“I love Jazz. Growing up, I used to listen to it with my father”, says Samah Gaffar, smiling. Sitting in her office and exhibition space in downtown Cairo, amongst books by Maya Angelou and dissertations on African radio broadcasts, she smokes a cigarette as she recounts the history of Jazz, from Harlem to Cairo. Gaffar is a Sudanese translator and researcher on a journey to trace the role that Cairo played in supporting African liberation movements in the 1950s and 1960s. Her work for the past two years can be described as a mapping of the “dynamics of remembering and forgetting, past and becoming, voicing and silencing”. Her research also considers the formation of new cultural, social and political imaginaries in the decades after independence.  

On December 5th, Cairo’s Contemporary Image Collective opened The Light of Distant Stars - On Cairo and Pan-Africanism, a contemporary extension of past significant Pan-African meeting places in Cairo. Based on novels, radio broadcasts and films, they have curated a reading and gathering space to explore the afterlives of third world solidarity and anti-colonial visions. Gaffar's initial medium of research was radio, tracing its role in bringing revolutionary sentiments to Africans all over the continent. In the 1920s, Egypt was one of the few countries that had the infrastructure to broadcast to a wide audience. Following sound waves from Cairo to Eritrea, to Cameroon, and all the way to South Africa, Gaffar explored how radio helped to “shape a continental consciousness and tear down the boundaries and divisions set by colonialism”.

This research, combined with her love for jazz, led her to uncover Cairene histories of African-American musicians vibing in the Egyptian capital in the 1950s. Gaffar has archived these stories on her blog Sauti Ya Cairo and curated the playlist From Harlem to Cairo - من هارلم إلى القاهرة. Drawing from Alain Locke’s description of the age of jazz as the “age of spiritual maturity”, Gaffar’s playlist is a lyrical journey “from Cotton Club ‘Harlem’ to Hot Club de France ‘Paris’ to Cairo Jazz Combo ‘Cairo’”. It tells the stories of music as a tool for Pan-African diasporic connection and its power to bring about change and hopes for a better future. 

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The new Black mecca 

Jazz was born out of a specific socio-political moment. Gaffar writes, “African Americans used jazz to escape discrimination and poverty, and to see themselves outside the mould of white men’s hands.” The From Harlem to Cairo project starts in the 1920s, during the Harlem Renaissance, the golden era of Black culture. At the beginning of the 20th century, Harlem, initially intended to become an upper-class white neighbourhood, was suffering from rapid overdevelopment, which left landlords desperately looking to rent out.  A group of affluent African American families, the Black Bohemians, decided to settle in Manhattan and were soon followed by Black Southerners moving north in search of a better life in what is termed the Great Migration (the relocation of more than six million African Americans from the rural South to the cities of the North, Midwest and West).

The amalgamation of these different groups led to an explosion of literature, music, and performance art, establishing creative self-expression as a means to improve and advance the lives of Black Americans. They experimented with new art forms while simultaneously going back to their roots. As Gaffar considers, they found “a new spirit of willpower and self-determination that created a new social consciousness and a new commitment to political activism, providing a solid foundation for the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s.” Jazz, in particular, was an effective tool to connect people across class - and sometimes race - differences. “A new style of piano playing during the Harlem Renaissance, called ‘Harlem Stride’, helped blur the class differences between poor African Americans and the African American elite”, Gaffar explains. She continues, saying, “Traditional jazz bands consisted mainly of brass and were a symbol of the South, while the piano was historically associated with the wealthy class.” 

 I went out last night with a crowd of my friends,

Black women were thriving contributors to the Harlem Renaissance, both intellectually and artistically. In her playlist, Gaffar honours singers like Alberta Hunter, Bessie Smith, and Ethel Waters who addressed not only racial issues, but sexism and even sexuality as well. 

They say that gentlemen

Black Montmarte 

Jazz is often said to have brought Black music into the mainstream. Initially, white interest in the genre was not improving race relations, as Black audiences were not allowed to enter many establishments due to segregation under Jim Crow laws. Many African American musicians demanded that Black people be allowed to attend their performances, which at best led to some white owners permitting Black people to sit at the back tables of clubs. To escape American racial discrimination and having heard​​ stories of French tolerance, many Black artists moved to Paris in between the World Wars. Gaffar quotes singer Ada Smith saying, "I experienced the excitement of the Harlem Renaissance. But in Paris, it was even more wonderful. The whole city was partying. The [First World] War was horrible for the French, and now that it was over, they wanted to forget everything - all they wished for was a party and a dance."

The Parisian jazz scene was frequented by many musical pioneers and intellectuals who saw the Black community and jazz music as a form of resistance to American imperialism. Many musicians, dancers, and entertainers settled and delighted cabarets and club audiences in Paris' Lower Montmartre, which became known as Black Montmartre. Artists like Josephine Baker preferred to build their careers in Europe while still actively working towards change in the U.S. 

I have walked into the palaces of kings and queens and into the houses of presidents. And much more. But I could not walk into a hotel in America and get a cup of coffee, and that made me mad. And when I get mad, you know that I open my big mouth. And then look out, 'cause when Josephine opens her mouth, they hear it all over the world. 

- Josephine Baker, 1963 March on Washington 

Gaffar writes that mingling in Paris led many to redefine their affiliations, as European racism and the violence of colonialism became clear to them. On a quest to find a freer society, their next stop was Cairo. 

Cairo: where civil rights met African liberation 

Egypt was a central point in the travel of jazz artists. Politically, many of these emigrating African Americans were involved in Pan-African vision building and openly supported the Egyptian government in its struggle against U.S. imperialism. Gaffar’s research traces the Non-Aligned Movement that tried to establish a strong Third World solidarity in the face of the Cold War; Cairo hosted the Second Summit Conference of Heads of State or Government of the Non-Aligned Movement in 1964. Musically, activism around that time holds an interesting tension: on the one hand, African Americans were “returning” to the continent and bridging the Civil Rights Movement with anti-colonial liberation; on the other hand, they were tools of the U.S. State Department.

 Indeed, in an effort of cultural diplomacy, the American government was organising high-profile jazz tours to change its negative international standing in regards to its racial policies at home. The intention behind these tours was to forge solidarity between African Americans and other racially oppressed peoples through music. Jazz musicians, so-called “Jambassadors”, like Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie and Randy Weston, travelled to Egypt, where they collaborated with Egyptian musicians. Together with drummer Salah Ragab, Randy Weston formed the Cairo Jazz Band and birthed Egyptian Jazz. “The Cairo Jazz Band was the first Egyptian jazz band to blend American jazz with Arabic music, combining jazz instruments and musical style with original melodies and instruments, such as the tabla and the flute”, explains Gaffar.

“We played 'African Cookbook' to end the concert... The feelings of the Egyptian people were so strong in that theater as if they were telling us ‘We know this beat, this is our beat.’” - Randy Weston 

Jazz remains a highly political genre throughout Africa until this day, from Ethiopia to South Africa and throughout the diaspora. 

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