Kay Kaufman Shelemay’s recent post on Ethiopian jazz master Mulatu Astatke characterizes Yekermo Sew (“A Man of Experience and Wisdom”) as his signature piece.

[It] was featured in the soundtrack of American independent filmmaker and screenwriter Jim Jarmusch‘s 2005 film “Broken Flowers” and then circulated across the world. Composed following Mulatu’s return to Ethiopia in the later 1960s, “Yekermo Sew” takes its title from a traditional Ethiopian Christian new year’s blessing in Amharic, the national Ethiopian language.

 

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