Blue Note Band rocks with Ethiopian Jazz

By Alemayehu Seife Selassie

The four Ethiopian young-men established jazz band, Blue Note presented a jazz music concert at the Alliance Ethio-Française. The group that has members Ashenafi Admassu on bass guitar, Nathenael Tessema a drummer, Kibrom Ashebir pianist and Girum Gizaw as a lead guitarist was established a year ago. It’s members aged between age 22-29, however were playing a year before their formal establishment.

Currently performing at the Kuriftu Resort and Spa, on Friday and Saturday nights, Blue Note has performed at the Sheraton Addis for months and was the jazz band for Unity University College for a year.
The group of young musicians came together when they went to study music at the Mekanissa Theology College. Having similar tastes they did not waste any time to establish a jazz band and perform together.

But as they were ready for action they were faced with one major challenge, the unpopularity of their kind of music. “Jazz music is not our culture, it is American music. But since it is one of the most difficult genres of music it would make your life easier once you dare and learn it”, Ashenafi one of the elder members of the band said.

According to him once they mastered jazz the rest was easy. “We wanted to introduce this type of music to our people because we wanted the people to share the love that we have. Plus we wanted to introduce Ethiopian music across the world through jazz.”
Playing 11 songs for a crowd of over a hundred people, on their performance last May 23rd the group was able to bring life on to the light. And they state that nine out of the 11 tunes they played were original tunes.

“Our jazz band is the first one to be registered as a jazz band. We have had a good feedback from the audience and we intend to go on doing the same “, the member said.
Two of the elder band members Ashenafi and Girum teach music at the College where they once got their lessons from. But the other two are still going through their music lessons.
“Jazz is a hard music to master. But we are studying it with passion and that has helped us to master it. Our aim is to get popular playing it. We are on a good level but there is still a lot more to go”, Kibrom the piano player of Blue Note said.

As they strive to establish their names the group’s effort however did not slide by getting unnoticed. “A great Ethiopian musician Henock Temesgen who is playing in the US has given us a pat in the back for a job well done. And we are very much hopeful that we would be just as good someday”, he added Nathenael, the drummer of the Blue Note on his part stated that they have set plans to have the recording of their plays. We want to do more original music and we are hopping that we will have a CD release of Ethiopian fused jazz music.

Among the places Blue Note played on the one month performance they have had at the Harlem Jazz Club is a significant one. Playing with the Ethiopian born and US based singer jazz blues singer Woina the group was able to entertain lots of crowds for weeks.
Currently the group is spending most of their time playing and rehearsing music. “There is a great tendency to go to clubs but our people don’t have the patience to listen to some jazz music. And I guess that is something we would have to bring light to”, Ashenafi explains.

The trends of band exsistance in Ethiopia are not something that upcoming musicians could look up to. And in this regard Ashenafi said, “It is only Roha Band which stayed together for years. But when you come across such bands as Yellow Jackets which have celebrated their 25th anniversary, it gets you inspired to stick by each other”.
Among the dreams these artists have one is to go on an international tour around Africa.
“There have not been many Ethiopian artists who travel around the continent playing their music. And that is something we hope to create”, the members said.

Jamming at the Coffee House where the drummer plays most of his nights, the artists has also gotten the chance to play with the international jazz stars Abegaz Shiota, Henok Temesgen, Girum Mezmur, Tim and Olaf. As they are striving to get noticed, their dedication is something they rely on to get to the stage where their icons are.

June 2, 2007