STUMPTOWN COFFEE ROASTERS PRESENTS
ORIGINS
HAILE GEBRE, FOUNDER, MORDECOFE COFFEE
Ethiopia is the birthplace of humanity, the origin of coffee and home to some of the oldest living traditions on earth. From biodiversity to language, music and culture, Ethiopia is complex; many stories become one. In the spring of 2019, we traveled to Ethiopia to learn more about its rich history, which serves as the underpinnings for a contemporary cultural tapestry that interweaves the very old and the very new.
Photography by: Britton Caillouette
Haile Gebre is a legend in specialty coffee. He began growing coffee in the fifties and has expanded his business into a global powerhouse, recognized in many circles as some
of the cleanest, sweetest coffee on the planet. Haile has since handed the reins over to his seven daughters, who will continue to manage the family business.
In the early morning, if Ethiopians don’t roast and drink coffee and pray to God, they will not feel happy the whole day. In the past, there was no TV, no radio, so coffee was the major communication medium. How their family was, their village was, how the country was, where was the enemy, to what position the enemy moved, all information was discussed over coffee. In the same manner, evening coffee was for information collecting. Those that went to the market or far away from home, when they come back with information about the weather, whether there was drought, where the cattle were, how the wind moved, all that information came with the evening coffee ceremony. If you go to the Harar area, they dry the leaf and drink it with milk, and they take it early in the morning as breakfast. If you go to Gambela and Bale and other areas, they roast it and they brew it and put it in milk. If you come to the highlands of Guji and Arsi and Jimma, they have “buna kala,” which means roasting coffee to eat. They roast and eat it in the morning, for breakfast. For the culture of Ethiopia, coffee is everything. Not only an important part of business, but a major part of culture. That is why Ethiopians like to sit every five min-
utes, collect themselves, chat, and have a cup of coffee. When you come to my farm, you feel that you are in the jungle of East Africa, not in an agricultural area. Because I don’t want to destroy the ecosystem of my father, my grandfather. If I destroyed the ecosystem that I inherited from my father, I would not pass it down to my son, my grandson, and the world would change. We are based off of the rainforest and a balanced ecosystem. It’s important to us to grow together. The lives of us rural folks is communal. Every morning, we have breakfast together. We eat from the same dish, one dish - not separate dishes. All of our family takes breakfast from a common plate. That’s the basis of this value; let us grow together. Now I have 380 outgrowers working with me, trying to uphold that value in an economic way. Let us have a common dish.
MULATU ASTATKE
MULATU ASTATKE is an Ethiopian musician and composer considered the father of Ethio-Jazz. Born in the western Ethiopian city of Jimma, Mulatu was musically trained in London, New York City, and Boston where he combined his jazz and Latin music interests with traditional Ethiopian I was the first African student at Berklee College in Boston, which was in 1958. I remember we had this great professor, always telling us, “Be yourself.” We used to do a lot of analyzing chords in the class, like we’d analyze Duke Ellington, analyze Count Basie, other great musicians like Coltrane, some live studies. When this professor was telling me, telling us to be yourself, I always thought to myself, how did these people become themselves -- that was the question. After I left Berklee I moved to New York, and with all that experience at Berklee, I created a group called the Ethiopian Quintet in New York. That was around 50 years, 55 years ago, something like that. With that group I started experimenting with the different Ethiopian notes.
from around the world. It was so great and as I said before — I always try to be different. That was I had always in my mind. And I had a chance to meet Coltrane, who is really my hero, and somebody who was totally himself, at the peak of his powers, and had a totally new approach. I had a chance to talk to him, and Alice Coltrane was Ethiopian as well. She came here and we did a recording on radio stations, and involved different Ethiopian musicians and things like that. I also met Armando Peraza, who played percussion for Mongo Santamaria, and I had the chance to meet Tito Puente. It was great to meet those people because their connection to African music is so interesting, and, used to listen to them. And as I said, the roots are here. All of those rhythms we’re talking about are found in Africa. In fact, I remember, once I was in Havana with a group called People To People, which was about 60 people, from a range of musical cultures. And I remember asking them to take me somewhere north in Cuba where there are Africans who first settled.
And as you know, [Ethiopian music] operates on a five-note scale, So I tried to do, like, five against twelve, twelve being European music structures, chord structures. When you’re combining both, you really have to be careful that you don’t lose the color and the beauty.
The African contribution to the world, culturally, is so interesting and so big. I think most of our scientists, I call ‘em the scientists of sounds, are very much neglected in the world. They are not getting the respect they should get. I do a lot of research work about their contributions, especially about the great tribes in the south of Ethiopia, called the Darashis.
