Strut present the first official reissue of a landmark album in the field of African music, Mulatu Astatke’s ‘Mulatu Of Ethiopia’ from 1972. Recorded in New York, the album arrived at a time when Astatke had begun to master the delicate fusion of styles needed to create Ethio jazz. “I left the UK for America and studied at Berklee College in Boston. I learnt the technical aspects of jazz and gained a beautiful understanding of many different types of music. That’s where I got my tools. Berklee really shook me up.”
Like much of the best of the circa-early-'70s contemporary Ethiopian music on Ethiopiques, it's a fine, at times captivating blend of late-'60s American soul and jazz with Ethiopian music, resulting in something not quite comparable to anything else. It is undeniably funky, with wah-wah guitar and organ aplenty. There's plenty of contemporary jazz in the arrangements, too, the sax runs sometimes showing the influence of the likes of John Coltrane. Yet there's a melancholy minor cast to the melodies that marks this off as something quite different, and the rhythms likewise have irregularities that are more African than American.
| A1 | Mulatu | 5:00 |
| A2 | Mascaram Setaba | 2:40 |
| A3 | Dewel | 4:00 |
| B1 | Kulunmanqueleshi | 2:05 |
| B2 | Kasalefkut-Hulu | 2:25 |
| B3 | Munaye | 3:15 |
| B4 | Chifara | 7:00 |
