Addis Abeba

by Imperial Tiger Orchestra

Sometimes you can judge a product by its cover.  Looking for some new music one day, this cd case caught my eye - I've been increasingly interested in Ethiopian music since discovering Mulatu Astatke a couple of years ago, and quickly recognized, between the album title and the Amharic names of most of  the tracks, that this would be of interest to me, despite the fact that the band members all had names that sound French or Spanish to me.

Basically, Addis Abeba is a collection of Ethio-jazz that has a bit of an avant garde feel to it.  There are eight tracks, some of which are covers of pieces I've heard before (like Astatke's 'Emnete'), that swing a little harder than the usual stuff.  The trumpet likes to wander off on its own with regularity, but the end result is a very cool album. 

I found it difficult to find out much about this group on the internet, but I know that they have one other album that I'm going to be keeping my eyes open for now.