1970 Cairo Free Jazz Ensemble “Heliopolis” on Sono Cairo

Hey, you know what’s better than Egyptian Free Jazz? NOTHING. Well, actually, that’s not true, but it still rules nonetheless. Yes, this is firmly in Ra territory as with the mighty Salah Ragheb (The Cairo Jazz Band - Ragheb was commissioned by the army and had at his disposal an entire military building, three thousand musicians, and every instruments known to man, except possibly a Gibson Flying V, but really veers more toward Heavy Ornette, mixed with Lite Ayler, than it does Space Exploration. This specific record was commissioned by the Germans, or at least the Goethe Institute, and we all owe them a solid there. I have, as it turns out, read a healthy amount of our man Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, the noted poet, playwright, novelist, scientist, statesman, theatre director, critic, amateur artist, and all-around polymath, and although he was brilliant on a variety of fronts, I feel fairly sure he would have loathed this action. Free Jazz to the pre-industrial ear probably would have sounded like a barrel of rusty scissors clanging down the BratwurstStrasse cobblestones at 6am. It’s possible, though, that he would have grooved with the spiritual jazz element, and found a kinship in entreating the various deities and spirits with harmony, whether it was Lutheranism, Islam, or Thelonious Monk. In the end, this throbs with both dissonance and assonance, and it dares you not to spin it for days on end. Oh yes.