My focus has been on the music industry so far. Ok, so it’s been a bit on the music side and not so much on the industry side recently, but still that’s the idea. I have also been hoping to stay out of the “Shameless Self-Promotion” category, or at least in the sense of not really plugging my various gigs and so on. But the thing I want to talk about is very cool and I have a great story about it.

A DVD was released recently, and it’s the first one that I’m on. Actually, I’m featured quite a lot in this DVD for reasons ranging from “on accident” to “standing behind the band leader.” It’s great. The DVD – Ethiogroove: Mahmoud Ahmed and the Either/Orchestra – celebrates a wonderful moment in World Music, when Mahmoud Ahmed (greatest living Ethiopian singer) collaborated with a band I have been in since 1997, the Either/Orchestra. It’s important because it marks the first time that Mahmoud worked with an American band. The DVD is great, providing footage of the concert, along with some nice interviews with Russ Gershon (E/O head honcho) and Mahmoud, where they explain quite a lot about the history of the music. We had a wonderful time playing in Paris in April, 2006.

So here’s the cool story. There is a tune on this DVD called Ashkaru (aka Embi Ba, aka Gourage – named for an Ethiopian tribe) in which Mahmoud exclaims “Abet! Abet! Abet!” Towards the end of the song, he gets the whole audience shouting this. “Abet” means something like “present” or “here.”

After we had done our sound check, the band went up to the dressing rooms to wait for dinner time. We decided to practice this particular tune, although with the exception of some drum sticks, I was the only person with an instrument. So the band sang their parts, with Mahmoud singing over the top of the arrangement. Our dressing room had a wall of windows overlooking a busy street in Banlieues, outside of Paris. Across the street was a large apartment complex with balconies for each apartment.

Towards the end of our impromptu rehearsal, a woman walked out onto her balcony and looked around. She was dressed in a beautiful Ethiopian dress, called a tebeb. Mahmoud kept singing away, and within a few seconds we got to the part where he was singing “Abet! Abet! Abet!” The Ethiopian woman across the street looked a little startled, then started frantically looking around – it was clear that she was hearing Mahmoud and knew that it was him, but where was the music coming from? The more she looked, the more he exclaimed “Abet” as if he had been right in front of her the whole time. It was great.

Here’s a quick glimpse of what a different night with this group was like. It comes from a club in Paris a couple of nights later. The camera work and editing are nothing compared to the DVD, but it’s the best example I can really give you…for free.

[flash http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9I9htXFxrA4]

The Either/Orchestra has been playing Ethiopian music since I joined. Through a fascinating chain of events, we managed to find ourselves performing Ethiopian music for Ethiopians…in Ethiopia, in 2004. That concert was released on the Ethiopiques series, and features performances by some wonderful Ethiopian musicians, including the great Mulatu Astatke. For some more on the fantastic series Ethiopiques, check out the “best of” website.

So there you have it.

Thanks,

Rick McLaughlin