You never know what’s
going to wind up on a random morning music mix.
Doing business in Asia one is often stuck on 11:00 PM calls that go till
God-knows when and then the morning still arrives when it always does. The cold is here now which means cardiovascular
exercise happens indoors. Tired, cold,
it is almost always reluctantly undertaken.
A song from an album I’d fallen in love with about five years back
popped on and I was so glad it did.
When I lived in San Francisco, one of my favorite shops was
Aquarius Records on Valencia St. A quick
check on line and it appears that they are still there and have so far survived
San Francisco’s latest white-heat bubble surge.
(I always grow somber when I think of the Village Gate jazz club on
Bleeker and Thompson that has now become a CVS Pharmacy.) I owe my familiarity with Salah Rageb and the
Cairo Jazz Band to the good folks as Aquarius.
They handprint reviews of select discs and fix em on to CDs for folks to
read. Everyone seems to have critical,
refined taste and so if someone bothers to hand write something blisteringly
salutary you tend to pay attention. I
did, and I’m forever grateful.
Salah Rageb was a Major in the Egyptian military who was
also an aspiring jazz drummer. Regular
readers of DustyBrine will recall the introduction of the great jazz pianist,
composer Randy Weston last month who had undertaken a number of tours on the
African continent with his band.
Fortunately Salah Rageb went to see Randy Weston at the American
University of Cairo one evening in 1966.
The story of Salah Ragab’s Cairo
Jazz Band is one unexpected meetings. In December 1966, enthusiastic jazz
drummer and Major in the Egyptian army Salah Ragab spent an evening at the
American University in Cairo to hear Randy Weston Sextet’s “History of Jazz”
concert. In the reception afterwards, Ragab found himself at a table with two
unfamiliar faces, Czechoslovakian bassist Edu Vizvari and German musician and
author Hartmut Geerken. It was within a few hours of their meeting however that
Salah Ragab had found collaborators for his groundbreaking project: the
creation of the first ever Egyptian jazz band.
Whoever was Rageb’s commanding officer deserves a medal, as
within two years he was promoted to Chief of the Egyptian Military Music
Department, with 3000 musicians at his disposal. He handpicked twenty-five of the best to form
the Cairo Jazz Band. The range of sound on
this one disc testimony is extraordinary.
Infectious grooves, majestic, layered orchestration and odd cacophonous
moments that fuse in catchy, memorable melodies. The tune that came on this morning, the third
track on the disc I have, “Naveen” which means “new thing, new beginning” is,
from the delightful piano line intro, irresistible.
The tune’s head must have a military element because civilians like
myself are simply commanded by it to nod the chin in affirmation. And I must comment on the second solo by the
tenor sax, which is so human and endearing at the crescendo one is utterly
disarmed and ready to befriend the man.
(I paused with that gender specific usage there, but I’m making a bet
that the Egyptian military in 1968 was unlikely to have had a female tenor saxophone
player in uniform.)
The irony of uniformed military brass playing songs like “A
Tribute to Sun Ra” is too delicious to pass up, but perhaps only so
ironic. Randy Weston and countless other
jazz luminaries refined their chops while serving in the military. Hendrix, of course met Billy Cox while
serving in the 82nd Airborne.
Although one tends to think of nearly all such people as reaching their
creative potential, after returning to civilian life. The flowering in my ear right now, is however
the work of enlisted men. One notes that
so much of the remarkable eruption of Ethiopian popular music up river from
Egypt at the same time, happened with police department and military unit
bands. Access to instruments, halls, and
requisite funds all being critical to launching any such orchestral effort.
Vamping now on Egyptian military ironies, I was in a hotel
in Yangon with my family a few years back when the Arab Spring swept North
Africa. Watching the BBC in the comfort
of our hotel lounge we sat their gobsmacked, along with the rest of the world as
Mubarak was swept from power. The Myanmar
military, the Tatmadaw, was (and is)
firmly in control and handshaking, fist bumping between military and student
protestors was absolutely unimaginable.
I saved an English language newspaper from that visit. Allow me to share with you one of the top
story headline from “The New Light Of Myanmar” dated Monday, 7 February, 2011:
“Duty of all national races:
“The people are working together with true patriotism to shape the Union
of Myanmar into a peaceful, modern and developed nation. They are all under a duty to tackle any
possible attempts of colonialists to break up the Union, aiding and abetting their
minions.” At the bottom are listed: “Four
Political Objectives”, “Four Economic Objectives” and “Four Social Objectives.” Stories commanding readers to love the Tatmandaw are perennial within.
Watching the remarkable protests there in Cairo one couldn’t
help but think of the ultimate impermanence of institutions which otherwise
seemed perpetual. The Tatmandaw had effectively been in power since
1948. Like us, they were certainly tuned
in to this ‘reality TV’ epic. And we
couldn’t know but within a mere two years of these events, they would,
remarkably, begin a process of unforeseen, democratic reform. The leadership of the People’s Republic of
China were also tuned in this North African programing, that week.
I have a dear friend and former classmate from the Chinese
Foreign Ministry. Twelve years ago I
can recall discussing popular uprisings in China, like the ones I wrote about
yesterday, what the Chinese Communist Party would call “mass incidents”. A classically trained Marxist, my friend had
a reassuring take on the ‘mass incidents’ that would be reported upon as having
happened in China. “John, these are not
particularly worrisome, as there is no vanguard
to this activity.” A vanguard of
intellectuals, committed to a systematic theory of popular organization is how,
in his Marxist analysis, revolutions happen.
In the absence of an organizing theory, they are simply incidents.
One of the things that the Arab Spring demonstrated to me,
the CCP, the Tatmandaw and everyone
else watching was that in the age of Facebook, Twitter and social connectivity,
a vanguard may not be necessary to overthrow power. This was a 异军突起[1] A
fruit salesman in Tusnis is wrongfully murdered. People are upset about it. People post about their frustration. It goes viral. And the next things three immutable regimes
are toppled. To the best of my knowledge
there was no secretive cell of intellectuals, no vanguard that plotted and
executed strategy to foment these uprisings.
(Please enter a comment below if you believe I am mistaken in this. I am
open to learning so.)
But I thought of my friend’s analysis that week, watching
things unfold from the ironic locale of Yangon.
And I bet quite a few confident, well trained Marxists in the CCP were
flummoxed that week as well. What was
that? How, did that happen? Like it or not, it certainly helps to explain
the great lengths that China goes to control expression on an internet they did
not have a hand in building. If you want
to keep moving the next 900 million people through the checkout counter to a
middle class existence, as I’ve earlier suggested, social media is antithetical
to an orderly progression.
And I wonder, as the remainder of this beautiful album plays
out in my ears, while I write this post, of Salah Ragab’s Cairo Jazz Band. Ragab himself never lived to see the Arab
Spring, passing, as he did in July of 2008.
Some members of the orchestra, certainly retired, discharged, but perhaps
still playing, were no doubt there to watch as the Egyptian military overthrew
Mubarak, and then, two years later, overthrew President Mohamed Morsi. What do the retired military men,
responsible for the founding of Egyptian jazz, who played with Sun Ra’s
interstellar Arkestra, think of this strange new Naveen that they are living through. Perhaps they will be asked one day, to write
a new national anthem.
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