The last concert at the Alliance in Addis

We spent most of our last day on the grounds of the Alliance Francaise in Addis.  We had been really well received by all the team at the Alliance, especially Charles and Beatrice who went out of their way a couple of times to help us out with whatever logistical problem had.  There was an art fair organised on the grounds of the Alliance all day on Saturday and it was a nice way to spend a last (beautifully sunny) day before our night-time flights back to France.

It was another magical outdoor concert, and all the work and rehearsals paid off.  Asrat, Mihret and Fekerte performed beautifully and we had a great time playing this last concert.

Unfortunately, we didn’t have time to hang around much after the concert (we had a plane to catch in less than 2 hours).  All our friends were there and it was sad to say goodbye to everyone.  We packed our stuff, waved au revoir to Addis and headed to the airport.

And I mean au revoir in its literal sense, “to see you again”, because this is not the last time Akalé Wubé are visiting Addis and Ethiopia...we had a good first dose and will be ready to come back very soon!!

Fendika

Friday was the club gig we had al been looking forward to.  We were programmed to play at Melaku’s Fendika, together with Ethio-Colour.  By the time we were ready to go on stage, the small club was packed with people, inside and outside.

I had been visiting the club practically every day since my arrival in Addis.  There is something magical that made us want to go back again and again.  Maybe it was the delicious haraké served in tiny glasses or the fantastic music played incessantly by Asrat and the reisdent Masinko players.  It could have been Mihret’s charismatic bursts of singing, or even Melaku and his troupe’s hypnotic dancing... It could have even been the place itself, a small low tent like space with small stools and tables all over, all bathed in a low red light which makes you exit Addis’ urban wannabe feel into a time forgotten space where all that matters is drink, dance and song.

Fendika is truly a perfect mix of all that makes a great club, and we were honoured to play there on Friday.  People swarmed into the place for the night’s events and it turned out to be a long night of hot music, thanks to Kidus’ vinyl warmup, Ethio-Colour’s amazing show of music, dance and fantastic guest singers, and of course our set which for the first time included Asrat on percussion, Mihret’s singing and Fekerte’s energetic dancing.

The festivities ended with a jam session between us, the musicians of Ethio-Colour and a couple of talented drummers and singers who joined in from the crowd.  It was another memorable night in Addis.

Wal African Jazz Village

We played a good concert at “A la Votre” on Tuesday (which went well except for David’s “roadside salad” incident earlier on in the day, which obliged him to skip the encore and spend a good while visiting the toilets at the club and later at the hotel...) and we had a couple of days off to prepare our last concerts on Friday and Saturday.

We took the opportunity to meet up again with Mulatu Astatke who was kind enough to give us a guided tour of the “Wal African Jazz VIllage”, his music school which resembles more a performing arts centre, not completely finished but with enormous potential for the city’s cultural future.  He showed us through the various classrooms, rehearsal rooms, a huge amphitheater and a beautifully sounding old cinema which Mulatu claimed he’d convert into a fully functional concert venue.

We parted after the obligatory photo shoot of him and his car “Lucy”, and we were only too happy to hear that he had listened to our CD and that he had loved the music, that it was, in his opinion (of course) “beautiful fusion”!

Rehearsals

After our return from Dire Daoua, we had 3 more gigs to look forward to before returning back to Paris.

We had rehearsals planned with Asrat, Mihret and Fekerte during the day, and by Friday we were ready to play a few songs together.  This meeting between us and these talented Ethiopian artists has proven to be fruitful and we were all satisfied with the result.  We met up without really knowing where this collaboration would take us, and as all good collaborations go, we quickly settled into 3 songs (a traditional tune they taught us called Aynama (I hope I spelt this right), and 2 songs of ours which suited the Ethiopians most).  We learnt from each other, discussed and shared ideas, and the resulting concert was rewarding for us as well as for the audience listening.

We managed to achieve one of the biggest objectives of our Ethiopian venture and look forward to continuing this collaboration either in France or again in Ethiopia!

Dire Dawa

 Samedi, c'est notre journée marathon : Nous enchaînons la répétition avec Asrat, Fekherta, Meirat (percussionniste, danseuse et chanteuse ), puis la balance et la répétition au Guramylé devant un public surchauffé. A deux heures du matin, nous rentrons dormir une heure à l'hotel puis il faut se dépêcher d'aller prendre le car pour Dire Dawa !
 
