Ethiopiques 19
Nearly 20 volumes on, the celebrated Ethiopiques series again spotlights Mahmoud Ahmed, this time as he sounded circa 1974. The era's warmly resonant, slightly remote sound environment just suited his powerful, shivery tenor. His voice scales the dizzy peaks and plunging abysses of funked-up old-school Amharic rhythms, raising pulse-rates and goose bumps while nimbly dodging lumbering R&B; horn riffs like a dancer in heavy traffic. The nine selections are crowned by an extended version ofTezeta, in which the singer's soulful wails are stalked by a sinuous, moody bass, psychedelic organ and a sax on a crying jag. Ahmed's many singles helped define "Swinging Addis (Ababa)", when the Ethiopian capital enjoyed a halcyon interval of freewheeling artistic modernity and hip joie de vivre that was ended by a brutally repressive military coup. Fortunately, many seminal recordings of that heady vintage have survived--producer/historian Francis Falceto and his amiable collaborators at the Buda label deserve universal admiration and respect for making them available once more. --Christina Roden