A man, a plan, a canal ... a band

By Simon Broughton - Guardian Unlimited - U.K.

Friday October 20, 2006

Stand at the point in Port Said where the Suez canal meets the Mediterranean and every few minutes, you'll see another vast container vessel steam majestically into the canal. Beside the canal there's a vast plinth that once supported a statue of Ferdinand de Lesseps, the French engineer who designed it. At the plinth, I have a rendevous with Zakaria Ibrahim, leader of El Tanbura, the band who carry the music of the Suez canal in their souls.

El Tanbura is a loose collective of musicians, most of whom have day jobs as fruit sellers, plumbers and drivers, but who play a weekly concert in Port Said and are appearing at the Barbican's Ramadan Nights festival this weekend. At the heart of their music is the simsimiyya, a small lyre typical of the canal region, and its sound shimmers behind El Tanbura's songs.

The simsimiyya, the emblematic instrument of the Suez canal, and its larger cousin, the tanbura, are found across north-east Africa. However, it only arrived in Port Said in 1938, where it fused with the local Arabic music called dama, a Sufi-influenced style of devotional music and love poetry accompanied only by percussion.

"The music we play was born in the cafes of Port Said," Ibrahim explains. "Simsimiyya songs really took off in 1956 when the resistance songs became popular." In 1956 Nasser, by then Egypt's president, nationalised the canal, prompting the Suez crisis in which he became a national hero.

To mark the 50th anniversary of the nationalisation, El Tanbura give a special concert in Port Said. It's an exuberant occasion with fairy lights and 2,000 people attending. Ibrahim has a special new song: "Against Port Said the attack started/ three countries against one city/ With a determined struggle/ With stones and sticks/ Port Said broke the proudness of her enemies/ And he [Nasser] said to all the people around the world/ 'Get up and take your freedom.'"

During the three-hour concert, also featuring bands from Ismailia and Suez, the other cities on the canal, there are a dozen songs about the Suez crisis. "It was a liberation, winning control of the canal and the lifeblood of the city." explains Zakaria.

Zakaria Ibrahim takes me to a Sufi healing ceremony so I can see the tanbura in action. The ceremony is performed by an elderly woman, her female assistants and a group of male musicians. The instruments include an assortment of drums and percussion (including shakers made from rusty aerosol cans) and the impressive five-string tanbura. Starting after evening prayers, the music, sung by the women with rhythmic handclaps, is hypnotic.

This is part of the secret power of El Tanbura's music and why, even when they party, it is something close to a transcendental experience. On stage I watch "Sheikh" Gamal Awad, a tall singer in a white turban and long robe, singing a Sufi love song. His voice soars over the textures of plucked strings and percussion the way a proud ship sails through the Suez canal.