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CD Review
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Dr. Rhythm's International Music Column, CD Review >>
Do you remember Star Wars? Remember Jabba the Hutt's palace
band? At the time I was crazy about their piece and dubbed it Ethiopian
Jazz. It was funky and familiar yet strange at the same time. Then I
discovered Mahmoud Ahmed's "Ere Mela Mela" and realised that I was right about the music. In the subsequent twenty years there has been a whole slew of releases of Ethiopian music, from raw rootsy stuff to the atonal lounge
jazz we have come to love. Gigi Shibabaw may be the finest thing to
appear since that disconcerting Mahmoud Ahmed album landed from outer space. Howver she is seriously meddled with on her albums by husband Bill
Laswell. This one is no different. There's crappy cover art, while on the back a
small black and white photo shows what they could be marketing: her image.
I'm not being cynical about this, it's the shallow record buyers who go
for an image. Just look at Empty Vee: Half the videos are about tennage boys'
fantasies of lap dancers. But the Gigi album is also impeded by several
"titles": "Abyssia Infinite" and "Zion Roots" is says on the front, and
"Ethiopian Soul Music" on the back. It's trying to tell you it's Bob Marley and Sam & Dave all at once? Hardly. And where's her name? In small type. Why it
doesn't say Gigi and band: Zion Roots is beyond me. The title, "Zion Roots,"
comes from the Biblical reference to Zion which Rastafarians believe to be
Ethiopia. Gigi's own songs are in the same mode as the traditional ones on
the album, so the whole works seamlessly as a statement of an older style of
Ethiopian jazz that will appeal to many newcomers as well as fans of the
genre, though there is a sameness to the tracks that gets tedious. The
Duchess calls it boutique music, pointing out the songs have no centre.
Critics are mostly pleased that producer Bill Laswell didn't screw it up as he
has done in numerous occasions in the past. In fact this album is a
return to the mid-seventies sound that characterized Ethiopian music in
the bad old days of the Emperor and demi-urge Haile Selassie. After his
overthrow many musicians went into hiding or were jailed. There was a
curfew and live acts were replaced by synthesizers and "le programmation
terrible." While there is a spiritual quality to the music which is also
refreshing, there's a noodly sax player who could have been left out. Senegalese percussionist Ayib Deng appears, as do a few other guests, but for the most part it's Gigi's own band Abyssinia Infinite. To get the weird Star
Wars flavor, Laswell has run some of the guitar rhythm tracks backwards.
Since it's his own playing, we can't complain. Sooner or later Gigi may put
out a great album, meanwhile this is her best effort yet.
01/05/04
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