There is a musical moment of great significance in Jim Jarmusch's road movie Broken Flowers. The main character, Don, is going on a journey and has received a cassette with music. When he puts the ...

The “obscure outsider artist from beyond the west” has become a familiar trope for old music excavated in far-flung places, thanks in part to the eagle-eyed tape rummaging of intrepid label owners ...

Hailu Mergia spends six days a week driving a Washington Flyer cab to and from Dulles Airport. He’s been driving a taxi for more than 10 years. His customers probably don’t realize the cabbie was once ...

He’s carried his music around the planet, but if you want to hear him play it, you have to go to his house. In his living room, there’s an upright piano where he coaches his fingertips through jazz ...

Once a music star in Ethiopia, Hailu Mergia moved his life to Washington, D.C., more than 35 years ago. But while today he can often be found behind the wheel of a taxi, he also has returned to ...

Hailu Mergia was once the keyboardist for Walias Band, whose 1977 recording “Muziqawi Silt” is a defining piece of Ethiopia’s musical history. Walias broke up in the early ’80s after a trip to the U.S ...

Hear an unusual session today with Hailu Mergia, a keyboard player and Ethiopian music star who now lives in the U.S. He came to World Cafe's attention through Awesome Tapes From Africa, the website ...

While Mulatu Astatke is the musician most widely associated with the creation of Ethio-jazz, fellow keyboardist Hailu Mergia is among other significant figures. Astatke is best known overseas because ...