I put these things together, and I start thinking about how the rhythm could be, so I used what they called Latin music, which, to me, is African. All those rhythms, you can go south of here and you’ll find them, the bongo, the cha-cha-cha. When I was doing this mixing, I never thought of it as Latin, I thought of it as Ethiopian, as African.
Now these tribes do not use Ethiopian notes. They play Persian notes. They play five notes, they play like our great genius, Charlie Parker, and also Debussy. They use a lot of diminished scales, which is especially like Charlie Parker. I remember when I was studying at Berklee, learning how he created modern jazz through these two different notes, which is like whole-half and half-whole.
New York is a place I really loved and I had a chance to meet great musicians. I also had a chance to listen to different types of music
Charlie Parker and his peers are so great. I have so much respect for these people. But when I came back to Africa, I tell you, these
tribes were playing the whole-half diminished scales. I was remembering that I did a lot of fusion work with these tribes because I find them so interesting, because these people are born already knowing the five notes and four notes [that made Parker famous]. How the hell is it that they’re able to create these scales, diminished scales? When we talk about Ethiopian contribution to the science of jazz, usually we say the rhythms of Africa. But it’s not only the rhythms; we have also contributed to the melodic development of jazz. If you go to dance, so many movements from Ethiopia have been used in different dances around the world. Can I mention Beyonce? She does our Eskita. She’s never mentioned it, and so people think somebody from America created this movement. On the road she does also another dance from north Ethiopia. Michael Jackson as well -- he did the moonwalk, which is the same as Ethiopian dance. To break it, he walked backwards, but the way in front is the same as an Ethiopian dance. It starts in Africa and it develops somewhere else. We have this one instrument that sounds like a trumpet. We have another instrument in Ethiopia that sounds like a baritone sax. But all those people who created them, nobody talks about them, which makes me really sad because these are my heroes. I consider them scientists in song because I grew up with them. We have another instrument called a dita, which sounds exactly like a contrabass. Up here we have a thumb piano, we call it tom, but in Zimbabwe it’s called the mbira, where they play the bass on this hand and the melody up here. I played it, in fact, for Mozart’s 250th birthday in Vienna. I was in the opening, and I took seven of these mbira players there. I rewrote the music for vibes and mbiras, and it was beautiful. What’s very interesting is they play the bass here and they play the melody up here like this. When you turn it around -- it’s a grand piano, my friend. So these are Ethiopia’s contributions. I mean, these bush people are my heroes. I’ve always believed Africa has contributed so much. But one thing is we don’t do any research. If most of our universe began in Africa, we should concentrate on research. For example, we can take the masenqo, which you heard last night -- who created the masenqo? Nobody knows. Who created the kraals? Nobody. We need to give respect to all these people, to the geniuses who created all these instruments, but we don’t know them. I’m so involved with bringing Ethio-Jazz out to the world, youknow, and I hope university people, the researchers who write stories and things, look back and try to find out more about our genius people, because I think it’s a very interesting story. Now, you go to Dire Dawa, you go to Gondar or Gojam, you goto the south, you go east, everywhere these scales are used. Our next effort should be to find who created these scales, who gave it to us? There’s some of it found in Asia, you know, but did we take
it from them or did they take it from us? It’s a very interesting question, so that’s what I’m working on next. And also, developing our musical instruments, to be able to play Ethio-Jazz with all Ethiopian instruments. Before so-called world development, people like these people in the bushes were conquering the world. Great geniuses are not only in Ethiopia, but all parts of Africa, contributing to art, music, generally to culture. And other people might question our existence. I could be a good example of that. In developing countries, how do we educate a person? That’s the first question, starting from kindergarten up to the 12th grade. That’s where you can create a person. How we make everything available to young people matters. If you start with physics, chemistry, math, music all on the same level, then we can find out what a person’s talent is, then we can pursue, continue with that talent. Culturally, I hope we’ll also find people to do a lot of research, a lot of experimental work, and attract great respect for our people who built our culture. I always say we should give more respect to culture generally in the third world countries because, for instance, in Ethiopia, a person with no culture is nobody. It’s important to learn, to love and respect the people who created it and passed it down to us. This is what I think we should do to become greater and go farther. This is special, this club. It’s a very historical place. Before I took over as an Ethio-Jazz club, it used to have singers, like Muluken Melesse. Ethiopian singers used to sing at this place before it changed. So it was a different style, different feel, different approach. Bob Marley stood on this stage, singing “No Woman No Cry.” Lots of good people have come here; the German president came to listen to our music, the Austrian Prime Minister was here. It has become interesting and important worldwide. It helps with Ethio-Jazz development. I hope the African Jazz Village will continue, and that the next time you come, you will be able to hear all cultural instruments playing Ethio-Jazz. Transcribed from an interview with Britton Caillouette
