Many Jazz composers and players in Egypt agree that this music has recently witnessed marked attention particularly among the youth.
The composer and player Yehya Khalil, presenter of the famous Jazz World Program aired by Egyptian TV told the daily al Hayat, “there are many who are fully aware of the Jazz music although very few knew this music in the eighties. The troupes, which used to play Jazz in Egypt, were mostly foreign with the audience not exceeding dozens of people. But now, the situation is completely different as all the troupes which play Jazz are Egyptian and the number of concert goers is on the increase.”
The music composer Fathi Salama, founder of the internationally reputed troupe, Sharqiyyat, which the Arab and foreign audience heavily attend, believes that the audience is incapable of classification. He thinks that the audience may enjoy many music pieces without knowing the type of music.
“Africans excelled in Jazz to express their happiness and sadness when large numbers of them moved to the American continent. They also used it as a call for war, peace and freedom and then it spread worldwide and developed by time and become affected by the societies it spread in,” Khalil told the paper.
Salama pointed out that improvisation characterizes the Jazz music, the fact that suits the eastern music. We have been the originators of Mawaweel and improvised songs since ancient times. From this point we offered our music to the audience and played the chord of improvisation and blended the international Jazz music with our eastern music in order to present a suitable type of music through mixing with other civilizations. It is a strange thing to see foreigners asserting that Jazz is an eastern music when they listen to it -- Albawaba.com
