Noise Pop report: Hailu Mergia shot Ethiopian jazz into stratosphere for adoring GAMH crowd

Noise Pop report: Hailu Mergia shot Ethiopian jazz into stratosphere for adoring GAMH crowd

When Noise-Pop booked Ethiopian jazz keyboardist Hailu Mergia to play on the Great American Music Hall, they acknowledged and regarded the symmetry: A daring and fast gamble on the excessive IQ of San Francisco hipster rare-record fanatics. 

Well, it tracked, for a possible for some dub-jazz-type abracadabra.

Oh, come on now. You see it when strolling down Lower Haight, that sparkle within the eyes of a wax physician, who solely stepped out of the home to choose up one factor at Vinyl Dreams. Five hours later, drunk off the mud in these decrease bins at Amoeba, excessive off the pursuit of that one document that has as soon as once more eluded them.

You know what it’s, folks.

Nothing stands extra interesting to a devoted vinyl junkie than sharing an artist’s story of hardship to captivate different document fanatics—and I do imply those self same Saturday afternoon Lower Haight Warriors who retailer their vinyl records in kitchen cabinets and loo cupboards. I’ve seen it.

Levels, child. Levels.

And so the story goes… Awesome Tapes From Africa‘s Brian Shimkovitz discovered one among Mergia’s cassettes in Africa and tracked him right down to DC the place he was a cab driver who had but to play since 1991. The jazz pioneer will get inspired to launch some new materials for a younger and inquisitive viewers that garners over 5 million streams on digital platforms, and the remainder makes him a newly found entity amongst a sure era.

That’s the reality and hipster crate-digging lore.

So when the aged Mergia took the stage on Sunday evening, March 3, shuffling his toes, not strolling in strides, mini waves of “Oh no” got here from some crowd members. Concerned this may increasingly simply be a well mannered run-through of earlier, old-timey variations of the discography.

Well, I’ll report it: All that shuffling? It was a entice.

Mergia, together with Alemseged Kebede on bass guitar and Kenneth Joseph on drums, punched tempos excessive, decimated lulls, and rewrote concepts on what Ethiopian jazz is with impressed riffage.

All these years of Mergia driving a cab round Dulles Airport in DC? After dropping off a fare, he’d seize the keyboard from the trunk, sit within the automobile, and observe. So strategies and concepts remained modern.

This was a extremely expert trio, constructed with rhythmic depth, that had “making up for misplaced time” pulsing by means of tune after tune. That consciousness of profession, a combo of misplaced years and new starting each evening to a stars-in-their-eyes throng of well-wishers: These new veterans saved a younger freewheeling, weed-smoking sold-out viewers reeling. Forever in nice spirits. Appreciating each final second of the 80-minute set.

This is identical venue, the place I’ve witnessed Medeski Martin & Wood, Broun Fellinis… Sun Ra Arkestra simply blew the doorways off a month in the past for a three-night sold-out engagement.

All these spirits hanging in GAMH, that ole barn.

But this Elysian trio saved firing off these warmth rocks, sure flammables, throughout the venue like a seaside ball caught up within the rapture of patrons at a rowdy Giants sport: That various warbling of the keyboard notes, a touchpoint of quite a few jams, setting off runs that didn’t prohibit themselves to simply jazz, added to the venue’s historical past, new spirits to think about within the fold. There was funk, soul, reinterpreted people musings, and the group favourite—the WTF.

I say that kiddingly, however Mergia whips out an accordion at sure occasions of the evening. Then perhaps a melodica. Slotted within the correct improvisation home windows supplied, this higher septuagenarian nonetheless looked like desirous to discover atmospheres, not pull again from them.

Alternating between the synth and a Fender Rhodes, his melodies, these slippery observe musings rode completely atop the full-throttle funk his bass and drum participant have been dealing out to the group, and heavens all evening.

“That present was burnin’” was a response I obtained from a neighborhood publicist who books acts inside that frequency. Yes, Noise Pop, this one, I didn’t see it coming. Way to increase the vibration in your curation. Kudos.

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March 8, 2024 at 12:49AM