When saxophonist Russ Gershon put his Either/Orchestra together 40 years ago, he had a concept in mind. “I wanted the band to feel like a territory band, or like a working band of the past,” Gershon said on a video call. The 11-piece band fully realized Gershon’s conception though he couldn’t have imagined that the band’s territory would one day include Ethiopia.
Today the Either/Orchestra is recognized globally for its advocacy of Ethiopian music, a project that has led to appearances at two of the nation’s most prestigious music festivals, and this weekend, to Cleveland for a pair of free concerts, Friday at Trinity Cathedral and Saturday at BOP STOP.
Really, no follower of the Either/Orchestra should have been surprised by the band’s embrace of music from the Horn of Africa. After all, the band’s considerable book includes arrangements of tunes by Bobbie Gentry (“Ode to Billie Joe”), Bob Dylan (“Lay Lady Lay”), King Crimson (“Red”) and Morphine, via frontman Mark Sandman, one of Gershon’s early collaborators (the book also includes music by Miles Davis and Thelonious Monk, but deep cuts, not hits).
It was a record that Sandman brought back from a tour stop in France that fired Gershon’s imagination, a story he tells in an interview you can read here on Rob Shepherd’s essential PostGenre site (full disclosure: I’m a far-too-occasional contributor there).
That record was part of the influential Ethiopiques series curated by producer Francis Falceto, through whose sponsorship the Either/Orchestra made groundbreaking tours of Ethiopia and of Europe, where the band was joined by notable Ethiopian vocalists.
One of those tour stops was in London where the band played the Barbican Centre. “The day before the concert,” Gershon said, “we sat in a rehearsal room somewhere in some corner of London for nine hours and rehearsed that whole concert and worked on this music with the singers–and we were playing from memory too. Afterwards, the Ethiopian guys observed to Francis Falcetto [and] they were shocked at how hard we were willing to work on this stuff.”
Gershon’s love of deep dives led to the Either/Orchestra’s latest recording, Nalbandian The Ethiopian (Buda Musique, 2025). It’s a collection—and in many cases a recreation–of the music of Nerses Nalbandian, an Armenian who acted as a bridge between Ethiopian and Western music during the long reign of Emperor Haile Selassie.
“They were emulating American jazz and rock and soul and Latin music,” Gershon said of the Ethiopian musicians, “but getting it wrong because they were seeing it from a distance, just from recordings.”
Because traditional Ethiopian music lacks Western harmony, the African musicians had to make accommodations that Gershon found captivating. “Half of it is not having a feel for it, and half of it is not even caring that it was right,” he said. “They followed the melody, followed the length of the vocal phrases, and then made a chord change. In a sense, it’s great.”
Gershon’s enthusiasm is shared by Timothy Beyer, artistic director of Cleveland new music and presenting organization No Exit, which is presenting the Either/Orchestra’s concerts. “I met Russ when I was a composition student of Andrew Rindfleisch, maybe 26 years ago,” he said. “The first time I heard the Either/Orchestra play was the first time I ever heard any of this Ethio-jazz or Ethiopian music, and it just blew me away. I mean, it just knocked me out.”
With the band reformed after a pandemic hiatus and touring (they played two shows at last weekend’s high-profile Big Ears Festival), the time was right for the Either/Orchestra’s return to Cleveland, where they will be joined by Ethiopian vocalist Bruck Tesfaye and Munit Mesfin.
Together they will present what is essentially an emulation of last century’s Ethiopian musicians’ emulation of American music, closing a circle of influence that is more like a flywheel that gains momentum with each sometimes-imperfect revolution.
And imperfection comes with the territory. “What’s so beautiful about that music,” Gershon said, “is it’s that it’s being seen through another lens by really good musicians who put a lot into it. So the getting-it-wrong thing, I think, is super important.”
No Exit Presents the Either/Orchestra, Friday, April 10, 7 p.m., Trinity Cathedral, 2230 Euclid Ave., Cleveland, and Saturday, April 11, 7 p.m. BOP STOP, 2920 Detroit Ave., Cleveland. Both concerts are free.
For the most complete listing of jazz and jazz-adjacent events., look to Jim Szabo’s essential, weekly Northeast Ohio jazz calendar.
