Mulatu Plays Mulatu review: Mulatu Astatke reimagines himself”>
81-year-old Ethio-jazz Godfather Mulatu Astatke’s self-covers album Mulatu Plays Mulatu could easily have been an exercise in ego, a simple greatest-hits record, the sort of lazy compilation one expects from legacy artists in their later years. Instead, Astatke and his longtime touring band remade 11 of his favorite compositions, many of them relatively deep cuts, with new arrangements featuring a full panorama of Western and Ethiopian instruments.
The album begins with the tuning of the low-range, harp-like begena, leading into an extended vamp that prefaces the project’s longest, freest track. And in the brief “Motherland Intro,” a Romantic melody is bowed out dramatically on the single-stringed masenqo. The record’s most recognizable cut, “Yèkèrmo Sèw” — popularized stateside by its appearance on the soundtrack to Jim Jamusch’s 2005 film Broken Flowers — is stretched out to almost double its original length, allowing for new combinations and collisions. With all the accolades in the world, Mulatu Astatke has every reason to rest on his laurels, but Mulatu Plays Mulatu proves he’ll continue to expand his Ethio-jazz vision for the foreseeable future.
