Intercontinental Mélange: From Ethiopia to Watertown via Jerusalem and Either/Orchestra

After 1632, the Ethiopian king expelled all European missionaries, Adjemian said, and closed his country to European influences for 150 years. However, in this period, Armenians travelled freely and wrote accounts of what they saw. Adjemian exclaimed: “Armenians were not considered strictly as foreigners but were seen as coreligionists.”

In the 20^th century, even before 1924, there were many Armenians serving in the court. All the jewelers of the court were Armenian. This was very significant, said Adjemian, because in addition to jewelry they made the royal crown, which allowed Ethiopia not to symbolically be subject to Europe. As well, all the photographers of the court were Armenians — and they all were Boyadjians. Tailors, shoemakers, blacksmiths and maids served at the court. Many Armenians had close ties with the Ethiopian aristocracy, and some had Ethiopian godfathers or godmothers among the aristocracy, including the empress herself.

Armenians also became civil servants, interpreters of almost all the big embassies, and were involved in professions new for Ethiopia, like shoemaking. In 1930, there were 30 shoemakers in Addis Ababa, of whom 25 were Armenians and 5 Greeks. Armenians worked as drivers, lawyers, doctors, mechanics, veterinarians, teachers and musicians.

Avedis Terzian, born in 1904 and died in July 2000, gave Adjemian information on Armenian “heroes” who had close relations with the Ethiopian king. All his stories indicated to him that Armenians were not like other foreigners, but were close to the Ethiopian people.

Between 1936 and 1941, when the Italians invaded Ethiopia, they were aware of the special status of the Armenians and tried to take advantage of them. Only some Armenians collaborated, but many were involved in the resistance against the Italians and fought together with the Ethiopian patriots. Adjemian said that they created clandestine newspapers for the resistance.

Several hundred Ethiopian aristocratic leaders were exiled to the south by the Italians, but most were allowed eventually to return. Only 30 were kept in exile. These 30 were called “dangerous” and “irreducible” Ethiopian chiefs, and among them were 10 Armenians. These Armenians had already become Ethiopianized. So when Nerses Nalbandian came, concluded Adjemian, this was the context that allowed his own integration into Ethiopian society.

As Adjemian concluded his talk, the members of the Either/Orchestra took their seats in the background, and played Nerses Nalbandian’s tune Amara Rumba, with which he used to open shows at the Haile Selassie National Theater. It was transcribed by the artistic director of the band, saxophonist Russ Gershon.

Gershon founded the Either/orchestra in 1985, and has played or performed with the Four Tops, Cab Calloway, Alan Dawson, and many others. He teaches music history at Lasell College in Newton, Mass. He got interested in Ethiopian music almost 30 years ago. He and his band began performing arrangements of this music in 1997, and traveled to Ethiopia to perform Nalbandian’s music in 2004 and 2011.

The Either/Orchestra then played three diverse songs which represented various musical influences on Nerses: Komitas’ Kele Kele, Xavier Cugat’s Habanera from the 1930s, and Ray Charles’ Unchain My Heart. Serena Alexandra Tchorbajian, a sophomore at Harvard University, joined the band to sing Kele Kele in Armenian.

Manolo Mairena, an experienced composer, singer and percussionist, performed Habanera with the band, while Ronald Murphy, vocalist, actor, producer and entrepreneur, sang Unchain My Heart with a true bass voice, together with vocalists Jenna Markard and Susan Barnaby.

Many other Nalbandian songs were then performed. Gershon provided the necessary background and commentary for each song, and periodically presented the various performers to the audience, which responded in every instance with great applause. He explained that Nalbandian used the various modes (pentatonic or five note scales) of Ethiopian traditional music, combined with various influences, especially Latin rhythms.

Bruck Tesfaye, a dynamic Ethiopian-born artist and lead singer of the Boston-based Ethiopian Debo Band, joined the band to sing in his native Amharic on many songs. He has recorded two full-length albums and an EP with Debo Band. Harout Nalbandian joined the band briefly in one number, Adarech Arada, to play the electric guitar.

Among the members of the Either/Orchestra are Tom Halter and Dan Rosenthal on trumpets, Joel Yennior on trombone, Mark Zaleski, Russ Gershon and Charlie Kohlhase on woodwinds, Gilson Schachnik on piano, Rick McLaughlin on bass, Jacques Smith, Jr. on drums, and Vicente Lebon on congas and percussion.

The band’s CD, “Ethiopiques 32: Nalbandian the Ethiopian” (Buda Musique, Paris), which will contain much of the music performed at the concert, should be out in the spring. It is being curated by Francis Falceto, an expert on Ethiopian music. For more information on the Either/Orchestra and its CDs, see http://either-orchestra.org/.