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
Egypt Strut / Kahn El-Khaleely
*2023 stock* Drummer and multi-instrumentalist Salah Ragab was a central figure in the history of jazz in Egypt. A sometime collaborator with Sun Ra, Ragab founded the Cairo Jazz Band in 1968, the same year that he became the head of the Egyptian Military Music Department. The Cairo Jazz Band was Egypt's first big band, mixing American jazz with North African music, combining jazz instrumentation and musical style with indigenous melodies and instruments, like the nay (bamboo flute) and the baza…
In Egypt
Strut present the final instalment in their series of reissues of Sun Ra’s historic recordings in Egypt with The Sun Ra Arkestra meets Salah Ragab in Egypt plus the Cairo Jazz Band, originally released on Greek label Praxis in 1983. Salah Ragab first encountered the Arkestra at a concert at the house of Goethe Institut ex-pat Hartmut Geerken during the Arkestra’s first visit to Cairo and Heliopolis in December 1971 and, although Ra and Ragab did not meet in person on that occasion, they did mee…
Afghanistan per Du Perdü
**100 copies** In hardbound embossed special package (like previous edition in this series), numbered & signed, with an original work by Hartmut Andryczuk, signed and numbered. 52 pages with a foreword by Hartmut Geerken and 38 applicants for the Goethe Institute in Kabul in the 1970s. With Audio CD. To do justice to the dark irreparable situation afghanistan, bombed far back by the west, is in today, i am juxtaposing 38 passport photos of afghan people, in original format & still from the time…
Egypt Strut
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 con…
Music for Angela Davis / Heliopolis (2LP in bundle)
This bundle includes both the Cairo Free Jazz Ensemble LPs released by Holidays Records, namely:Cairo Free Jazz Ensemble "Music for Angela Davis" (LP, single-sided, 1971)Cairo Free Jazz Ensemble "Heliopolis" (LP, 1970)Cairo Free Jazz Ensemble "Music for Angela Davis" (LP, single-sided, 1971)**500 copies. Deluxe edition with special printed inner and insert** One of the legendary projects of 20th Century Egyptian jazz, the Cairo FreeJazz Ensemble was formed by Hartmut Geerken - who sadly left thi…
Music for Angela Davis (LP, single-sided)
**500 copies, one-time pressing. Deluxe edition with special printed inner and insert** One of the legendary projects of 20th Century Egyptian jazz, the Cairo FreeJazz Ensemble was formed by Hartmut Geerken - who sadly left this planet on October 21st - as an avant-garde offshoot of The Cairo Jazz Band - the first jazz big band in the country - formed by Salah Ragab in 1968.Sinfully under-documented, in 1970 the band issued Heliopolis, what has since become one of the rarest, most celebrated and…
Kivikkat, The Greenland Experience
**100 copies, signed (by Hartmut Geerken) & numbered** Nuuk in the evening. The audience sits at round tables and drinks juices or beer. Kresten Osgood goes to the piano and immediately has the full attention. Hartmut Geerken with anklung, Tibetan short tube, Nubian Argool, Byzantine bells, waterphone and roll piano and the "Snoeleopard" on the electric guitar and various s.e. wind, percussion and string instruments, some of them self-made, answer, accompany, comment, and set new accents. The gr…
Heliopolis
A real stunner brought back to life with a much-needed repress. Edition of 300 copies, remastered, comes with a 6 pages 30x90 fold out booklet "One of the great projects in Egyptian jazz, the 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 …
Nach Else Laker-Schülers Tragödie Ich & Ich
**50 copies** In hardbound embossed special package (like previous edition in this series), numbered & signed, with an original work by Hartmut Geerken. DVD with the recording of the radio-play from November 1994
Omniverse
Twenty years after its first publication, Art Yard are proud to present the fully revised 2nd edition of Hartmut Geerken's long unobtainable Omniverse Sun Ra, a definitive hitch-hiker's guide to the Sun Ra galaxy. 304 full colour pages / 1850 gramms - Size: 290mm x 245mm Portrait. Revised and expanded second edition of Hartmut Geerken and Chris Trent's comprehensive reference Omniverse Sun Ra, originally published in 1994. Full-color 304-page hardcover book. French fold cover with metallic silve…
Obertonorgien
Edition of 25 copies, 14 CDs, book-bound, with 14 original collages by Hartmut Geerken (on each of the 14 CD sleeves). Archive edition of Geerkens' talk pieces in a period of twenty years with Klaus Ramm, Pierre Garnier, Robert Lax, Jochen Gerz, Herbert Achternbusch, Grace Yoon, Sainkho Namtchylak, Jörg Drews, and others. Hartmut Geerken is a German musician, composer, writer, journalist, playwright and filmmaker. Geerken studied orientalism, philosophy, German studies and comparative religion i…
