Abinnet Berhanu, Yohannes Tona and Kibrom Birhane Have Formed ENGOCHA

 

This interview originally aired on The Afternoon Cruise on 07/22/25

READ THE COMPLETE TRANSCRIPT BELOW:

 

Sean McPherson (Jazz88) 

It’s the afternoon cruise, and I’m chatting with Yohannes Tona and Abinnet Berhanu. This weekend, they are premiering a new group called in Engocha, which features Yohannes on bass, Berhanu on drums, and Kibrom Berhane on keyboard and traditional instruments they’re playing at ice house this Friday and Saturday night. Gentlemen, congratulations on the new group, and welcome back to Jazz88.

 

Abinnet Berhanu 

Great to be here.

 

Yohannes Tona 

Thanks, Sean, thanks for having us.

 

Sean McPherson (Jazz88) 

You two are very, very exciting artists, and I would follow any sort of new thing you’re putting out. But this groups particularly sounds exciting because there’s somebody actually who I don’t know, Kibrom Berhane and the keyboard and traditional instruments. What was the inspiration for forming Engocha?

 

Abinnet Berhanu 

You know, I had been playing a fair amount in the EthioJazz space with my my own groups. And I really, you know, for a long time, wanted to do something with all Ethiopian musicians. And, you know, moving here, been very lucky to have Yohannes here in the same city. And I thought to myself, you know, I want to make music with him. And you know, we have connected on other gigs in the past, and we definitely share a lot of common musical interests. And, you know, so I approached him and we kind of talked, and we realized we had a lot more in common than we thought. He had been supporting a lot of my projects and vice versa. And I was like, you know, I think we could really make something happen. And I personally didn’t know what was going to happen. It was the total shot in the dark. And Yohannes just like, looked at me and was like, That’s a great idea.

 

Sean McPherson (Jazz88) 

You know, that is so cool. The group is Engocha, they’re playing on Friday and Saturday at Icehouse and releasing this EP. And now in the information you sent me, Abinnet, you mentioned it’s rare for a multi generational, diaspora based group to come together. I understand that it’s rare because it’s rare all over the world. This one is working, and you aren’t just playing classics. You guys are actually bringing in new tunes, adding to the genre, adding to the songbook. Why do you think, if this is such a rare thing, why is this iteration working out?

 

Yohannes Tona 

Oh sure, I think this is special. First, there’s quite a few Ethiopian diaspora communities, especially in DC, LA, some of the big cities in Minneapolis, yes, very rare, especially in genre where we are professionally involved in the scene, whether it is jazz or other music. But for us to come together, usually when you talk about Ethiopia jazz, it is mostly to be honest, the western perspective of what is expected, and usually the father of this genre, Mulatu Astatke, has introduced his version. He started the genre, to be honest, and he used a lot of times to my interest in kind of progressive, unsatisfied mind, more Latin jazz and some classic Ethiopian at the time, maybe more pop versions of Ethiopian songs, which was a great thing, and it caught on, and it kind of even had a resurgence in the last decade or so. Right now, you would find easily 20 to 30 Western led Ethiopia jazz musicians playing huge festivals and events. So to me as just as a person of curiosity, just Okay, what if, as an Ethiopian person that has actually grown there and known, not just the popular, but just a very indigenous sounds that come out of there, as well as as a kind of American musician that have played some jazz, and also known, you know, versions of jazz that could be authentic. So it would have like, it’d be the same concept, but the ingredients are slightly different, you know. So, you know, there’s different kinds of burger, you know. One of them is made with, you know, organic meat, you know. The other one could be made with tofu, you know. So, just not to compare it in such a bad way. But we have, we realize we have a place that is unique because we are exposed to the depth of both worlds, which is even more rare when you come to the actual genre. So I truly admire and appreciate all the Ethiojazz going on around the world, because it is making it easier for us to say, Hey, I played you jazz, you know, any day I’ve, you know, opened the appetite for, you know, millions of listeners, and that would also give us a little room to say hey, and you as an, you know, actual Ethiopian American, may also have a voice of you on within this genre. So that’s what it is.

 

Sean McPherson (Jazz88) 

It just, it’s got to be different. If I’m, you know, a junior in college, and I get a Mulatu Astatkerecord, and I go, this is cool; I’m going to transcribe some of this and play with some of my friends. That’s cool. Yeah, y’all are on a different plane, right? You hear the music he heard. You hear the music that he didn’t involve. You have a much deeper connection to Ethiopia than Sean McPherson in his dorm room junior year in college, right.