ROASTING COFFEE by Kyle Larson, Roaster in Portland Roasting is a machination of senses, and one never knows what they will encounter when they step up to the control panel to add spark to gas, flame to steel, and hope that the familiar motions will bring out something special from the raw, green coffee contained within the cast iron apparatus. There’s never a guarantee that the sweetness or unique notes tasted by those who’ve passed the coffee along to us — whether it be the producer who tasted it on their own cupping table or our green coffee team — will be captured as we navigate the coffee through the minute-by-minute process. That profile, that cup — it’s always a moving target, and the culmination of so much work rests in time and heat, guided by human sensory experience, to prepare the coffee for its final journey into the cup. It’s always a bit nerve-wracking to approach the first batch of a coffee we haven’t touched before, even if it’s a test batch. Some coffees, however, return to us like old friends. You know those people in your life you are so intimately connected to, where a whole year could pass without seeing them, but the second you’re reunited it’s as if no time passed? Mordecofe, is an old friend for the roasting staff at Stumptown. This coffee has been a staple, and is such an integral part of the quality brought to our customers every day, that it’s hard not to smile when the year’s first, fresh shipment arrives at our loading dock. Those familiar blue letters scrolled across natty, loosely stitched burlap always get a warm welcome from both the roasting staff and the quality team, who will collaborate to bring out the best of the Gebre family’s work.
It’s hard to put into words or quantify how much easier it makes our jobs as roasters when we get green coffee which has been so well cared for. Mordecofe is a luminous example of carefully picked, sorted, washed, and milled coffee. It goes without saying our work as coffee roasters is to not only showcase the time and effort it took to grow the lovely coffee of Mordecofe — that much is always a given, with any coffee that winds up on our floor. When we get a coffee as dynamic as Mordecofe it’s time to decide what aspects of the coffee we want to showcase. Each year is slightly different, but as roasters, we’ve only seen the quality improve and the skill of Haile Gebre’s cultivation and processing translate into distinct, unique flavors. It’s not only an approachable coffee for the patron interested in elegant simplicity of dark chocolate and fruit; you can also bring out the most vibrant citrus, and sometimes even the fragrant tones of hops or fresh-cut flowers. Taste is subjective, and we don’t pretend to tell our customers what they should or should not find in their daily ritual — but with Mordecofe, grown in the Guji Zone of the Oromia Region, there is always something wonderful to discover from the first pour to the very last drop. The ritual of roasting, brewing, and tasting is always one we look forward to when we see the coffee is Mordecofe — an old friend and a monument to quality.
ETHIOPIA PLAYLIST
By: Scott Hamilton
The All of Everything (Remastered) Sun Ra & His Intergalactic Infinity Arkestra Mulatu (Stereo Master) Mulatu Astatke Zebeder Mesmerizing Ayalew Mesfin Africa Talks to You (The Asphalt Jungle) Sly & The Family Stone Soul of Ethiopia Oh No Aha Gedawo Bezunesh Bekele Salaam Bongo Herman, Les and Bunny Djemeregne Muluqen Mellesse & Dahlak Band Maleda Fendika Dread Prophecy Ethiopian & Gladiators Abbay Mado Mahmoud Ahmed Africa The Meters Black Starliner Must Come Culture Funky Wood Oneness of Juju
Scott Hamilton is a record collector, hip-hop devotee, sneakerhead, party promoter, devoted dad, and Portland sports booster. He also moonlights as Stumptown’s National Operations Manager. He traveled to Ethiopia as part of the film crew for Wax & Gold, and came back inspired to put together new tunes to share with our crew.
This playlist consists of songs that I either listened to on our trip to Ethiopia this past spring, or just ones that I enjoy and feel represent the tie between traditional or pop music of Ethiopia, jazz/soul/rap that is either directly or subconsciously inspired by the mother continent, and the reggae that gave a nod to Ethiopia from a westernized black empowerment movement championed in Garveyism and then Rastafarianism.
Teleyeshign Merawi Yohannis Welcome to North Africa J. Rawls Abeba The Mabon Dawud Quintet Zion I Cymande Ethiopia Lord Lebby & The Jamaican Calysponians Yeshebelewa Alemayehu Borobor Africa, Center Of The World Roy Ayers Bahir (feat. Endeguena Mulu) Dexter Story We Be All Africans Idris Ackamoor & The Pyramids The Chapel (feat. Ziggy Marley) Stephen Marley African Cookbook Randy Weston Africa D’Angelo