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SKU: A0.1034899
Composed by Marilyn Herman. African,Contemporary,World. Individual part. 6 pages. Marilyn Herman #6857543. Published by Marilyn Herman (A0.1034899)."Abeba", in the title "Swing Abeba", means "flower" - part of the name of the Ethiopian capital city where modern Ethiopian music took root. "Abeba" is also a common refrain in their vocal music. True to its title, this work is influenced by Ethiopian popular music, which in turn was strongly influenced by swing rhythm in American big band jazz transmitted from an army radio station in neighbouring Eritrea in the 1950s.
Ethiopian music – essentially song-based – consists of pentatonic melodies which tend to be deeply embedded in copious melismata, progressing in an improvisatory manner, similarly to jazz.
Accordingly, Swing Abeba begins with an Ethiopian, pentatonically melismatic treatment of an un-Ethiopian theme. ("Whispers of Gondar…." – were words used to characterize this opening section, Gondar being a highland region in the North of Ethiopia.) The music then breaks into a jazz-swing scherzo. The call-response nature of this scherzo recalls this feature of Ethiopian music. The second section begins with a slow, heavily melismatic ad lib passage marked "molto espressivo e pensivo", which leads into a second swing scherzo, the opening themes reappearing in a different guise in the closing section.
Swing Abeba makes connections across time and space - between modern Ethiopian and Western musics, infused with influences from a different part of Africa, received via America through the jazz of the swing era.
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