Cairo Free Jazz Ensemble
Cairo Free Jazz Ensemble was formed by Salah Ragab and Hartmut Geerken as an avant-garde offshoot of the Cairo Jazz Band - the first jazz big band in the country - formed in 1968 when Ragab was appointed chief of Egypt’s Military Department of Music and had at his disposal a vast staff of musicians (almost three thousand!), an entire military building, and a full range collection of musical instruments.
Cairo Free Jazz Ensemble was formed by Salah Ragab and Hartmut Geerken as an avant-garde offshoot of the Cairo Jazz Band - the first jazz big band in the country - formed in 1968 when Ragab was appointed chief of Egypt’s Military Department of Music and had at his disposal a vast staff of musicians (almost three thousand!), an entire military building, and a full range collection of musical instruments.
Aliases: Cairo Free Jazz Band
Members: Hartmut Geerken, Salah Ragab
Stalllife
A spare, dark, improvised performance between Hartmut Geerken and Valeri Scherstjanoi – recorded at the start of the 21st Century, but with a depth that goes back to Geerken's earlier work! As with some of his best recordings, there's a quality here that's almost more focused on sound than music – lots of unusual percussive moments and ringing tones – shaped by the freedom of the performance, and slightly augmented by some wordless vocal utterances too! The record is only single-sided – a very u…
Brasilia in waitawhile
"It has always been one of my desires to do an album with Brazilian musicians/flavours... i remember years ago trying to do a free-funk-samba album with saxophonist Ivo Perelman which unfortunatly never happened ?! when Hartmut told me about a very special number that he did with Don Moye and musicians/artists from Brazil under the effect of Santo Daime's sacrament, i sensed that this might be what i was waiting for so long... warning: you'll NOT be able to hear this music seated... hip DJs took…
Einem Luftigen Akustischen Kosmos Entgegen
Collaboration performance by this two infamous german visual artists, writers & sound-poets, recorded at Lyrik-Kabinett München, June 1991. This is Carlfriedrich Claus' only sound-collaboration ever. Both artists prepared a 60-minute backing-tape and wrote a detailled score for live-performed poetry and voice-operations. In addition to these fixed compositions they left room for spontaneous improvisation and the use of small cymbals ('tschinkas'). This is like nothing else. Very serious, …
Cairo Free Jazz Band
Restocked, few copies left: the privately pressed Cairo Free Jazz Ensemble 1st album had always been considered as a kind of legendary album, difficult to find (Hartmut confirmed to me that it was pressed in Egypt in only 200 copies)... here are available for the 1st time ever the sole other recordings left of this mythical Ensemble ! it all started with Salah Ragab & the Cairo Jazz Band playing jazz standards and new compositions in the end of the 60's... then, with the arrival of Hartmut, they…
The Heliopolar egg 1976
This is one of the ultralimited edition of 26 copies (numbered from A to Z) with a different artsy cover, with one piece of Wayne Jacob (Michael Ranta's alter ego) original painting, and on back Hartmut Geerken original Lomographies; hand-colored, stamped and signed. It comes with ORIGINAL flyers/booklets, as well as a full LP, NOT one-sided as the regular edition...Again, truly monumental last ever Qbico release is a feast of exotic instruments, skilful playing and spirituality. No less than si…
In Egypt
The real gems of this prized reissue from Leo Records's Golden Years vault imprint are two previously unreleased tracks. The first features Sun Ra and his Arkestra on an 18-minute "Watusa" from 1984, and the second features a 13-minute piece by Saleh Ragab's Cairo Free Jazz Ensemble, "Music for Angela Davis," from 1971. It's no surprise Sun Ra loved going to Egypt, what with all the astro-mythology he used in the Arkestra. This love shows brightly on "Egypt Strut" and "Dawn," two Ragab tunes pla…
Amanita
Pratically impossible to make it brief here, HGeerken: author, composer, musician, film-maker, performer, actor, mycologist, archivist, stager of exhibitions, publisher of numerous authors from the circle of literary expressionism and dada, lumberjack, bumble-bee-keeper. during his six-year stay in Egypt in the 60's he is co-founder (together with Salah Ragab and Edu Vizvari) of the Cairo Jazz Band as well as founder and head of the Cairo Free Jazz Ensemble. played in various music groups: Embry…