Ethio-jazz

Ethiopian jazz, also referred to as Ethio-jazz, is a blend of traditional Ethiopian music with jazz, combining the pentatonic scale-based melodies of Amharic music with the 12-tone scale and instrumentation of western music. Over time the genre has grown to include elements from other genres such as afrofunk, soul, Armenian jazz, and Latin rhythms.^[1] The genre originated in the 1950s with Armenian refugees such as musician Nerses Nalbandian, who created a fusion of Ethiopian and Western music while working at the National Theatre.^[1] Ethiopian jazz was revolutionized by Mulatu Astatke in the late 1950s. Astatke is considered the father of Ethio-jazz music.