Salah Ragab & The Cairo Jazz Band - 1973 - Egyptian Strut

Salah Ragab & The Cairo Jazz Band 

1973 

Egyptian Strut

01. Oriental Mood (04:45)

02. Dawn (08:03)

03. Mervat (04:16)

04. Ramadan in Space Time (04:19)

05. Kleopatra (05:05)

06. Neveen (07:54)

Bonus on 2021 CD

07. Egypt Strut (04:55)

08. A Tribute to Sun Ra (03:24)

09. Khan El-Khaleely (04:55)

10. Black Butterfly (04:04)

11. Latino in Cairo (03:57)

12. Upper Egypt ‘The King’s Valley’ (05:43)

13. The Crossing (02:51)

14. Calling You (06:18)

15. Kleopatra (Alternate Take) (04:48)

16. A Farewell Theme (10:51)

Salah Ragab Conducting, Piano, Drums, Congas

Zaky Osman Trumpet, Flute

Mohamad Abdoe Trumpet

Ibrahim Wagdy Trumpet

Khalifa El Samman Trumpet

Mahmoud Auob Trombone

Sadeek Basyouny Trombone

El Sayeed Dahroug Trombone

Abdel Atey Faroug Bass Trombone

Mohammed Abdel Rahman Bass Tuba

El Saied El Aydy Alto Sax

Farouk El Sayed Alto Sax

Saied Salama Tenor Sax, Baritone Sax

Fathy Abdel Salam Tenor Sax

Abdel Hakim El Zamel Baritone Sax

Khmis El Khouly Piano

Moohy El Din Osman Piano

Abdel Hamid Abdel Ghaffar (Toto) Nay, Bamboo Flute

Sayed Ramadan Bongos, Baza (ramadan drum)

Sayed Sharkawy Drums

Compositions and arrangements by Salah Ragab. Recorded in Heliopolis Egypt.

"One of the most unique and dramatic albums in all of global jazz music.” 

Francis Gooding, The Wire

Inspired by a concert in Cairo by Randy Weston in 1967 encouraging Pan-African unity, drummer Ragab, Eduard “Edu” Vizvari, a Czech jazz musician, and Hartmut Geerken of Goethe Institut vowed to create Egypt’s first jazz big band. Following the Arab-Israeli war, Ragab became a Major in the Egyptian army and had unparalleled access to the military’s 3000 musicians spanning Upper and Lower Egypt, along with a wide range of instruments. Part of the barracks were christened the Jazz House and, following a crash course in jazz history by Geerken, the Cairo Jazz Band was born, playing their first concert at Ewart Memorial Hall at the American University in 1969.

Further inspired by Sun Ra & His Arkestra’s first visit to Egypt in 1971, Ragab recorded an album for the Egyptian Ministry Of Culture a year later, entitled ‘Egyptian Jazz’, later released as ‘Egypt Strut’, a perfect fusion of jazz with Arabic modes with tracks referencing Islamic festivals, Egyptian landmarks and friends and family dear to Ragab. The Wire’s Francis Gooding summarises the album as “esoteric African American Egyptianism and radically spiritualised modal jazz taken up by Ragab as the tool for a form of mystical Egyptian nationalism – a triumphalist military jazz, angled in Ra-like fashion towards the Gods of the New Kingdom.”

This expanded version of the album features eight extra tracks recorded during associated sessions. It is released in its original Prism Music Unit artwork for the first time and is packaged with the original house bag designs, an original mini-booklet describing the tracks and an 8pp over-sized booklet featuring rare photos and extensive new liner notes by Francis Gooding.

In 1968, while he was also the leader of the Military Music Departments in Heliopolis, Salah Ragab formed the first jazz big band in Egypt, The Cairo Jazz Band. Some of the best musicians in Egypt of that time were members – Zaki Osman (trumpet), Saied Salama (tenor sax), Khamis El-Kholy (piano) and Ala Mostafa (piano).

On these recordings The Band consists of five saxophones, four trumpets, four trombones, piano, bass, drums and percussion and various other oriental instruments. The opening concert of The Cairo Jazz Band was in Ewart Memorial Hall at The American University 23/02/1969 followed by many other concerts in various prestigious places such as the Old Opera House, The University of Alexandria and appearances on Egyptian TV Jazz Club Weekly.

Salah Ragab studied jazz theory and improvisation with the jazz musician and composer from Kansas City, USA, Osman Kareem, with whom he formed the first Jazz Quintet in Cairo in 1963 recording with the Radio Service of Cairo. He accompanied the great bandleader and composer Sun Ra on a tour in Egypt, Greece, France and Spain in 1984.

These recordings present Salah Ragab and The Cairo Jazz Band’s definitive work, recorded in Heliopolis Egypt between 1968 and 1973. Western jazz musicians have been fascinated with the world of Islam for many years, for religious, spiritual, musical and sociological reasons. It was therefore inevitable that musicians of the Arabian North African area would play a part in the interaction of these two musical cultures.

The compositions correspond to the cross-over of musical styles at the time of the recording 6000 miles away across the Mediterranean and Atlantic in New York with releases on Moodsville by Yusef Lateef and RCA by Ahmed Abdul-Malik. This record represents the Cairo Jazz Band responding to the American jazz scene in the 60’s and 70’s with influences from Mongo Santamaria to Randy Weston to Sun Ra. These tracks (apart from “Egypt Strut”) were first presented by the Ministry Of Culture in Cairo as a Prism Music Unit Production.