This Is What You Want, This Is What You Get

Lately at work I've been finding fans of Ethiopian vibraphone legend Mulatu Astatke in the most curious of places. Namely, my fellow music store associates.

I bought myself a copy of Ethiopiques Vol. 4 back around this time in 2007 based on a rec from an online friend, and I had burned a copy for my friend Tracy at work but before I even gave it to her I told her about it and at the time she was a little cold to most jazz that wasn't

"straight ahead", bebop, bossa, or soul-inflected 70's releases (although Astatke did cut his teeth with Duke Ellington for a spell back in that decade). So I thought twice about giving it to her. But recently our other fellow associate Arturo had lent her some of his Astatke work, blowing her away and invoking her to order his most recent release Mulatu Steps Ahead for the two of them. When I told her about the burn I had made for her of the Ethiopiques Vol. 4 three years ago (long since lost) she wanted to borrow my original copy, where she made her own burn at home with copies of the liner notes and surprised Arturo with a burn of his own. He had no idea that I dug Astatke as well. In a way, it became the three of us' little "thing", and in a store that insists on keeping all the various Glee soundtracks in heavy play rotation, sometimes those little "things" are what we grasp hold to for the sake of our sanity.

And then the other day the three of us were taken aback when cashier Melody, a sweet girl whose tastes I always associated with Coldplay and more mainstream pop, was the only one of us who pointed out a Mulatu Astatke sample in a song on the latest Nas & Damien Marley album. Apparently her musician ex-husband had the soundtrack to the movie Broken Flowers, which I saw many years ago long before I knew who Mulatu Astatke was and had completely forgotten about it. She had always loved that album, and now she wants to borrow my copy of Ethiopiques as well. Cranking the Broken Flowers soundtrack in the back room yesterday at work, the three of us keep grinning like fools at each other. Sometimes, we still know how to surprise ourselves with the magic of good music.



Anyway, enjoy a little of the man (and the Nas sample) that brought us all together. :)