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// The Master Musicians of Jajouka
© D.R.
The Master Musicians of Jajouka
Piercing and mysterious, the Master Musicians of Jajouka's music is based on the sounds of the Arab oboe the "ghaïta", the bamboo flute the "nira" and the "gumbri". The repetitions and monochords, which go on for hours and hours, inevitably finish in trance.
Playing for weddings, births and circumcisions, Jajouka's musicians might have remained no more than artists playing ritual music. Except that during the 1950s they were discovered by a handful of Anglo-Saxon artists.
Charmed by the easy-going lifestyle, the sweetly exotic atmosphere, low cost of living and no doubt by the quality of the hash, many of the era's intellectuals took up summer residence in Morocco. The novelist Paul Bowles had settled in Tangier, visited by Timothy Leary, the psychedelic theoretician, the inventor of cut-up William Burroughs and painter Brion Gysin. Naturally curious and attracted by extra-sensorial experiences, they were clearly going to be seduced by the hypnotic sounds played on the slopes of the Riff. In 1968, Gysin took Brian Jones to Jajouka to take part in a religious ceremony. The guitarist, who had just been thrown out of the Rolling Stones, was bowled over by this spiritual music and recorded over 7 hours long. Despite the death of the English pop star a few months later, the record Brian Jones presents : the pan pipes of Jajouka was released in 1972, revealing the magic of this music to the West. The tourists began arriving in their hordes, and the group set about organising an annual festival entitled "the pipes of pan at Jajouka".
In 1973 the American free jazz saxophonist Ornette Coleman recorded over twenty hours of music with the brotherhood led by Hadj Abdesalam Attar. Although only one track from this collaboration is included in the album Dancing in our head, let us hope that these recordings be released one day.
In 1980 the Jajouka musicians successfully toured Europe. When their leader died in 1982, his son Bachir Attar took over the group's leadership.
In 1989 Mick Jagger, retracing his band's history, went to Morocco to record a track with the Master Musicians for the Rolling Stones' album Steel Wheels. In 1992 during the cinema adaptation of William Burroughs' novel The Naked Lunch, Ornette Coleman and Howard Shore quite naturally collaborated with the group Burroughs had described as a "4000 year-old rock band". Around about this time, following a tip-off by the writer who thought that they were playing in Dublin, they discovered that an Irish promoter had put together a group of Moroccan musicians under the same name.
At the end of the 90s, Bachir Attar went to live in New York for a while, where he met and worked with varied artists such as rock group Sonic Youth, guitarist Arto Lindsay and bass wizard Bill Laswell, the latter going to Jajouka to record an album with the group.
In 1999, they hooked up once again with Ornette Coleman, performing all over the world. Towards the end of the year, the Master Musicians met the tabla player and electronic music producer Talvin Singh. The encounter between their two worlds gave birth to a magnificent album in which traditional songs sit harmoniously aside electronic tracks. The Indian musician is clearly at ease with this music so closely related to that of his ancestors while the repetitive electronic loops are perfectly familiar to the Moroccans.
This new album will undoubtedly allow the Master Musicians to win over a new audience and may just help them to make their dearest dream come true : to bring back the festival "the pipes of pan at Jajouka".
Benjamin MiNiMuM
// ALSO
- Qiu Xia He
- Baaba Maal
- Robert Plant
- RIP Bob Marley 1945-1981
- New Awards for World Music
- Ornette Coleman, Ornette Coleman's Meltdown
- Paranoia and passion: Almodovar’s movie music
- World Audio Foundation, Sacred sounds
- Tony Allen, Afrobeat ace
// DISCOGRAPHY
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The Master Musicians of Jajouka featuring Bachir Attar (Album)
Brian Jones presents : the pan pipes of Jajouka (Album)
Apocalypse across the sky (Album)// LINKS
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>> Randy Weston
REPORTS
>> Ornette Coleman’s Meltdown
>> DJ /Rupture Chart
// CONTACT
Master Musicians of Jajouka (Agent)
MAR
Send an email
The Master Musicians of Jajouka's Website
// POST A COMMENT
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mimine
20/02/2009
Je trouve la musique de ce groupe vraiment géniale. Je souhaite connaitre toute leur actualité. Que leur musique dure et perdure. Chapeau à la famille ATTAR.
paon175
18/08/2009
Je suis d'origine de JAJOUKA et je connais bien cette musique ,c'est fantastique. Mais malheureusement la famille ATTAR ne fait rien pour préserver et apprendre cette musique aux générations futures et profite lui seul 'ATTAR BACHIR' des droits d'enregistrement des disques sans donner rien aux vrais musiciens de JAJOUKA.
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