Ethio-Jazz from Either/Orchestra

Jazz has long served as a site of cultural integration, and monday’s Ethio-Jazz concert in Sanders Theater was no different, using jazz fusion as a lens to examine the changing nature of the Ethiopian American identity in a rapidly globalizing world. This performance by the Either/Orchestra, featuring the compositions of Mulatu Astatke, concluded two days of presentations and panel discussions on Cultural Creativity in the Ethiopian American Diaspora. The fusion of Ethiopian traditional music with the already diverse language of jazz provided a fitting conclusion to the weekend.

The conference opened with a keynote conversation between Dr. Getatchew Haile, a former member of the Ethiopian parliament who arrived in the United States in 1976, and his daughter, author Rebecca Haile. Dr. Haile asserted that a close-knit Ethiopian immigrant community is essential to preserving his country’s traditions, but his daughter felt that traditionalist attitudes must adapt to globalization. She highlighted the broad spectrum of unconventional Ethiopian American identities that have flourished as immigrants encounter new cultures and take advantage of recent communications technology.

This tension between preserving traditional Ethiopian culture and adapting to the demands of globalization was thoroughly discussed in the various panels and lectures, but it was perhaps most clearly articulated through the compositions of Mulatu Astatke showcased at Monday’s musical performance.

Astatke began to integrate Ethiopian rhythms and scales into his jazz compositions while studying at the Berklee School of Music in the 1950s, exploring a genre that would emerge a decade later as jazz fusion. Somerville’s Either/Orchestra, a ten-piece fusion group influenced by Sun Ra that has been working with Astatke since 2004, deftly navigated his delicate balance of Ethiopian and American tonality.

The performance opened with a music video based on Astatke’s study of the maqwammiya, a prayer staff used in ceremonies of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. The music featured a traditional Ethiopian chant backed by synthesizers, strings, and African percussion instruments such as the timbale. The strings and synthesizers played Ethiopian scales, but the arrangement drew heavily on European classical music, setting up tension through suspended notes and delayed resolutions. European melodies emerged to complement the African chant, finding common ground between the two distinct systems of tonality.

The video accompaniment further emphasized the common ground between the two traditions, showing parallel shots of a priest gesturing with a prayer staff and a symphony conductor waving a baton. The priest, backlit by torchlight flickering through plumes of smoke, held the maqwammiya like a microphone as he chanted.

But Astatke resists the temptation to blindly search for an Ethiopian counterpart to every European tradition. Although some first-generation immigrants may accuse him of polluting Ethiopian culture, Astatke deliberately avoids isolating the Ethiopian elements as museum pieces, frozen in their “purest” state and viewed through a glass barrier. The bulk of his contribution lies in his skill at weaving distinct musical elements from each tradition into a coherent whole. Jazz, a mélange of musical techniques even in its purest state, immediately lends itself to this approach. Astatke’s Ethio-Jazz perfectly illustrates the cultural syntheses that have defined the Diaspora of the second generation.

In one composition, entitled “Derashe/Asosa/Dewel,” Astatke captures the sound of the dewel, a stone slab used to call devotees to prayer in rural Ethiopia, in a resonant vibraphone melody. Recontextualized in a jazz setting, the spiritual significance of these melodies transcends religious and ethnic boundaries and reaches a truly international audience.

Astatke does not seek to establish an isolated, strictly Ethiopian niche within the arts community, focusing instead on “finding out the Ethiopian contributions” to international art and music. His desire to explore a broad spectrum of hybrid culture typifies the outlook of the second generation. “I don’t think that an exploration of identity is just about understanding [Ethiopian] stories,” Rebecca Haile said in her keynote speech. “It’s not in our interest to be isolated.”