse, Teshome Meteku, Getatchew Kassa, Alemayehu Eshete and Hirut Beqele. For most, these names only constitute a riddle, but the music they made in the 1960s and 70s will catch anyone's attention.
Although their brand of urban pop is difficult to categorize--music that is brassy, eclectic, highly danceable, sometimes dramatic and emotional--Ethiopian groove is probably the best catch-all name.
The origins of modern Ethiopian music can be dated quite precisely. It coincides with the late Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie's 1924 visit to Jerusalem. There the young Ras Tafari became so impressed by European brass instruments that he hired a band of young Armenians that had fled the genocide and made them the official musicians of the empire. Kevork Nalbandian and his nephew Nerses were the conductors of the orchestras. Kevork composed the former Ethiopian national anthem, but it was Nerses especially who was responsible for the modernisation of Ethiopian music, introducing Amharic singers with the orchestras. These military brass bands had an enormous influence on urban pop.
In Ethiopia, as in Europe and the United States, the first generations born after the war made their noisy, colourful breakthrough onto the scene in the beginning of the sixties. After the attempted coup d'etat against Selassie in December 1960, the Emperor figured that a people which was enjoying itself wouldn't be bothered to think of revolution. Nightlife had its heyday. In Asmara, it was "Kagnew music" that set the beat: the radio station at the American military base in Asmara--Kagnew Station--received shipments of the latest hits from the American charts every week. Even now some people in the Eritrean capital have great collections of early sixties vinyl.
Meanwhile Addis Abeba became increasingly modern, and Ethiopians slowly started shedding their isolationist, Ethiocentric attitude. Other African music, however, never caught on. Using western instruments, Ethiopian Groove has a western sound, though Falceto claims the non-state artists produced a uniquely Ethiopian--non-African as well as non-western--swing. The 1960 coup was the beginning of the end for Haile Selassie. Society was progressively cracking up, with rebel groups and revolts sprouting up everywhere. Nevertheless the decade passed in a grand festive atmosphere.
More than half of all Ethiopian groove was produced in the period between 1969-74. Amha Eshete set up his own record label, Amha Records, and released around 250 titles within six years. Though record production was a state monopoly, Eshete betted on the fact that nobody would bother to prosecute him. Luckily, he was right. Falceto's re-releases of Ethiopian groove wouldn't be near as rich if he didn't have the support of Eshete, who gave him the rights to all Amha label recordings.
A damper was put on the Ethiopian music scene when Haile Selassie was deposed in 1974 by the dergue (Amharic for Committee). "The dergue really killed Addis nightlife," says Falceto. "With the curfew it was either be home at eleven or get locked up in the bar of the Hilton for the night. When it was dark you only heard the soldiers marching and the dogs barking." But people still bought the music. Bands sold sometimes up to 100,000 cassettes.
Walking through the merkato, the market district of Addis Abeba, it is difficult to imagine "Swinging Addis." Because of the persistent drought and the city's dependency on water power, every quarter in Addis has a twelve-hour power cut every few days. In a dark apartment at the top of a rotten staircase, Falceto sifts through a heap of old books and newspapers. In his search for pictures of Addis in its glory days, he has accumulated a huge archive of old literature about Ethiopia.
As evening descends over Addis, Falceto produces a bunch of qat and a bottle of locally produced iraki. "Just hear that sax going wild," he says as he listens to his most recent acquisitions. "The free artists in those days produced such amazing songs with so much feeling. It was blues, jazz, funk, and at the same time it was not. It still leaves me wondering."
Falceto is unique in his focus on Ethiopian groove. "If I didn't collect these pieces of social history, it would just rot away," he says. He still remembers with regret the day he heard that a local company had destroyed two cubic meters of old records the day before. Falceto is currently searching backward from the 1960s for the music made during the 1936-1941 Italian occupation and before. With the Ethiopiques series, he wants to go on to part fifteen. What is going to be on all those CDs, he doesn't know yet. "Surely one with Ethiopian blues," he says. "But I also hope to collect enough material to re-release the Ethiopian music of the pre-vinyl era, when it was still on those big reels."
Although Falceto doesn't call himself an ethnologist, he is documenting a music culture that is unfortunately no longer living. "The science behind it is irrelevant. It's just the music and the fun of sharing these master pieces."
Part Eight Swinging Addis of the Ethiopiques series was released early this summer. For information and mail order, contact Buda Musique at buda@imaginet.fr or visit their web site www.budamusique.com