There is a lot you could be said about Emahoy Tsege Mariam Gebru, but I think it's best to keep this introduction short. She was born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. She began her music career early, leaving to study violin in Switzerland at the age of six. It isn't her violin work that she is best known for, though. Nor her singing, nor her work in the court of the Emperor of Ethiopia, Haile Selassie. Instead, it's her solo piano performances that have preserved as the sturdiest pillar of her legacy. They're quietly incredible and rightly well remembered. Chicago-local Mississippi Records has re-released her second self-titled LP, a collection of '60s works, and it's given me a chance to sink into her unique sound and performance- a body of work that I've read about, but haven't appreciably explored. Listening to this collection, it's almost like she is in the room with you. The production is beautiful and warm and I can almost feel the vibration of the notes in the air as they escape the body of her instrument and blossom in the cavity of the room. There is a sadness to these compositions that is pockmarked and pitted with a certain resilience- even joy. A combination of classical chamber music and swelling jazz motifs glide around and past you you like a falling stage current, revealing a new venue of consideration with each passing, enticing phase. Her movements are swift and grand, direct but curious, conjuring an abiding swirl and gust of cool air that fills your lungs and suspends time for the duration of her performance- almost like the moment of her performance was a leaf set aloft by a pressing sigh. Form and intention coalesce in an oasis of sound, and it in I find myself replenished.
