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Long dubbed the “father of Ethio jazz”, Mulatu’s blend of Ethiopian folk melodies with free-form jazz, Latin flavours and various Western influences gleaned from his time living in the UK and America (he was reputedly the first African student at Boston’s Berklee College of Music) made him a seminal figure during pre-Communist Ethiopia of the 1960s and 1970s.
His determined renaissance at 67 not only defies age decay, it overrides the cloying magnets of sentimentality and nostalgia that usually accompany the return to public attention and affection of a long-neglected artist in their twilight years. Far from basking in the reflected glory of his younger self, Mulatu sounds hungry, eager, innovative and even forward-thinking. His previous album with The Heliocentrics predominantly revisited various earlier classics, and this too includes radical revisions of a couple of old favourites, Boogaloo and I Faram Gami I Faram. But there’s nothing remotely retro about it. Mulatu’s peerless vibraphone soars buoyantly throughout over some intense arrangements as he throws himself into a colourfully jagged array of instrumental grooves on an album that’s constantly explorative, always fascinating and – on a track like the haunting Motherland – sometimes utterly beautiful.
Some of The Heliocentrics lend support, along with members of Massachusetts jazz band The Either/Orchestra, to provide additional potency and richness; yet it’s still an album that essentially works on intimacy, stealth and guile. Never does it take the grandstanding option, even when the pace steps up a gear on an inspired Afro swing arrangement of Mulatu’s Mood (featuring some gorgeous kora) and the evocative The Way to Nice. Glimmers of blues, salsa and funk seep seductively into the action, but a strong African heart drives Mulatu as he weaves his highly individual magic in a probing style that is as infectious as it is mysterious. --Colin Irwin
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It was apparent from the outset that it was going to be very strong. I can say that depending on which context you wish to adopt, it may be his strongest work ever. From my standpoint, that is unequivocally so. His earliest recordings were fabulous in part because he was so young and impressionable when he made them. He was eager to embrace and expound upon a wide range of styles, influences he'd soaked up, primarily from western sources, and incorporate them in multiples of ways into the music of his native Ethiopia. As a result, the pieces in those recordings tended to bounce around, stylistically, a lot--which in his best recordings was a plus.
Mulatu Steps Ahead is far more (to use an overworked word) seamless. His wide range of influences have melted into a sort of ethnic jazz lounge-y stew that sounds equally as fresh as anything he did 30-40 years ago but has the advantage of greater maturity and technical expertise. I kept waiting for a weak track to come along but it didn't happen!
One other thing that could have "blown it" AFAIC, is that the producers did not go for the highly polished sound that marks so many modern recordings (Astatke himself was the "executive" producer). It was like he/they wanted to retain the aura of his past work--done, no doubt, in fairly primitive studios. This work was recorded over a two-year period in Acton MA, London, and Addis Abba. There is no indicator that all players were present at any of those studios and so it is likely that there was a fair degree of post-production work to bring it all together. In my view, then, the result of that approach is near miraculous and a testimony to the sensitivity and restraint of the producers.
An absolute gem.
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