Egyptian jazz singer/songwriter, Noha Fekry, was Hisham&rsquo;s guest on &ldquo;The Evening Show&rdquo;.
Noha Fekry is an Egyptian singer/songwriter and was a member of the Riff band from 2008 until 2016, before forming her own jazz group "Janan". Her performances range from jazz standards to Arabic and world-famous tunes re-harmonized and she is constantly collaborating with local and international musicians.&nbsp;&nbsp;
The Meaning Behind The Name of Her Band &ldquo;Janan&rdquo;
When asked about the reason behind choosing the name &ldquo;Janan&rdquo; for her band, Noha explained that &lsquo;&ldquo;JANAN&rdquo; is an Arabic word that means &ldquo;The Core&rdquo;, so your secret or your heart is &ldquo;The Core&rdquo;, so the essence&rdquo;.
She further elaborated, &ldquo;I needed a name for the band and I needed a pretty name and I was trying to think, there was a process to go there and actually, there was a different name and it was changed at the last minute, but &ldquo;JANAN&rdquo; is close to my heart because that&rsquo;s what I try to do in my life in general. The way I am and the way I try to do things I try to be in it, so if I&rsquo;m writing music or composing or whatever, I try to bring me into it, whether it&rsquo;s about me or about somebody else I try to make as authentic and real as I possibly can.&rdquo;
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On Jazz Genre
&ldquo;It&rsquo;s actually a very compelling kind of genre, a very strong kind of music. It can encompass and fuse with different other genres. There&rsquo;s room for a lot. I think audience like good compelling music, so it&rsquo;s our job to create good and compelling music to get people to listen, especially when it&rsquo;s something that&rsquo;s not pop and not as popular and that comes from a really really different culture.&rdquo;
When asked about what&rsquo;s the definition of Jazz genre according to Fekry, she replied with, &ldquo;Jazz is a kind of Western music, it&rsquo;s not Classical Arabic but it stems out of classical music. It&rsquo;s a very rebellious kind of music. Jazz musicians are very well educated or at least they try, they&rsquo;re very very well practiced. So much so as if it&rsquo;s &ldquo;I know the rule, so I&rsquo;m gonna bend it.&rdquo;
On Being a Singer/Songwriter
Noha discussed beginnings&nbsp; of her career saying, &ldquo;So singing is something that I&rsquo;ve been doing all my life, I can&rsquo;t trace when did it start, for songwriting, the first song I&rsquo;ve ever wrote was in 2012, but then I had a second song later that year, and then I started to explore writing and composing regularly. I didn&rsquo;t call myself back then a songwriter because I didn&rsquo;t know if it&rsquo;s going to be something for real, I wasn&rsquo;t sure of what I was doing was good or not.&rdquo;
Noha elaborated that part of being a songwriter is allowing yourself to go with the flow of inspiration, &ldquo;I think there&rsquo;s an inspiration, and you become a vessel for it, because some stuff is really bigger than I am, and bigger than what I&rsquo;m aware of, and actually at these moments I try my best not to interfere much, just let the flow happen. Sometimes I write stuff and I forget all about it and then I find a notebook laying there and I look at the lyrics and I&rsquo;m like &ldquo;Oh my goodness, I wrote this&rdquo;, and it really feels like it has a life on its own.&rdquo;
Practice Is Key
&ldquo;I spent some time writing on a daily basis, of course, loads of nothing, but every now and again something would come up and I&rsquo;m like &ldquo;Umm I like that&rdquo;, and I&rsquo;d work on it and it&rsquo;d become something, and with time I started to be convinced with what I&rsquo;m doing, friends and family would tell me that this is pretty nice, and it took me actually years to agree, but when that happened I started to really love the process and what I do.&rdquo;
The Experience Working With Rami Attallah
&ldquo;Rami Attallah is a colleague and a friend, and we play together almost all the time. The way we got introduced was in The Riff band, I joined the band in 2008, and I think he joined later that year or in 2009, so we go way back. We co-produced an album, called &ldquo;A Conversation&rdquo;, and we released it in 2015,&rdquo; Fekry stated.
On Her Latest Album &ldquo;Live in Cairo&rdquo;
&ldquo;Live in Cairo&rdquo; is the latest album that I released together with Rami on the piano, Ihab Badr on the bass guitar, and Mina Nashaat on the Saxophone, and it was live recorded in Cairo, hence the name. I&rsquo;m very happy with that album, the fact that it&rsquo;s live to me is a big thing because that&rsquo;s how we actually sound.
I definitely prefer live performances, of course in the studio things are neater and safer because you don&rsquo;t go out on a limb.&rdquo;
The Experience Working With Amr Salah
As for her musical beginnings, Noha highlighted that she &ldquo; joined The RIFF band in 2008, and my meet up with Amr and the gang was in 2009, both things happened at the same time simultaneously, and both had a different timber to them. Both formations were me getting into the music scene.&rdquo;
The Experience Working With Ziad Rahbani
Noha talked about her experience working with Ziad Rahbani explaining that &ldquo;This was an amazing experience. In our house, we listen to Fairuz and the Rahbani brothers all the time, so this is music that I grew up listening to. When I was contacted to play with Ziad I was like &ldquo;Sure. Yes. What are we going to do?&rdquo; I&rsquo;m very grateful, it was lovely, and getting to know him on a human level he&rsquo;s very down to earth, he&rsquo;s very artsy of course.&rdquo;
Rapid Fire Questions:
Finally, Noha shared her answers to these quick this or that rounds:
Dogs or cats? Dogs
Singing or voice acting? Singing
Beach vacation or city exploration? Beach vacation
Summer or winter? Summer
Books or movies? Pass
Early bird or night owl? Night owl
Spicy or mild? Spicy
Pop music or Alternative music? Alternative music
Chocolate or vanilla? Chocolate
Vintage or modern? Vintage
Classical or Jazz? Pass
Vinyl or digital music? Vinyl
Singing or playing an instrument? Singing
Concerts or music festivals? Music festivals
Beyonce or Rihanna? Beyonce
Lyrics or melody? Pass
Live albums or studio recordings? Live albums
Song covers or original compositions? Original compositions
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