Cat No: 860152
Format: CD

· Orchestra Ethiopia was a flexible group of around a dozen musicians, who between 1963 and 1975 led a revival of interest in the country’s traditional folk music - oddly at the same time as the US jazz-blues-soul-fuelled ‘golden age’ of Ethiopian pop music was at it’s peak.

· The Orchestra was founded by Egyptian musician-composer-musicologist, Halim El-Dabh - who was soon joined by converts John Coe and Charles Sutton of the American Peace Corps. In 1966, they found their definitive Ethiopian mentor in Tesfaye Lemma.

· Orchestra Ethiopia released several records at the time, represented by five tracks on this album, but the rest of the choices are from previously unissued material.

· This is Volume 23 in the remarkable, widely acclaimed Ethiopiques series, on the French Buda label, overseen by the series producer Francis Falceto.

· The Ethiopiques series has recently had exceptional, renewed press coverage following the release of the Union Square ‘Best of Ethiopiques’ compilation.