Today I asked Claude to give me a random genre to dig into while I was at my computer. It gave me Ethiopian jazz, specifically 1969 to 1975.
A quick look told me why the window is so short. The military took over around 1974–75, and the curfews and restrictions that came with it killed the scene almost straight away.
I like the feel of this music. It’s the kind of jazz I can just put on, let play, and actually feel.
I also watched a little video about the differences in pentatonic scales. I’m not going to claim I fully grasped it, so I’ll leave it here for you to dig into:
Anyway, here’s what I’d recommend:
Mahmoud Ahmed – Ere Mela Mela, the album at the top of this post.
The Sorcerers – She Who Perceives the Sounds of the World
The Sorcerers are a newer band out of Leeds making Ethio-jazz today. They formed in 2014, so they’re not from the original era, but they’ve got the sound. The guy in the video used them to demonstrate the scales he was talking about. Cool song.