Ethio-Jazz
The 7 Best Ethio-Jazz
Tracks of All Time
Mulatu Astatke's invention: Ethiopian pentatonic modes and Amharic song set against soul-jazz arrangements, made in Addis Ababa in the years before the 1974 revolution closed the clubs and the studios.
- Origin
- Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 1969
- Tempo
- 70–130 BPM
- Also known as
- ethiopian jazz, ethiopiques, swinging addis
- Tracks
- 7
- Updated
- 2026-08-30
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Number 1: Mulatu Astatke / Yèkèrmo Sèw
1969 · Amha
A vibraphone, a fuzz guitar and a mode that refuses to resolve. Jim Jarmusch later used it in Broken Flowers and introduced the whole tradition to a generation who had never heard of Addis.
Number 2: Mahmoud Ahmed / Ere Mela Mela
1975
Recorded with the Ibex Band as the political weather turned. Ahmed sings with an ornamentation that has no equivalent in soul, over a band that is unmistakably playing soul.
Number 3: Mulatu Astatke / Tezeta
1972 · Amha
Tezeta is both a mode and a word for nostalgia, which tells you how the two are related here. The most purely beautiful thing in the Ethiopiques series.
Number 4: Mulatu Astatke / Yègellé Tezeta
1969 · Amha
The organ line is the hook and the bass never settles. Astatke's own tezeta, and the one most often lifted by hip-hop producers who found the reissues.
Number 5: Girma Bèyènè and the Walias Band / Musicawi Silt
1977
A riff so strong it became the standard every Addis band had to play. Rhythmically closer to Lagos than to New York, which is the point.
Number 6: Tlahoun Gèssèssè / Almaz
1973
The great male voice of the era, backed by the Imperial Bodyguard Band — literally a state orchestra playing dance music. The scene's institutional strangeness in one record.
Number 7: Alèmayèhu Eshèté / Heyweté
1972
Ethiopia's answer to James Brown, and not much interested in being dignified. Proof the scene had range beyond Astatke's cool.