‘In the Blue Light,’ Kelela Honors The Roots Of Ethio-Jazz

For as long as she’s been an artist, Kelela has been a master of reinvention. The singer, who bends alt-R&B and electronic to the fullest potential, consistently reworks her material to the bone, exposing its meaningful roots. Her rapturous vocals levitate and plunge deeply within listeners’ brain folds, unlocking a divine auditory sensation. She takes futuristic soundscapes and reimagines them in times past and hereafter, all while remaining present. So when the D.C. native unwrapped her first live album, In the Blue Light, on February 11, the project isn’t just a testament to traditional jazz, but lends itself to the legacy of ethio-jazz. Kelela, who’s of Ethiopian heritage, now enters the musical canon amongst Habesha jazz greats like Mulatu Astatke, Emahoy Tsege-Maryam Guèbrou, Kassa Tessema and Asnaketch Worku, outstretching her sonic reach to days before the Derg regime.

Credit: Dervon Dixon

Spanning two studio albums, three remix projects, one mixtape and one EP, Kelela has lived different lives. From her 2014 introduction Cut 4 Me to Hallucinogen and its respective remix album, the artist’s Tumblr-era cool girl aesthetics with mind-bending experimental production made her a singular act. By her Take Me Apart era in 2017, Kelela went cyber mode while traversing songs on seduction, exposure, and love’s highs and lows. Following the precedent set by Hallucination Remixes, Take Me a Part, the Remixes broke down Hallucinogen tracks while repurposing them for international appeal. But six years post-Take Me Apart, Kelela released her most meditative and escapist album, Raven, calling on fans to surrender. Accompanying the album was RAVE:N, the Remixes, cohesively deconstructing its original form, and transcending R&B, electronic and jazz.

While sonically referencing the Black queer origins of dance music, Kelela whisks listeners into isolation and steamy invigoration on Raven, a 15-track dedication to social unrest and rest deserved. It’s an album that would’ve been impossible to make during the Derg regime beginning in 1974, when Ethiopian musicians were heavily censored upon Emperor Haile Selassie’s overthrow by the Marxist-Leninist military junta. Although being a complicated leader, it was Selassie’s upholding of ethio-jazz that kept the country’s music scene enriched. Upon the Derg’s rise, these vivid sounds were silenced, forcing the regional Kiñits–Ambassel, Anchihoye, Batti, Tizita–to go underground or relocate.

It wouldn’t be until the early 1990s that the music of ethio-jazz pioneers would resurface, mainly through the Ethiopiques series, with cassette enthusiasts raving over the lost decades of reissued classics. Tessema’s vocals firmly held a defiance and a throaty, resounding depth that permeated, even between his subtle pauses. Guèbrou, who spent most of her life as a nun, channeled the classical and spiritual in her lithe piano compositions and evocative, almost ghostly, singing. Worku’s vocal precision articulated the fluidity of the Ambassel and Tizita pentatonic scales, but it’s in the latter genre that Astatke, considered the father of ethio-jazz, was most skilled.

It’s in the longing and haunting of Astatke’s standard “Tezeta (Nostalgia)” that defines the exact essence of the genre. There’s tension and release that swells through the horn’s free-flowing movement, undercut by the gentle sway of the guitar and reflective piano presence. The song’s powerful nature is why it soundtracked an emotional and critical scene of Academy Award-nominated period drama Nickel Boys. Despite a difference in language and time, In the Blue Light sees that these seminal artists, along with others preserved in Ethiopiques, are honored.

Protest breaks through the surface of the live LP, recorded during two concerts at the Blue Note Jazz Club in New York. Following the raw doo-wops and shadowy bass heard on the “30 Years” cover, Kelela jokingly calls for “church announcements” to deliver an urgent demand to free Palestine and Reparations Now. But in the album’s entirety, Kelela gives way for traditional jazz to interact with the futurities of her catalog, her vibrato fitting every tone and tempo. White not adhering to a specific kiñit, Kelela’s otherworldly scales and tonality demonstrate coloratura.

Credit: Dervon Dixon

We’re immersed in Kelela’s jazz lounge on spellbinding opener “Enemy,” pulled from the singer’s 2013 mixtape. She entrances listeners with zephyr harp pluckings and repetitious echoes of “time” before interrupting the hypnotism with a brief applause. “Gave you all my time/ Now I’m on my grind,” Kelela sings in full after an interpretation of the first verse, and time stands still in her preternatural universe.

While amiss for the initial two tracks, jazz enters on “Take Me Apart,” where Kelela declares her Blue Note debut a “dream come true” and recalls seeing ethereal R&B vocalist Amel Larrieux at the same venue roughly 20 years before. Kelela begins a legacy of her own with a bluesy lullaby rendition of “Bankhead,” her harmonious backing vocalists tightly following her pace. Hallucinogen deep cut “All the Way Down,” which focuses on breaking relationship norms, grounds itself in a smoky and seductive ambiance. A cover of 1976 Joni Mitchell song “Furry Sings the Blues” arises with a soulfulness deeper than its original version. The apotheosis comes in towards the album’s end on “Blue Light,” a moodier take on the Take Me Apart track, but it’s in the song’s conclusion that Kelela strengthens her lineage.

“My ancestors suffered in a different way, but I do want to express my reverence for the suffering that happened here in order for this music to happen,” she says. “It’s very important that at least I make sure everybody brings that into the forefront of their mind.”

Kelela’s sound shifts to where her musical headspace and personal politics are, but on In the Blue Light, she reveres the foundational ethio-jazz forbearers, bringing their origin back into public consciousness.