There is little that tops a crisp night with live jazz playing, but this week, Cairo has more to offer. The Citadel’s Al Mahka venue is to witness a fusion of re-imagined American jazz songs and homegrown indie/folk artists, making a cross-culture musical dream come to life. With a unique contemporary twist to this heritage form of American music, artist Chelsey Green and her band, the Green Project, are to share a stage on Tuesday 28 February with Egyptian music revivalist Dina El Wedidi in a powerful message of trans-boundary collaboration at the Cairo Citadel. The Green Project creates innovative jazz out of a heritage form by tearing down stereotypes of the violin and viola and fusing traditional, classical technique with various genres including R&B, Pop, Soul, Funk, Jazz, Alternative, Hip Hop and Gospel. Meanwhile, El Wedidi is deconstructing elements of traditional Egyptian tones and lyrics from their original music-cultures and re-contextualizing them into new soundscapes. The idea is to foster collaboration between two disparate musicians who both bend ‘roots music’ into contemporary forms to demonstrate Egyptian-American collaboration and to share the unique history of jazz and the contributions of black…
