TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Mulatu Astatke: long journey for the 'father of Ethio-jazz'
Now despite that long journey and his 81 years of age, the Ethiopian music legend cannot even "think about retirement".
Change text size
Gift Premium Articles
to Anyone
Share the best of The Jakarta Post with friends, family, or colleagues. As a subscriber, you can gift 3 to 5 articles each month that anyone can read—no subscription needed!
Ethiopian Musician Mulatu Astatke poses for a photograph at African Jazz Village in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on April 9, 2025. (AFP/Amanuel Shilasi)
M
ulatu Astatke struggled for decades before his name became associated worldwide with a musical genre and he was finally born as the father of Ethio-jazz.
Now despite that long journey and his 81 years of age, the Ethiopian music legend cannot even "think about retirement".
A one-man band, equally at home with the vibraphone and the conga, a Cuban drum, he created a unique musical blend in the 1960s, a mix of traditional Ethiopian music, funk brass, Afro-beat, and Latin jazz.
"Ethio-jazz is a musical genre which puts the whole world together and makes them one," the octogenarian with a salt-and-pepper moustache told AFP in a recent interview.
The masenqo, a traditional Ethiopian single-stringed instrument played with a bow, features alongside the guitar and the trumpet in his performances.
"This is what I want to do, bring the world together around music," said the composer and trained percussionist in a low voice inside his jazz club African Jazz Village, where he still performs near Addis Ababa's famous Meskel Square.
His music is intended to pay homage to those he calls the "bush people", the rural Ethiopian populations whose dance and music have had a considerable influence on his work and who, according to him, are "not recognized enough".
