Word: jazzings
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Other than classical, do you have a favorite musical genre? -Spencer J. Gordon Chesteron, Ind.I love jazz and opera. And also hip-hop. They make impressive music videos. Classical-music videos are still pretty traditional. You can probably direct one yourself. Just put a piano out in some landscape...
...organ, growling sax, rippling congas, ecstatic vocals - this is not the sound of a national culture struggling to make itself heard over the global noise of pop. Rather, these are artists who 40 years ago itched to be part of it, who dressed like doo-wop boys, played funk, jazz and RnB in Ethiopia's hotel bars and nightclubs and were stars of a scene that, for a while, was known as "Swinging Addis...
Onstage, the natty-tailored, balding guy on vibes is jazz arranger Mulatu Astatqé, who once played with Duke Ellington. The priest-like one in the robes is Mahmoud Ahmed, who became Ethiopia's most popular singer, and was once the spitting image of the young Sam Cooke. Alèmayèhu Eshèté still has the yelp (if not quite the glorious pompadour) of his James Brown days. And, draped in his colorful military cape and now somewhat mangey, lion's mane crown, the shamanic Gétatchèw Mèkurya would catch...
...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 singers found themselves fronting groups that were now playing home-cooked RnB and jazz, progressing within a few years to soul and funk, yet still clinging to their native Amharic language and the traditional five-note Arabic scale. Out in the audience, afros and bell-bottoms were worn; girls got grounded for wearing mini-skirts. "Just like in Europe, in America and in Swinging...
Cassandra Wilson Loverly; out now Wilson, a distinctively dusky-voiced singer who can work jazz's boundaries with pop, avant-garde and blues, here assembles an album of standards echoing her breakthrough Blue Skies (1988). A few tracks are a little too standard, but more often a languid beat kicks in, and Wilson's subtle phrasing, filled with cunning pauses, casts its steamy spell...