Basic HTML Version
148
JUNE 2012
•
HEMISPHERESMAGAZINE.COM
FEATURES
||
THE BALLADOF ADDIS ABABA
»
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 86
and his children and grandchildren still
live there. Inside the house are Oriental
rugs and imported Italian crystal; outside
is a tall fence patrolled by two dogs and a
private guard (a common sight here). The
house stands alone on a vast empty lot.
Theother homeswere razedby the govern-
ment, which plans to take back the land
for development. Nerses’ offspring have
stubbornly refused to let this happen to
their own house. They want to preserve
history for future generations by turning
the home into a museum. When I visited
late last year, though, they were weary
from fighting. “You’d be er take pictures
of the house before it gets demolished,”
Nerses’ daughter Mary said. Considering
Nerses Nalbandian’s importance in Ethio-
pian history, this beggars belief.
Nerses Nalbandian, whose family
had fled Turkey during the Armenian
genocide and settled in Syria, followed
his father to Addis in 1933, and taught
music to foreigners for years before being
asked by the culturally minded Emperor
Selassie in the 1950s to write scores for
the National Theatre. That was a major
honor, as those performances were then
broadcast weekly over national radio.
Nalbandianwas chargedwith translating
traditional Ethiopian music to big band
arrangements, which was something no
one had ever done before. Nalbandian,
however, was uncommonly skilled. He
quickly figured out how to harmonize the
local sound—whichhasneitherharmonies
nor scales that lend themselves toWestern
instrumentation—without destroying it.
Like a hip, East African LawrenceWelk,
Nalbandian captured the ear of the nation
withhismusic. Future stars likeMahmoud
Ahmed andMulatuAstatke (whowent on
to become the father of Ethiojazz) spent
their youths listening to broadcasts of
Nalbandian’s hits. Over time, more bands
formed, nightclubs opened andEthiopian-
laced rock and jazz was born—always,
always
, inAmharic, and always employing
the eerie Ethiopian pentatonic scales and
Nerses’ unique harmonies.
Yet as quickly as it began, the story
almost ended. A Soviet-backed military
coup seized control of Ethiopia in 1974 (a
year a er Ellington played Addis) and set
about dismantling the musical culture
that Emperor Selassie had nurtured.
Clubs were shut down. Musicians were
harassed. Civil war flared up, sparking a
diaspora. Falceto, meanwhile, got to work
smuggling out the recordings that, in time,
would find their way nearly 7,000 miles to
Russ Gershon.
WHEN GERSHON STUDIED
Nerses
Nalbandian’s charts, notes and photos at
the family home, he felt a profound con-
nection. “They reminded me of my own
charts,” he says of the handwri en scores.
“I felt like I’d discovered a kindred spirit,
a brother who had been working on my
project a half-century before I was.”
He took on the project, and spent the
next seven years trying to find the time
andmoney to return toAddis and stage the
first all-Nalbandian concert in a genera-
tion. He got a grant from the U.S. embassy
and supplemented itwitha campaignwith
the fundraising group Kickstarter. He
scrambled to locate former Nalbandian
sidemen to join the band. Many are gone
and the few who are still around are too
old to play, but he did find Girma Negash,
the original singer of Nalbandian’s “Yene
Hasab,” a hit song for which Gershon had
the original charts. ThoughNegash, nowin
his 70s, had been driving a bus for the past
40 years, when he showed up for practice
there was no doubt as to his chops. “Hear-
ing Girma sing made the hair on the back
of my neck stand up,” Gershon says.
The concert happened inMay 2011 at the
original National Theatre. Before the show,
seniors werewonderingwhether it’d be as
goodas they remembered, andmembers of
the younger setwere eager to reclaimtheir
heritage and groove to the golden years.
Bothgroupswouldcomeawayelated.Most
people recognized a few songs and sang
along. Special guests appeared, many of
themyounger players like croonerMichael
Belayneh, 30, who recently returned to
Addis a er working in technology in the
U.S. for a couple of years. The crowd ate it
up. Themusicwas back. “Itwas anodd and
wonderful feeling to be a kind of musical
and historical midwife,” Gershon recalls.
“We returned these sounds to the theater
where they had been born.”
Gershonhad the concert professionally
recorded and is nowmixingwhat he hopes
will become an all-Nalbandian album on
Falceto’s Ethiopiques label. Meanwhile,
the recording industry in Addis has never
been ho er. Members of the Addis Acous-
tic Project are in huge demand as artists,
teachers and producers. Bassist Temesgen,
who co-founded a jazzmusic school when
he arrived inAddis in 2006, barely has time
to sleep—but that sure beats all those
years in New York, scraping to make rent
on a cramped apartment.
Following the Jazzamba gig, Gershon
visited the Nalbandians, who were down-
cast about the futureof theirhome. He said
goodbye and returned to Boston. Shortly
a er, he got an email. “Greetings to you all,”
it read. “The Municipality of Addis Ababa,
a er long deliberations, has decided not
to demolish the Nalbandian house in Arat
Kilo, as they have found that the house is
well constructed and theworkdone by our
father, NersesNalbandian, has entitled it to
become a national heritage site. We hope
to have the house converted into amusical
center in the name of NersesNalbandian.”
RACHEL SLADE
’s tween daughter is mortified
by her mother’s musical taste.