Ethiopiques 32: Nalbandian The Ethiopian brings a missing chapter of modern Ethiopian music into sharp focus, uniting archival imagination with present‑day firepower under the banner Nalbandian The Ethiopian & Either / Orchestra. Long before “Swinging Addis” became shorthand for vintage Ethio‑grooves, Armenian‑born composer and bandleader Nerses Nalbandian was quietly reshaping the country’s musical landscape from within, weaving American big‑band vocabularies and Latin currents into Ethiopian modes and theatre traditions. Arriving in Ethiopia in 1938 and eventually becoming Emperor Haile Selassie’s favoured musician, he led the National Theater Orchestra, mentored a generation of future stars, and helped lay the foundations of Ethio‑jazz - then saw much of that work fade from earshot after the fall of the imperial regime.
This new volume in the prestigious Ethiopiques series, drawn from live and studio recordings, finally gives Nalbandian’s writing the wide release it always deserved. Curated in close collaboration with his family and series producer Francis Falceto, the project hinges on a transcontinental alliance: Boston’s Either/Orchestra, led by saxophonist and arranger Russ Gershon, painstakingly reconstructed Nalbandian’s big‑band charts from surviving scores and tapes, then travelled to Addis Ababa to perform them with local guests in 2011. The resulting album restores the full colour of pieces like “Amhara Rumba,” “Mot Ièhulum Ekul Nèw,” “Yèné Hassab” and “Mambo No. 1”, where tightly drilled brass, sinuously stepped Ethiopian scales and post‑war swing power meet on equal terms.
What emerges is a crucial “modernist link” in Ethiopian music history: the sound of Addis in the mid‑1950s and early 1960s, before rock’n’roll, soul and amplified bands fully retooled the urban soundtrack. Nalbandian’s arrangements thrive on disciplined riffing, lush voicings and rhythmic shifts that fold Glenn Miller‑era jubilation, Latin dance pulses and local rhythmic accents into something unmistakably Ethiopianised. Either/Orchestra, long versed in navigating between jazz traditions and Ethiopian repertoire, approach the material not as museum restoration but as living music, leaning into its swagger and melodic bite while respecting its internal logic.
Situated within the broader Ethiopiques catalogue, Nalbandian The Ethiopian feels both like a revelation and a missing puzzle piece. It anchors later favourites - from Mulatu Astatke’s Ethio‑jazz experiments to the electric “Swinging Addis” explosion - in an earlier, largely undocumented orchestral framework, showing how stateless Armenian musicians like Kevork and Nerses Nalbandian helped compose national anthems, retool theatre orchestras and, almost incidentally, invent a new musical idiom. For listeners, the album is both an instantly engaging big‑band record - brimming with hooks, solos and rhythmic drive - and a rare chance to hear the roots of Ethiopian modernism in full, resonant colour.
