Salah Ragab Explained

Salah Ragab
Background:non_vocal_instrumentalist
Birth Place:Egypt
Death Date:July 2008
Death Place:Egypt
Genre:Jazz
Occupation:Musician
Instrument:Drums
Years Active:1960s–1980s
Associated Acts:Sun Ra

Salah Ragab (Arabic: صلاح رجب) was an Egyptian drummer.

Career

While serving as a major in the Egyptian army, Ragab tried to form a jazz band with American saxophonist Mac X. Spears in the early 1960s, but Spears left the country soon after its inception.[1] At a concert by Randy Sexton, Ragab befriended Hartmut Geerken and Eduard Vizvari, and they started the Cairo Jazz Band. In his work for the military's department of music[2] Ragab selected musicians to join the big band and taught them jazz. The Cairo Jazz Band performed for the first time at American University in 1969, performing original works in addition to music by Count Basie and Dizzy Gillespie, then in Alexandria and Cairo. The band recorded in the early 1970s. Geerken invited Sun Ra, who made a few visits to Egypt. Ragab performed with Ra in 1971 and 1983. Ra recorded two of Ragab's songs: "Dawn" and "Egypt Strut". Ragab also briefly with the German band Embryo.

Discography

As leader

As sideman

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Layne . Joslyn . Salah Ragab . AllMusic . 26 April 2020.
  2. Book: Szwed . John . Space Is the Place: The Lives and Times of Sun Ra . 1997 . Payback . 0-86241-722-8 . 292–294, 355.