Salah Ragab
Drummer Salah Ragab (1935-2008) was born into a military family, in comfortable circumstances, the son of a pasha (an honorary Ottoman title, like a British peerage). He naturally entered a military academy after leaving school, joining the Egyptian army from 1957 and serving in the 1970s. During this time he played drums with Gamal Abdel Nasser’s military band, which is where he came to the attention of an ex-patriate American saxophonist called Osman Kareem, who had moved to Egypty to study Islam, and escape racism in the States. The two formed a jazz quintet in Cairo in 1963, with Ragab still serving in the Egyptian army as a major.
After Kareem returned to USA, Ragab pursued his ambition to form Egypt’s first big band. Lionel Hampton had been an early inspiration. He formed the Cairo Jazz Band in 1968, hand-picking musicians from hundreds in the military music department, and rehearsing them hard until they learned to swing. Help in organising the band came from German percussionist, Hartmut Geerken, who was in Cairo working for the Goethe Institut, and a Czech bass player called Edu Vizvari.
The end result was impressive. Their music was a blend of American big band and Middle Eastern influences, with the large brass section and traditional rhythm section augmented by ney, baza and other traditional instruments. The band performed their first concert at the American University in 1969, and this was followed by concerts at the Cairo Opera House and on Egyptian TV. The 1973 Arab-Israeli War put an end to the big band, and Ragab elected to retire from the army in order to concentrate on his music. As well as gigging regularly, Ragab opened a music shop.
In the early 1980s, Ragab toured and recorded with Sun Ra, who he had met a decade earlier when he and Geerken managed to host a concert in Cairo with the support of the Egyptian Ministry of Culture. Osman Kareem made his way back to Egypt to perform a few reunion shows with Ragab. In 2017, the UK label Art Yard released recordings made by the Cairo Jazz Band between 1969 and 1973.
Key Recordings:
Egyptian Jazz (Art Yard 2017)
