The late Sun Ra said his jazz came from outer space, with albums like Visits Planet Earth, We Travel the Space Ways, and the classic ESP disk The Heliocentric Worlds of Sun Ra, with him on the cover, ...

His signature vibraphone-playing jazz uses the distinctive five-note Ethiopian scale: it's jazz as if from a parallel universe, by turns haunting, romantic and sometimes a touch sleazy, as though the ...

With more than 20 volumes and counting, the Éthiopiques series on France's Buda Musique has been an invaluable source for Ethiopian music; this 28-track, 2xCD record takes on the uneviable task of ...

Apologies for the deadly silence over here these past two weeks. We haven't run out out of good music worth writing about, of course: the good CDs kept turning up, it's just that I wasn't in the ...

Ethiopian popular music went through an intense creative flowering during the early '70s, cross-referencing traditional styles with jazz, funk, rock, and whatever else could be used to get people ...

Embed <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/5560216/5560311" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player"> The ...

Nice to see on the responses to my comeback blog that a few of you are sharing the love for the Ethiopiques comps. The Yegelle Tezeta and Girma Beyene tracks mentioned by Citizensound and Tunetourist ...

A horn lover's paradise exists and it is Addis Ababa. At least, the Ethiopian capital was for one night in January 2004, when the American Either/Orchestra, a proponent of "Ethio-jazz, played a ...

This is an unusual one by any stretch of even the most vivid imagination but bear with me. This music has roots as ancient as the depths of its magic. Noise levels are low on this one. There’s a quiet ...

Inspired by a true story of survival.

Ethiopiques, Fat Freddy's Drop, and Solomon Burke, top the first additions announced for this year's WOMAD, the World of Music, Arts and Dance festival. Also joining this years line-up will be ...

His signature vibraphone-playing jazz uses the distinctive five-note Ethiopian scale: it's jazz as if from a parallel universe, by turns haunting, romantic and sometimes a touch sleazy, as though the ...