MetLiveArts to Launch 2016-17 Season with Mulatu Astatke in The Temple of Dendur

Mulatu Astatke will perform on Friday, September 9 at 7:00 pm at The Temple of Dendur in The Sackler Wing, The Met to kick off MetLiveArts 2016-17 season. Tickets start at $65. This performance is presented in collaboration with World Music Institute.

Known as the father of Ethio-jazz, composer and multi-instrumentalist (vibraphone, piano, keyboard, organs, and percussion) Mulatu Astatke leaped to international fame in the '70s and '80s with his unique mix of Western traditional Ethiopian music and admirers like Duke Ellington and John Coltrane. Forced off the road for a time due to the political situation in his homeland, he came roaring back in the '90s, recording and touring as never before. Known for his fearless experimentation, his music begins and ends with improvisation. Experience the sounds, rhythms, and textures of Ethiopia live in The Temple of Dendur.

Featuring:

Mulatu Astatke-vibraphone, wurlitzer, percussion

Adam O'Farrill-trumpet

James Arben-saxophone

Jason Lindner-keyboards

Tal Massiah-bass

Daniel Freedman-drums

Mulatu Astatke (b. 1943) is an Ethiopian composer and multi-instrumentalist best known as the father of Ethio-jazz. Born in the western Ethiopian city of Jimma, Astatke trained in North Wales and London, and then became the first African graduate at Boston's prestigious Berklee College of Music, where he later received an honorary degree in 2012. Around 1963, Astatke moved to New York and formed the group The Ethiopian Quintet, recording an album with two volumes entitled Afro-Latin Soul-combining Ethiopian melodies with Western instrumentation. This was the era of his music-making that Astatke credits as the birth of Ethio-jazz. He collaborated with many notable artists, such as John Coltrane, and after returning to Ethiopia in the late '60s worked alongside Poet Laureate Gabre-Medhin for the poet's stage works. Astatke continued to make new arrangements of traditional Ethiopian melodies and songs and emerged as one of the most important artists in what is considered the country's "golden era" of music and creativity. He also performed with Duke Ellington during his African tour in 1973.

Astatke traveled extensively as a board member of the International Jazz Federation (IJF), and took part in the National Black Arts Festival in Nigeria, where he presented a music production called Our Struggle. His audience expanded with the Ethiopiques CD series, which included Astatke's singular Ethio-jazz music, and then his popularity greatly increased when the 2005 Jim Jarmusch film Broken Flowers, starring Bill Murray, featured several of Astatke's songs. After his well-known collaboration with The Heliocentrics, he completed his own solo album Mulatu Steps Ahead in 2010, followed by Sketches of Ethiopia in 2013. During a fellowship at Harvard in 2009, he premiered a portion of his first opera, The Yared Opera. Astatke's music has been sampled by several hip-hop artists, including Nas and Damian Marley for their track "As We Enter."