 

Yohannes Tona 

Quite possibly.

 

Sean McPherson (Jazz88) 

When you’re working on something. When do you realize this might actually be moving into the Ethiopia jazz world? Is it a scalar thing? Is it a chordal thing? Is it a field based thing? At what point do you know this is not an R B tune, this is not a straight ahead tune. This is an Ethiopia jazz thing.

 

Abinnet Berhanu 

I wouldn’t say it’s necessarily a scale thing. Some of the scales that we use are used throughout all kinds of music. Same thing harmonically. It’s not necessarily the most complex music compared to some a lot of Western music, what makes it Ethiojazz is that there’s always a connection back to the singing style, right? And so in  ethiojazz, the horn playing or the keyboard playing, it is all rooted in some kind of vocalist tradition that, frankly, goes back a lot of times to the church, into the way that the priests in the Orthodox Church will chant the the the sermon or the prayer. And it’s a very particular kind of style. And so whenever you listen to some of our most famous etio jazz musicians like geta Getatchew Mekurya, for example, saxophonist, when you listen to the way that he plays, of course, you will hear his playing informed by some of like the Americans that he heard, like a Coleman Hawkins, for example, and the way he plays his tenor. But at the same time, you will also hear the vocal inflections and the phrasing. The big thing is the phrasing and the way that he assembles his melodies and his playing all kind of harken back to the way that the vocalist traditions are built in Ethiojazz. So when you were you were mentioning to us earlier about, you know, why in Ethiopia jazz, there’s a lot of going back to the melody versus kind of like in straight ahead jazz, where once you make the statement, you kind of move on and you don’t go back too much. Well, it’s because a lot of time that the melody is far more important than the solos. In a lot of ways the melody is, is truly that it’s kind of the opposite. That’s what’s bridging everything together. And you are, you are doing more embellishing than anything else. And so it’s always important, especially in dip in music, to always come home and the melodies are so beautiful. And a lot of times have words already attached them, that people they know the song, I think, for what we’re doing, you know, like, I wrote some music for this, for this project, and specifically, and when I write some of that stuff that doesn’t necessarily come from or have words attached to it. I have kind of like a guess or a priest in that style singing in my head. That’s kind of how I hear it, or I hear a choir in my head, and I’m singing everything from that perspective in my head, and everything else kind of like that comes later and what we put together, but that’s always kind of the first thing that I’m imagining. And so when I, like, after I’m done, and I’m looking at the paper, and I’m like, oh, okay, so I can, like, then I can see, now, you know, it kind of lands wherever it’s going to land from a phrasing perspective, versus, if I’m writing, you know, some like a more straight ahead or American jazz sort of thing. I’m being a little more conscious of this. It’s a little more technical. I’m being a little more academic about these sorts of things all of a sudden. And it’s just, it’s just a completely different approach.

 

Sean McPherson (Jazz88) 

I’m Chatting with members of Engocha. They’re premiering this new trio Friday and Saturday over at Icehouse. I’m chatting with Yohannes Tona and Abinnet Berhanu. It’s mentioned in the in the press release, that Kibrom Berhane plays keyboards and traditional instruments. You mentioned synthesize, you mentioned keyboard, but you also mentioned an instrument I wasn’t familiar with. So when we say traditional instruments, What are y’all talking about?

 

Yohannes Tona 

For Kibrom? Yeah, I think the popular traditional instruments are krar, which is a string instrument with five or six strings that you play with open strings, as opposed to guitar. You actually release the strings free or unmute them when you want to hear so it’s the opposite mechanism in terms of technically playing it. And the other one is masenqo. So masenqo is a one string bow instrument that has all the chromatics and all the you know, there’s no fret, so your hand is kind of much more like acting. There’s no fretboard, so it’s a free hand and against the fret. So you actually play in the shape of the scale that you play so your hands, the part of your training is to know which shape your hand have to be for a specific scale. So that is masenkq And yes, Kibrom plays both of them during this show. I don’t know which one we feel about playing, or he might stick to the keyboard and synthesizers which he actually developed, kind of his own sound in it as well. He also sings so, kind of, you know, a rich option to have as a, you know, from a single musician. So cool,

 

Abinnet Berhanu 

yeah, I think he also, he also plays begena as well, yes, but begnana. What’s begana began as like, that’s kind of the full size version of the krar. It’s almost like a stand up, you know, upright Bass size, yeah, instrument, and that is mainly only played in the church. So that’s really just playing religious music only. And I believe it’s like a double string harp, yes,

 

