Word: ethiopia
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Falceto's first trip to Ethiopia in 1985 was not encouraging. Eleven years of military dictatorship under Colonel Mengistu and a dusk-to-dawn curfew had all but extinguished Addis Ababa's nightlife. The few hotels in the capital offering live entertainment were mostly the haunt of business and diplomatic flotsam and hookers, while the music was desultory generic pop, played on cheap synthesizers. "It took several trips and several more years before I understood what had happened," says Falceto. "These big bands were dead. They just didn't exist any more." Incredibly, the vibrancy of Addis's musical life...
...court musicians. The boys were tutored by European music teachers and pretty soon brass bands were busting out all over: the Police Orchestra, the Imperial Bodyguard Band, the Army Band, the Selassie Theater Orchestra or the Municipality of Addis Band. After Italy's brief occupation ended in 1941 - Ethiopia is the only country in Africa that has never been colonized - the country began to open up to outside influences under Roosevelt's lend-lease program. Thanks to visiting teachers and a new American army base in Asmara, Glen Miller gained a lot of fans there. Then...
Until this time, Selassie had kept Ethiopia's cultural life on a tight rein. Live music was entirely the domain of the state bands, members of which could end up in jail for leaving barracks to play a nightclub. Importing or pressing records was also a state monopoly. "Up until the late 60s, it was impossible to have your own band," says Falceto. "But even the emperor at some point thought it was better to let these youngsters go ahead." The effect was startling. The state bands added guitars and keyboards and started dressing sharp. Ahmed and scores of other...
...approved music. "Imagine you are a teenager," says Falceto. "This is your time of night for cruising or to visit a club, to dance, to drink, to meet, but suddenly you can't because there's a curfew and it lasts for 18 years. This means that nobody in Ethiopia under 50 has any idea what happened...
Those years of repression, civil war and famine have blighted the world's image of Ethiopia and the musical life of Addis today is mired, according to Falceto, in poor imitations of Michael Jackson and Madonna. "They are very ambivalent to their own musical roots even now," he says, "it seems like it belongs to the past backwardness." His Ethiopiques project has been slowly building a following among western audiences. So far there have been 23 CDs as well as an award-winning Very Best of ... album while Jim Jarmusch used a couple of Mulatu Astatqé songs to great...