I think the series compiled by Francis Falcetto is up to number 25 by now, but I did not notice this one slip out. It just might be the best of all of them.
Emahoy Tsegue-Maryam is (was? not sure if she's still alive) a pianist, from a very different background to most of the other musicians featured in this series so far. Born in 1922, she was educated at schools and conservatories in Europe before returning to Ethiopia in 1944 when she enrolled at a monastery to become a nun. Rarely performing in public, she made several vinyl albums as a solo pianist to raise funds for the poor. This CD is a compilation from those albums, and I am having trouble picking out a stand-out track because the whole thing is such a delight.
It would be difficult to guess where or when it was made. New Orleans in 1910? If Allen Toussaint were to sit down and play a selection of rarely heard ragtime tunes, he might sound like this. I suppose somebody who understands Ethiopian music better than I do might begin to recognise distinctive melodic shapes, but evry time I think I've 'got it', the pianist does something else to take me far away: Scott Joplin, Fats Waller. Always slow and thoughtful, the album rewards focussed attention but plays happily in the background until another melodic phrase reminds you that it is still there.
Buy one for yourself and another for a friend. You don't know anybody who will not like it.