Yohannes Tona 

Pretty much like compared to like harp in Ethiopian traditional church music, and it’s very unique in its sounding. In harp, you would hear the tension of the strength is very much standardized to kind of the audible and measured in in in case of begana, part of the sound that makes it unit unique is there’s like a flapping of the strings that is intertwined with the sound. So it’s like a little bit of acoustics that you would hear, and I have Sean, you would appreciate this. As a bass player, I have figured out, actually a way to mimic that sound. Maybe I’ll do some of that at the concert to mimic the begana’s sound, because I had a bass that was not functioning. It had a flaw. It needed a repair, but it reminded me of the begana sound, and I went for it. And so when you play kind of flapping against the frets, and you add the scales, and those kind of things I’ve seen, you know, Ethiopians cry when I play like that. Yeah, it’s kind of a very unique sound. So it’s kind of like acoustically, a very unique sounding but there’s a way that I, if I have made one contribution, is just to mimic that, you know, from a broken bass.

 

Sean McPherson (Jazz88) 

you’ve made plenty of contributions. On the other hand, like if you know the first line on your resume is I played something that made Ethiopians cry, I feel like you’re doing a good job. Tears of joy. I am sure I’m chatting with members of Engocha who are preparing for a weekend of shows Friday and Saturday over at ice house. Now, as you have both been ambassadors for Ethiopia jazz here in Minnesota, and I want to be clear, I don’t want to treat you exclusively as ambassadors. Y’all are artists. I’m excited about this new music. I don’t want to weigh you down exclusively with nerdy questions about the history of this genre. Thank you for being ambassadors. But y’all are also players and writers. But you have done a lot of work to get jazz musicians who might not have come up in this tradition up to speed so they can deliver the goods like I just got to see Abinnet’s group Ahndanet do over in Northfield, as you’ve been getting folks up to speed on Ethiopia jazz, and hopefully, presumably, they’ve been doing their homework on their own. What has surprised you about that education process of getting people capable of playing this music?

 

Abinnet Berhanu 

Um, I think I really took for granted what comes very natural to different musicians, like, very much so because I think there were a lot of times where I would look at the guys in the band and I’d be like, come on, can’t you like, don’t you just, it’s very, you know, it’s very simple. Just go ahead and it was probably more when I put the music on paper. Was probably the bigger realization, because these guys all are going to do their homework. That’s why I work with them, is because they they have a genuine interest in the music. And obviously, like some of the more obvious, some of the more obvious things that were a challenge were feeling, for example, different parts of the triplet that they normally wouldn’t feel or emphasize, and have to do that throughout the song. And so what would be natural to them? You know, they would always that would be their home base, and they’d want to go back to it, but that wouldn’t be correct, gotcha. Or I. Maybe they’ve gotten used to doing certain things that are common in like different kind of like salsa or, you know, like a Ben Bay application, but it’s distinctly different, similar, but very different, from a groove and rhythmic respect of an Ethiopian music. But I think the biggest thing has just been putting it down on paper and trying to standardize it for the band. And when you put this music down on paper, you realize just how incredibly complicated it is, versus when you like we learn about when you’re learning it by ear, and you know the melody, and you know where it’s supposed to go and where it’s supposed to land. And it actually just gave me a whole new appreciation for the music. Because I, just until I had done this, I had never seen traditional melodies just on paper, and having to actually put it down and say, Okay, if I needed you to play this, what is this going to look like? And then looking at it and being like, you know, wow, this is the our music is incredibly sophisticated. Whether you’re just hearing it may not again, may not be the most harmonically complicated thing, which is a lot of times what people are caring about when they’re in the American jazz world. But when you look at the phrasing, when you look at the way the melodies land, when you look at all of these things, it’s just incredibly beautiful and very deceivingly hard for someone to pick up. And so, yeah, it’s just kind of built a whole new appreciation from having to go through that process. And again, these, you know, we, me and Yohannes, use some some, some of the same musicians, but I’m sure we both have the similar experience of, you know, getting to hear it all come together and appreciate appreciating that homework.

