The Jazz Café is proud to welcome an Ethiopian legend for his first ever dates at the venue, Mulatu Astatke. Known as the Father of Ethio-jazz, Mulatu developed his trademark fusions of Western jazz and traditional Ethiopian cultural music during the late ‘50s whilst playing the London jazz circuit. Honed during a spell in New York, then back home in Addis, his late ’60s and early ‘70s recordings stand as unique, sinuous compositions, influenced partly by US funk and the arrangements of Gil Evans and Miles Davis but rooted heavily around the “colours” of the Ethiopian five-tone scale.

Initially re-issued within Francis Falceto’s ‘Ethiopiques’ compilation series, his music then reached a worldwide audience thanks to the Jim Jarmusch film, ‘Broken Flowers’ which featured several of his tracks. Since then, Astatke has enjoyed an Indian Summer in his career, touring worldwide and recording a successful collaboration with The Heliocentrics alongside a new studio album, ‘Mulatu Steps Ahead’ (Strut).

For these exclusive Jazz Café gigs, he plays tracks from this album and brand new arrangements of classics like ‘Yegelle Tezeta’, ‘Netsanet’ and ‘Yekatit’.

Source: http://venues.meanfiddler.com/jazz-cafe/fu.../mulatu-astatke