By Teo Kermeliotis, for CNN
September 17, 2014 -- Updated 1508 GMT (2308 HKT)
(CNN) -- You'd expect a conversation with Mulatu Astake to be about music. He is, after all, the father of a musical genre: Ethio-jazz. But when he talks about the art form, he tends to focus on its scientific merits.
"When you start talking about jazz, they're usually telling us that Africans contributed to the rhythm parts of jazz music, but it's not only the rhythms. We have contributed to the science of jazz as well," he says.
While innovators like Charlie Parker may get credit for the creation of modern jazz music by using diminished scales (as done in classical music by composers like Claude Debussy), Astake offers an alternative view: "In southern Ethiopia, there are tribes called the Derashe -- I call them the scientists of music. By cutting different size bamboos, [they] have been playing this diminished scale [for centuries]. So who first created it? Debussy, Charlie Parker, or the Derashe tribes?"
Unsurprisingly, I'm not the only one who's been presented with such questions by Astatke, whose passion about Africa's contribution to music extends back to the 1960s when he went on to fuse the traditional Ethiopian five-tone scales with western 12-note harmonies to give life to a whole new music genre: the hypnotizing and eerily seductive soundscape of ethio-jazz.
Music pioneer
Astatke, whose performance Saturday at Africa Utopia was one of the highlights of the London-based festival, has been outspoken about his country's cultural heritage throughout his five-decade career. Yet, the father of ethio-jazz first had to go outside Ethiopia to find his musical calling.
Born in Jimma, southwestern Ethiopia, in 1943, Astatke was sent to Wales as a teenager to further his high school studies, with the goal of studying aeronautical engineering. It was there where his fascination with music began, after being encouraged by his teachers to pick up various musical instruments.
Astatke quickly discovered his natural musical talent -- and has never looked back. After shelving plans to study engineering, he moved to London to study classical music at Trinity College. During those years, he also started performing live, playing congas and timpani in various clubs across the London capital.
Keen to explore jazz, Astatke then decided to enroll at Boston's Berklee College of Music, becoming the famed institution's first African student. At Berklee, Astatke analyzed the work of jazz giants -- anyone from Duke Ellington and Count Basie to Gil Evans and John Coltrane -- but was also encouraged to explore his own musical vision.
"I remember at Berklee we had a fantastic teacher who always used to tell us, 'guys, be yourselves,'" says Astatke. "So I started concentrating, working things out my own way and experimenting."
read more: http://edition.cnn.com/2014/09/17/world/africa/mulatu-astatke-spreading-ethio-jazz-world/index.html?eref=edition
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