Yehia Khalil (1943) is an Egyptian composer, player and musician. He is famous for his jazz music, especially the drums. He is considered the pioneer of jazz music in Egypt and the Arab world. He started his career in 1966 when he traveled to study in the United States, and contributed to the establishment of the Cairo Jazz Quartet in 1957 and founded the first his band in 1979.
He participated in presenting several television programs, including (The World of Jazz) and presenting the music of the (Hakawy Al-Qahawi) program.
its upbringing
He was born in Cairo in 1943, and at the age of four he played everything he encountered and fell under his hands, such as chairs, tables and kitchen utensils, and he made beautiful music from his ways. When he reached the age of fourteen, Yahya Khalil became the first jazz band in the history of Egypt. He called it the "Cairo Jazz Quartet", meaning the Cairo jazz quartet, and it is the band that was considered by many who were contemporaries of its inception, to be the inspiring band for all the bands that were and are currently working and playing in Egypt.
In 1966, when Yahya was twenty years old, and after achieving success and fame at that time, he decided to travel to study in America, in order to meet on his trip there, these great great American artists and musicians, learn from them, and play with them, those artists whom Yahya Khalil was constantly on. Hearing them in Egypt through the "Jazz Club" program on the "Voice of America" station.
His artistic career
After Yahya had already traveled to America, he played in various small jazz clubs, and a year later he moved to Chicago. Where he heard blues musicians with Miles Davis, Elvin Jones, Gabor Sappo and Wes Montgomery, and became a member of the band, which was able to present its work in Atlanta, and after the dissolution of the band Khalil returned to Chicago, where he studied music for two years, where Yahya joined the "Roy Knapp" Jazz Institute For five years he was apprenticed to legendary percussionist Roy Knapp, who was a mentor and inspiration to many of the most famous jazz musicians and after training decided to tour as a jazz player by the United States and met with jazz legends such as Daisy Gillespie, Duke Ellington and Herbie Hancock.
In 1979, Yahya Khalil returned to his homeland and formed his new band, which some music critics said represented at the time the "best mixture" of musical talents that met together for the first time in a joint work, including: Omar Khorshid and Ezzat Abu Auf. and others.
And he starred by playing in the company of famous jazz musicians such as "Oliver Jones", "Dave Young", "Van Freeman", "James Moody" and "Daisy Gillespie", and Yahya had participated in playing with Gillespie in the ceremony held at the opening of the Egyptian Opera New in 1989.
his artistic tours
Yahya traveled all over America, and played with many jazz, soul, country, rock and blues groups such as the famous "Friends and Lovers" "Rasputin Stach", "Richard Perry", "Shirals", "Top Soyal" and others.
Yehia Khalil played with his band, which includes musicians from all over the world from Egypt, Russia, India, Germany, America, Greece, Italy and others. , more than a hundred cities, and participated in more than five thousand concerts and festivals around the world during the past forty years.
His band, Egyptian Fusion, at the Cape Town International Jazz Festival 2009 and the Linz Festival in 2013.
his music style
Yehia Khalil adapted Western musical instruments to play oriental melodies. He made a generation of young Egyptians accept and admire his music and flock to attend his concerts in the Egyptian Opera House in the open air in the open theater, the small theater, the Gomhouria theater and in the conference hall in Alexandria, and wherever he went to revive a concert of music Jazz with his band.
Yahya's addition was not only limited to pushing Western instruments towards oriental music or including them in the oriental takht, but was essentially this mixture that he formed with his art, and he combined jazz music with Arabic music, as Yahya proved that Western musical instruments are incapable of expressing feelings and thoughts. Egyptians
He was also famous for presenting the music of the Hakawi Al-Qahawi program, which gained the admiration and fame of the audience at that time and became a distinctive feature of the program.
He currently has his own music television program called "The World of Jazz", which is broadcast on Channel Two of the Egyptian television, and he has another radio program on the cultural program network entitled "The World of Jazz" as well.
honor him
The American University in Cairo chose him in 1998 to be on the cover of the publication (poster) of their campaign, which bears the name “Read” to eradicate illiteracy and encourage reading, for which they had previously chosen the great late writer Naguib Mahfouz in 1996, and the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature. and world actor Omar Sharif in 1997.
He was honored at the BEATON Jazz Festival in Italy in 2015.
In addition, the Nile International Channel - after noting the growth and increasing interest in his popularity and his music that new generations love - made a documentary film about him and his effects on the art of music and its development in Egypt, and this film is entitled "The Jazz Man".
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