Hailu Mergia - Pioneer Works Swing (Live) '2023

Tracks list

It’s been a little over ten years since Hailu Mergia re-emerged on the
international music scene. Following the first in a series of his classic
recordings reissued in collaboration with Awesome Tapes From Africa, Mergia
assembled a band and began performing live again after many years driving a cab
in Washington, DC. His first show back appeared on the front page of the New
York Times along with a stellar review and he took off from there performing his
flavor of Ethiopian jazz all over the world in the years since, including Radio
City Music Hall and Montreal Jazz Festival.

Finally, we have a recorded document of the keyboard player’s powerful
DC-based trio—which practices each weekend in his
basement—featuring Kenneth Joseph on drums and Alemseged Kebede on bass.
Beautifully captured at one of their fiery live shows at the venerable Brooklyn
non-profit cultural center Pioneer Works on July 1, 2016, the concert was
recorded by PW staff and mixed by Ted Young with mastering by ATFA’s
expert audio extraction collaborator Jessica Thompson. The performance clarifies
what many people across the globe already know: in his fifth decade of
music-making Hailu Mergia continues to push the boundaries of his remarkable
abilities.

Mergia and his veteran band energetically and playfully unpeel layer after layer
of harmonic and rhythmic interest out of a spectrum of Ethiopian repertoire.
Modern jazz demands constant reinvention and improvisation, night after night
creating new works out of known modes and classic standards. This band is
unstoppable when it comes to turning age-old melodies (like “Tizita”
or “Anchihoye Lene”) upside down and inside out until they emerge as
molten new works, often spontaneously. Mergia’s original compositions
(like “Yegle Nesh”) shine brighter than ever here as well. Moving
from keyboard to organ to accordion to melodica, he deftly switches
instruments—often during the same song. Mergia at 77 years old seems to
be working harder than musicians half his age.

"Pioneer Works Swing (Live)" brings into focus the kind of onstage group
improvisation and deadly solo passages that reach for places Mergia and the band
have never gone, on festival and club stages across four continents.

Now that Mergia has released two new recordings along with four classic
reissues, he is eager to let everyone hear what he’s been doing on the
road since he re-took the global stage for his victory laps. So much more than
an old act from yesteryear, Mergia balances his legendary Ethiopian recordings
with good old-fashioned sweat-soaked live concert triumphs such as the one we
have here. 

Hailu Mergia — Keyboards, Accordion, Melodica, Vocals
Alemseged Kebede — Bass Guitar
Kenneth Joseph — Drums

Tracklist:
1.01 - Hailu Mergia - Yegle Nesh (Live) (6:20)
1.02 - Hailu Mergia - Hari Meru Meru (Live) (4:46)
1.03 - Hailu Mergia - Monalisa Nesh (Live) (7:49)
1.04 - Hailu Mergia - Tizita (Live) (11:48)
1.05 - Hailu Mergia - Belew Beduby (Live) (5:56)
1.06 - Hailu Mergia - Anchihoye Lene (Live) (7:18)
1.07 - Hailu Mergia - Abichu Nega Nega (Live) (5:28)
1.08 - Hailu Mergia - Yetewat Hilm (Live) (8:35)

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