      Nous chargeons le matériel dans les soutes et commençons à somnoler sur les sièges du "Sky Bus". Au moment de partir, le chauffeur nous fait descendre d'urgence : nous sommes dans le mauvais bus. Le chauffeur du Addis-Dire Dawa est malade et un remplaçant arrive.Il faut ressortir et attendre  une bonne heure dans le froid . A Addis à cinq heures du matin, il fait 10 degrés. Nous battons de la semelle au milieu de la place centrale, envahie par les coureurs qui s'entraînent dans le seul parc de la ville. Enfin, le bus arrive, nous partons.
    Pour rattraper le retard, le chauffeur roule à 120 sur une route étroite constamment traversée par des animaux et des gens. Il joue du klaxon et parfois pile brutalement ou fait un écart. Les vieux haut-parleurs crachent une variété lancinante qui nous empêche de dormir. C'est là que Pierre, notre ingé son, a une idée billante : il sort son "Leather Man" et dévisse la trappe pour débrancher le haut parleur du fond.
 
- " ouf, on va pouvoir s'écrouler un peu"
 
    Nous sombrons dans un sommeil comateux entrecoupé par des visions furtives de paysages magnifiques et d' animaux exotiques. Les dix heures de trajet passent à toute vitesse.
 
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    La ville de Dire Dawa est magnifique. Enfin, il fait chaud ! Dans le joli cadre de l'Alliance, un ancien QG des chemins de fer qui ressemble à un préau d'école, nous sommes reçus par Vincent, le directeur adjoint de l'Alliance. Pierre fait des miracles avec  la sono. La basse et la guitare passent directement dans la sono. Et ça marche ! le concert est magique. Les éthiopiens reprennent en coeur certaines chansons. Ce n'est pas comme en France, les gens applaudissent lorsque quelque chose leur plaît, sans attendre la fin du solo. C'est très spontané. A la fin du concert, nous rentrons vite à l'hôtel : encore une petite nuit de 3 heures et " zou ! Dans le bus pour Addis"

Premier concert en éthiopie

Aujourd'hui c'est notre premier concert en éthiopie ! Nous allons jouer aux éthiopiens leur propre musique, au Goethe institute.
    Nous montons sur scène sous les applaudissements.
    Etienne entame Ayalqem Tedengo à la flûte. Aussitôt, le public reprend en coeur la mélodie. Le moment est très émouvant. Nous essuyons une petite larme. Le climat est particulier, religieux. 
    Charles Courdent, le directeur de l'Alliance française nous a prévenu, les gens se manifestent assez peu dans les concerts, il n'y a pas de rappel. En effet, le dernier morceau terminé, nous quitterons la scène comme ça. Mais je garde un souvenir très fort de cette rencontre, d'avoir pu rencontrer le public éthiopien.

Rencontre avec Mulatu

Aujourd'hui, nous déjeunons avec le pape de l'éthio-jazz, son inventeur dit-il, celui qui fit connaître le stye à travers la BO de Broken Flowers, j'ai nommé Mulatu from Ethiopia, Mulatu Astatké hymself !
    La rencontre n'est pas certaine, nous l'attendons dans un petit restau à l'occidentale, un peu en dehors de la ville, avec Sophie notre chaperon à Addis. Un coup de fil : " il arrive, sort du studio de télé à l'instant ".
    En effet, nous ne tardons pas à le voir arriver dans une Mazda 1300 rouge qu'il a lui-même appelée Lucy (In the Sky with diamonds ?  référence à Lucy l'éthiopienne, première dame de l'humanité ?). Cela m'évoque une scène à la Starsky et Hutch, mais à l'éthiopienne, avec en bande son les cocottes wha wha de Munaye Soup par exemple. 
    -" Hello, I'm Mulatu "
    - " Nice to meet you "
    Nous parlons avec lui du jazz ethiopien, de sa musique d'abord, mais aussi des projets qui mélangent musiciens éthiopiens et étrangers. Certains projets lui déplaisent mais beaucoup dénaturent la musique éthiopienne selon lui.
    "it's all about fusion !" nous dit-il.
    Il parle tout bas de sa belle voix un peu envoûtante. Nous sommes sous le charme. David est obligé de se tordre le cou pour essayer d'entendre quelque chose. 
    Il énumère une suite impressionnante de musiciens de jazz avec qui il a joué, de Duke Ellington à Benny Maupin... L'aventure éthio-jazz ne date pas d'hier !
    Puis il nous parle de son opéra qui sera créé dans un site historique au Nord d'Addis, dans des églises sculptées à même la pierre.
    L'heure tourne. Nous devons nous hâter pour faire la balance au Goethe institute. Juste encore le temps de faire quelques photos avec lui devant Lucy la petite voiture rouge et c'est l'heure de se dire au revoir.
    On a promis de se revoir à son école mercredi. 
    " Bye Mulatu, see you on wednesday ! "