 

Yohannes Tona 

And just to add to it. I have kind of different extremes of scenarios where I go to, you know, somewhere in Nashville or something, then I run into a friend of mine, you know, American musician, and he would play me an Ethiopia jazz melody, like, Hey, man, I’ve been digging this. Or LA LOM. When we opened here, they actually had an Ethiopia jazz song in their set. I was like, wow, this is so beautiful. And that level of interest, and there’s actually in a foundation for those who are interested to kind of pick up on it, however, on just about like any traditional music, I think before, when we did, when we opened up for LA LOM with our brother. That was, you know, he passed on since it was just a quick get together, and we just could, let’s just jam. And that was it. There was really not a formal rehearsal. Oh, let’s play this song. This song is, you know, jam, yeah, it’s just a jam. And on the other extreme, I have actually gotten in a dispute with my like, Ethiopian school, you know, principals and you know, because when we were learned learning in Ethiopia about Ethiopian music, it was within the frame of the standard, you know, 440 tuning, which the rest of the world uses in classical or pop music, but when you actually go in culture, I mean, I do distinctively remember playing with this singer. You know, she’s amazing singer, and her name is Hana Shenkute. She’s brilliant. And she sings this song Arikum, which we’re going to play without her, but she was singing this note. The song is in B flat, and she hits this D, but it is actually slightly between D and E flat. And every time we get to this section, she does that same thing, like slightly sharp, but not quite up to the fourth note. And that just kind of reminded me, like, “Oh, this is what the traditional instruments play”. This is how you’re supposed to play. How come we didn’t, you know, have this? And so I go back and of course, he has mentioned Getatchew Mekurya, one or two to me, the greatest Ethiopian musician ever lived. But that is a big dispute, you know, because to my teachers from the music school, he was off because he didn’t play in that, you know, piano scale. So they’d like, yeah, I remember my teacher complaining, man, I couldn’t play with him. He was like, like, in, not in tune. And I was like, oh, maybe you should have tuned

 

Sean McPherson (Jazz88) 

to tune to the player. Yeah. Got a tune to play with Lenny Kravitz records,

 

Yohannes Tona 

yeah, yes, you know. So there’s like, the simplicity of, oh yeah, you can just pick it up. But if you really dig in, there’s like, some notes and some rhythms, like, for example, this rhythm, guila, it’s never in 5/8. It’s never a 6/8. It’s something in between. It keeps kind of moving. And when you see the people, they just dance to it as normal. They they don’t think about it. But if you have to program it right, you have to assign a click and a tempo and a signature, and then, you know, you make it popularized. It works, but there’s room for exploration.

 

Sean McPherson (Jazz88) 

And, you know, we’ve tiptoed a couple times around like harmonic complexity. We’ve all been players for a long time. I’ve never seen people on the dance floor going, it’s not complicated enough, right? If it’s 5/8 and 6/8 but the band is cooking and you’re enjoying it, you know, you’re gonna make it work Engocha playing at Icehouse on Friday and Saturday, an EP release. Is there music that we’re going to be able to get our hands on for jazz 88 is that in the works ASAP? What’s the what’s the timetable on that?

 

Yohannes Tona 

I would say, Sean, I’ll sneak you a wav file, okay? Of at least one or two of the songs so you know, you can get it to play and help us with, you know, people being familiar with our sound and what we’re doing. Yes, we’re in a process of getting this ready, and if not by Friday, I think a couple of days later, we’ll have something. I was ju st talking to my friends, Abegasu and Henock, who are like giants and huge influence on all of us in Ethiopian music, and especially Ethiopia jazz, they are doing a band they formed 41 years ago. It was for them. It was at the time. It was just like what we doing right now? And it just lasted, I don’t know, just a brief moment, but somebody discovered what they had done 41 years ago and decided, you know, I’m going to, you know, talk to this guy. And he convinced them to come back on tour, just for that. These guys are some of the biggest producers and the biggest musicians, stopping what they’re doing, just to kind of rekindle this long time memory and search out, oh, you know, he played keyboard here, and he’s out there, you know. So they connected. And the vinyl I have heard that was selling like for $500 a piece, because it’s such a rare thing. Yeah, that is just to say this might be a one off thing. You know, if we live long enough, we may play once, you know, every 40 years.

 

Sean McPherson (Jazz88) 

yeah, we’ll have you guys back in in 41 years!

 

Yohannes Tona 

We never know how long this it might be a beginning of a continual, you know, journey where we get to play as often as possible. But I just learned to appreciate, you know, so my friends will remind me, Hey, I heard what you guys are starting. Please hang on to it. Yeah, we respect them, and we’re actually playing some music from them too, to give a little shout.

 

Sean McPherson (Jazz88) 

Abinnet and Yohannes, thank you so much. Good luck. The shows are on Friday and Saturday at Icehouse. The new group is Engocha.. Good luck. And thank you so much for visiting jazz88 and thank you for sharing this music with us. Thank

 

Yohannes Tona 

Thank you, Sean.

 

Abinnet Berhanu 

Thanks for having us.

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