Girma Béyéné's concert at CUNY Graduate Center takes place on Oct. 24th, 2016. (Photo: Horizon Ethiopia)
Tadias Magazine
By Tadias Staff
Published: Thursday, October 20th, 2016
Girma Beyene: Titan of Ethiojazz & Ethiopiques in a Rare NYC Concert
New York (TADIAS) — The legendary Ethiopian singer, songwriter and arranger Girma Beyene will perform live for the first time in New York City next Monday (October 24th) at the City University of New York (CUNY) Graduate Center. The concert is part of CUNY’s “A Global Music Series” and the singer will be accompanied by the DC-based Feedel Band
Girma, who used to live in Washington, D.C. for several years beginning in the early 1980′s — long before the D.C. metro area became home to the largest Ethiopian population in America — was also in the U.S. capital last week where he gave a live show at Atlas Performing Arts Center. As The Washington Post pointed out “The great Ethiopian singer, lyricist and arranger first found himself in the District way back in 1981 during a tour in the Walias Band, one of Ethiopia’s most revered jazz troupes. Beyene liked the District enough to stay — but not for good. After many years in the area, he eventually returned to Addis Ababa. It was there, during the 1960s and ’70s, where Beyene had been a major player in one of the planet’s most electrifying music scenes.”
“Girma Beyene is one of the most influential Ethiopian musicians from the ‘Golden Age’ of the 1960′s and 1970′s, which combined African rhythms with American R&B, soul, funk, and big band jazz,” states the announcement from CUNY. “Beyene made a handful of recordings as a vocalist, but it was as an arranger, pianist, and composer that he made his mark.”
Mulatu Astatke & Girma Beyene. (Photo: Horizon Ethiopia)
His best known hit song Enken Yelelebish/Ene Negne By Manesh, which has been redone many times by subsequent generations of artists, including Jano Band in 2013, tops Girma Beyene’s classics that have been preserved in the Éthiopiques CD collection.
According to The Washington Post, “After co-founding the Alem-Girma Band alongside the great vocalist Alemayehu Eshete, Beyene became a highly esteemed arranger, generating more than 65 songs during what many consider to be the golden years of Swinging Addis. (Among those tunes: the deeply beloved and consummately funky “Muziqawi Silt,” popularized by Hailu Mergia, another giant of Ethiopian song who still lives in the Washington area.)”
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If You Go:
CUNY Presents Girma Beyene
October 24, 2016: 7:00 PM
The Graduate Center/CUNY
Elebash Recital Hall
365 Fifth Ave. (at 34th St.)
New York, NY 10016
ADMISSION: $25, $20 Members (free to CUNY)
Click here to get Tickets
Video: Girma Beyene live in Paris with French band Akale Wube — 2015
Related:
Mahmoud Ahmed Makes Carnegie Hall Debut — Oct. 22
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