Jazzamba’s jazz nights - Ethiopia.

Jazzamba’s jazz nights still alive in Addis Ababa

Heaps of twisted iron, piles of ash and a charred microphone are all that remains of Jazzamba, the iconic Addis Ababa nightclub that revived Ethiopian jazz after it had all but disappeared under Communist rule.

The fire that destroyed the venue in January has left the country’s vibrant and growing jazz scene in disarray.

“I still do not believe it,” says musician Misale Legesse, who was a regular performer at the wood-panelled club, inside the Taitu Hotel.

The century-old hotel, one of the most historic buildings in the city, gained fame as the setting for Scoop, Evelyn Waugh’s 1938 satirical novel about foreign correspondents.

But the hotel’s Jazzamba bar brought prestige of another sort as it fostered a resurgence of the Horn of Africa’s unique jazz style – a genre created in the 1960s by music legend Mulatu Astatké, who fused jazz with traditional Ethiopian music.

“For me, it was not just a club, it was my school, where I learnt everything and played with the greatest,” Legesse says.

Three nights a week, the young musician would play with the big names of Ethio-jazz, such as Alemayehu Eshete or Bahta Gebrehiwot.

More: The National.