Mulatu Astatke to open a jazz institute in Ethiopia

A FRIEND who lived in Addis Ababa for many years once told that what she missed most after leaving the Ethiopian capital – aside from her host's kitfo, a traditional beef dish, and a neighbour's honey mead- were afternoons spent listening to a local radio station.

Tuned into by taxi drivers, shopkeepers, bureaucrats and bank clerks alike, its eclectic spill of styles, from cha-cha and mambo to Puerto Rican bugalu, Coptic church hymns, Mozart and folk song, was, she later discovered, produced by a certain Mulatu Astatke.

Not simply a spirited programmer, he was one of Ethiopia's most revered composers, a man who, not unlike Nigeria's Fela Kuti, fled political unrest to study music in Britain and the US. When the two returned home in the 1960s, they fused the myriad influences they had encountered on their travels to create signature styles: Kuti crafted Afrobeat, Astatke fathered Ethiojazz.

Yet while Kuti pursued a life of legendary hedonism – once marrying 27 wives in a single ceremony – and fuelled his music with searing political commentary, Astatke embraced a different brand of patriotism. He taught music at Addis Ababa University, arranged music for Pan-African Elvis Tlahoun Gessesse and educated a broader public through his radio show.

"In Ethiopia, everyone leaves the country to study, so when you do, it's your responsibility to come back and teach what you have learnt, tell what your experience has been," he says.

The 67-year-old will perform his dreamlike, elsewhere melodies in Australia for the first time this weekend as part of the Melbourne International Jazz Festival. It's a brief visit for a man with a hectic schedule. "Last week I was in Paris and Athens, then Addis and now to Australia. I am too busy, I think, but this is the way."

While Astatke's collaborations have been many, including Duke Ellington in the 1970s, the meeting that initiated his most recent wave of acclaim involved filmmaker Jim Jarmush. They crossed paths in 2004 at the Winter Garden in New York. Astatke was performing a sold-out show. Astatke recalls: "He came to the dressing room afterwards and said: 'OK, it's taken me six years to look for the music for my next film but now I have been listening to your music and I love it. Can I use it?'."

Broken Flowers, which starred Bill Murray, premiered at Cannes in 2005, winning the Grand Prize of the Jury. Astatke has blossomed ever since, touring the US and Europe in 2008, including Glastonbury. "Wow, it was a dream, I tell you. Just to see thousands and thousands of people in one place, in tents, in the mud. I was so amazed how they love music, how they sacrifice themselves to hear it. What a beautiful experience."

British label Strut subsequently released three Astatke albums in quick succession: a retrospective of his work titled New York – Addis – London: The Story of Ethiojazz (1965-1975), a collaboration with UK collective the Heliocentrics, Inspiration Information, and an album of new songs, Steps Ahead. The opening track of Steps is a tribute to his time at Harvard University, where he spent two years on a Radcliffe Institute Fellowship. Last year he ventured to Massachusetts as part of an Abramowitz artist-in-residence scholarship at MIT.

As to his next steps, even Astatke concedes they will be hasty. In June, he will open his own jazz institute in Addis Ababa. "It will be the best place to learn for students from across east Africa: Kenya and Tanzania. Then I must finish the opera I am writing too. And then I go back to London to play the Barbican. Fast steps, oh yes, exactly!"

Mulatu Astatke plays The Forum tomorrow and Monday.