Dear Akale Wube,

Here is a nice surprise which we received this morning.  Mr. Haileyesus, an Ethiopian architect who was present at our first concert at the Goethe Institute wrote us a beautiful hand written letter to express his feelings about our music.  It was heart warming to read his letter and I  had to transcribe it letter by letter in this post.  Here goes:


Dear Akale Wube,

I would like to express to you that I have been magnificently pleasured by your musical Jaz consurt in Addis Ababa Ethiopia on November 25th 2010, in the out door "amphitheatre" when the night's stars and the moon also witnesed your miraculus sound of Ethiopian great soul heats of our great composer"s".  You were great.  You were miraculus.  You have analised the chemistry of Ethiopian soul core.  You have extended its modernity like transplant with best preferences in your musical language analysis.  You have shown us extention and direction towards the growth of the future in Ethiopian music.

I was born in the beginning of 1950.  I have been living in Mulatu Astatkje's soul jaz life. You have shown a further distance.   You have also shown and have made the audience of our young generation to be aware of jaz specialy in tearms of Ethiopian music context.  Those jaz musics were there in Ethiopia.  They were great but hidden in archives where the young generation could hardly notice them.  You have unfolded them.  You have polished them.  You have put them in the laundary machine, you have ironed them.  You have perfumed them.  Then you have extended them through your musical genesesisal interpretation.  Then you surprized us.

I could not belive it when I first saw you.  I just said in my mind "What are those French musicians going to demonstrate?"  The music started then my eyes opened.  Then my eyes opened more wider.  Then my mustles in my eye skin tried to heart as I could not open it any more.  My heart was floating with the stars and the moon in the night open sky live show of yours.

The extra ordinary thing is the vision at the time.  Sounds are coming out in Ethiopia jaz order?  From handsome French men.  It was great.  It was great.  I was in the year 2010.  You  took me to year 2050.  Modern Ethiopia 2050.  You opened a cloged path to Ethiopian Jaz to specialy the young generation.  You were woonderful.  You were beautiful.  You have made us love our music mire than we do now.  You have put a new dimension in Ethiopian Jaz. Specialy it iss a vitamin, nutrition, to motivat it to add speed to its growth.

Balcha Haileyesus, Ethiopian Professional Practicing Architect

More on Dire Daoua

I'm writing this back in our hotel in Addis and I must admit that I already miss Dire Daoua! It's a charming little town with a little over 300,000 inhabitants and an equal amount of "bajaj"s (tri-wheel blue and white taxis) swarming around picking up and people and dropping them off for a mere 1 birr per person (that's the equivalent of 4 euro centimes).

We had barely 24 hours to get a feel of D Dawa, but we did get to loiter around in our  suits taking photos with locals and gathering quite a substantial amount of attention! The town is muuch calmer and greener than Addis, with wildly coloured houses and shops, and trees lining most of it's small streets.

One setback in Dire Dawa was that we had no water for the length of our stay. It has to be said that water in Ethiopia (notably water coming our of a shower head in a cubicle) is a luxury, and it's perfectly normal for some districts to go without running water for days. We had no luck in this department and had to go for 2 concerts, and 2 twelve hour bus rides without a good shower.  It's not the most pleasant of things, but it does put things in perspective in a way that makes you prioritise on what's really essential and what isn't...

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The concert at the Alliance Francaise in Dire Daoua was a lot of fun.  Not much different than the one at the Goethe Institute in Addis, people remained sitting down but participated loudly with singing and clapping in the most unexpected of places! We're usually used to clapping at the end of songs and solos, but Africans clap when they feel they have to clap, be it the middle of a loud solo, at the beginning of a melody they recognise...wherever!

It was heart warming to see the audience stand up to clap at the end of our show and we were lucky enough for the concert to be televised on Dire Daoua TV! Many thanks to Vincent and all his team at the Alliance  in D Daoua for this concert.

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Next up are a last series of concerts at Addis (including one tonight at a club called "A la Votre" and a couple of days off during which god knows what we'll get up to!

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ps...many apologies for all the spelling mistakes in these posts but I lack the luxury to re-read my posts and proof readers are not an option!