Yerevan Ajemenian

Armenian orphan, Ethio-Jazz innovator, guerilla fighter

Ethiopia is one of the most fascinating and hard to comprehend countries in Africa. Like many poor countries it combines urban life and culture with extreme poverty, but what makes it distinctive is it's blending of different cultures, resulting in a vibrant art scene that has often been the victim of social and political instability.

Yerevan Ajemenian is an important, though little known part of Ethiopia's cultural history. His parents were victims of the Armenian Genocide in Turkey following World War I. As a young boy, he was brought to Jerusalem by others fleeing the violence, and ended up in an orphanage where he first received musical training, learning the trumpet.

The entire band of forty children, the Arba Lijoch, as it would come to be known, was adopted by Ethiopia's then-crown prince Ras Tafari (later the Emperor Hallie Selassie I) and traveled with him to Addis Abeba, where they received further special instruction, and became the national orchestra and a touchstone for the development of popular, western-influenced music in Ethiopia.

Apparently Ajemenian didn't desire to remain in a position that he came to regard as artistically stifling and politically questionable, and began to pursue his interest in progressive music and Pan-African politics. As early as the 50's, Ajemenian was playing with popular musicians, particularly those associated with the slowly growing ethio-jazz scene. This was quite remarkable, especially for a man who was substantially older than most of the musicians involved, who were considered a young avant-garde at the time. He collaborated with many vocalists, but more notably with pioneering instrumentalists such as the saxophonist Getatchew Mekurya. Unfortunately, Ajemenian was not actively participating in the music scene in the early 70's, when Ethiopian music was first widely recorded, so it's hard to properly gauge his contributions, though according to his contemporaries' testimonials and the few available recordings, it seems that he was possessed of a rare feel for improvisation and had a distinctive facility for conveying the unique tone of Ethiopian vocal music on his instrument.

However by the mid-50's it was clear that Ajemenian's interests were expanding beyond music. He became involved in Pan-Africanist politics and regularly traveled across the continent to meet with others. It is believed by some that he was moving guns and other supplies across borders, though there is no documentary evidence on this point. It has been widely speculated that he was involved with Che Guevara in the war in Congo. In fact, it is quite possible that he died in this conflict, though there are persistent reports that he in fact survived and was later to surface in Nigeria, playing with Fela Kuti's large ensemble Africa 70. This seems somewhat doubtful as he would have been quite an old man, though that is perhaps faulty reasoning when considering such a singular and remarkable person.

As mentioned above there is little surviving recorded material by Ajemenian. Click here to view a rare film of him playing in Addis Abeba in the early 60's with other ethio-jazz innovators.