Egyptian Jazz
2017 repress - remastered; Originally released in 2006. Egyptian Jazz represents The Cairo Jazz Band responding to the American jazz scene of the '60s and '70s with influences from Mongo Santamaria to Randy Weston and Sun Ra. These tracks were first presented by The Ministry Of Culture in Cairo as a Prism Music Production and released with an additional disc by the composer Soliman Gamil. This release marks the first time Salah Ragab and The Cairo Jazz Band's definitive works are presented to…
Live in Kabul 1976 (Art Edition)
Art Edition with an additional LP, issued in 26 copies onlyThe highly influential Sagittarius A Star label return with a prime piece of Eastern-tinged Improviation dated 1976 from Hartmut Geerken and Michael Ranta... then in Nov. 1976 we started our Far East Tour from Kabul to Teheran, New Delhi, Calcutta, Dacca, Bangkok, Manila, Seoul & Osaka (as documented on qbico 101 box set & qbico sigma). the very 1st Helio recording (on a Uher Report 4000 reel-to-reel tape machine), before this 4 weeks t…
Heliopolar Egg Live in Kabul 1976
The highly influential Sagittarius A Star label return with a prime piece of Eastern-tinged Improviation dated 1976 from Hartmut Geerken and Michael Ranta... then in Nov. 1976 we started our Far East Tour from Kabul to Teheran, New Delhi, Calcutta, Dacca, Bangkok, Manila, Seoul & Osaka (as documented on qbico 101 box set & qbico sigma). the very 1st Helio recording (on a Uher Report 4000 reel-to-reel tape machine), before this 4 weeks tour, was our dress rehearsal in my house in Kabul on Nov. 2…
Orpheus
Limited edition of 200 copies. Fantastic sound-poetry piece by Hartmut Geerken, coming with an auto-photograph taken by the author during a four-week long isolation research program held by the Max Planck Institute in a bunker (!) in Andechs, Germany. Holiday Records presents Orpheus by Hartmut Geerken.
Fantastic sound poetry piece by Hartmut Geerken restringing the "Sun
Harp", the Ukranian bandura that Sun Ra gave him in 1971 when he visited
Egypt for the first time. The acoustics of his man…
Insistency!
Third - and sadly last - chapter of the archival recordings fixed on tape by Hartmut Geerken during his stay in Kabul in the 70s. Insistency! was recorded at the Goethe Institut of Kabul on same day of the duo session of Hyndukush Serenade - May 22, 1977 - but sees also Maqsud Schukurwali and Ghafur Rasul - members of the Free Jazz Group Kabul - joining Geerken and John Tchicai and playing an insistent anthem, featuring also an eight year old Olaf Geerken at congas. On side B, the music g…
The Heliopolar Egg
Documentary recordings of Hartmut Geerken and Michael Ranta’s November and December 1976 tour of the Middle East and East Asia. Geerken is known for his long relationship with Sun Ra (including compiling a discography), but he wears many other hats too: musician, film-maker, archivist. Ranta is a percussionist best known for his famous “Improvisation Sep.1975” collaborative record with Toshi Ichiyanagi and Takehisa Kosugi. This is a CD reissue of an LP boxset, originally released in 2010 as the …
Hindukush Serenade
Remembering his old friend and the days when this live recordings were taken, says Hartmut Geerken: "When John came to visit us in Afghanistan and in Greece, where we lived in the 70's and 80's, my wife Sigi had to extend his bed always with fruit boxes. His height didn't fit into a normal sized bed as well as his musical dimensions were too far out to fit into the mainstream taste of the masses. It was wonderful to hike with him in the Hindukush mountains up the Salang Pass. Afghanistan was a v…
Live in Kabul 1976
Outstanding archival recordings by Hartmut Geerken. German author, poet, composer, film-maker, performer, and gifted musician who collaborated with John Tchicai, Sun Ra (he was the first to bring Sun Ra over to Egypt in 1971), Embryo, Michael Ranta, Art Ensemble Of Chicago, Takeisha Kosugi and many more. This is an incredible live recording of a concert hosted by the Goethe Institut of Kabul on September 22, 1976. More than sixty minutes of convulsive jams - and hypnotic obscure interludes to …
West Africa Tour (Sierra Leone, Liberia & Guinea), April 1985
special box in 26 copies, made in high quality leather various African objects/artworks from various African tribes, stunning booklet with many rare photos (30) of the Tour (mostly color and b&w) cola nuts (to break the colanut with somebody african saying, which means to make friendship) an extra one-sided LP (I side) on gold and gold/green wax, - ALL recordings available here for the 1st time! "One of music's most amazing powers is its ability to tell a story. In the case of The African Tapes,…