CAIRO—Playing the Cairo Jazz Festival is an ambition for any Arab artist. So says the Bahraini-Palestinian singer and songwriter Banah, who realized that goal this year.
The 13th edition of the international festival, which recently concluded, was its longest and largest ever, according to Mostafa Farouk, the festival’s media coordinator. “For the first time, we had activities for nine days presented by 20 bands from 13 countries,” he said.
The Egyptian pianist and composer Amr Salah started the festival in 2009 to raise awareness of jazz in Egypt.
The art form originated from blues and ragtime music amongst African American people in the Deep South of the United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and quickly won fans around the world.