WOMAD

The Master Musicians of Jajouka

From Morocco

When some traditional master musicians from the village of Jajouka in the foothills of Morocco’s Rif mountains gave into the eager demands of American beat poet Brion Gysin and his English friend, Bian Jones of the Rolling Stones, to record some sessions back in 1968, little did they know their lives would change.The recordings were released in 1971 and suddenly every western musician with a yearning for musical magic sanctified by centuries of tradition would beat a path to Jajouka to get a piece of the action. The master musicians, led by the dynastic Attar family, play a music whose origins are lost in the dark depths of the past and which still animates weddings, village ceremonies, healing rituals and the annual feast of Bou Jeloud, the Goat God, during which a young boy dresses up in goat skins and dances wildly to guarantee good ‘baraka’ or blessings for the village in the year to come. The hypnotic and impenetrable trance-inducing power of the music has attracted devotees as varied as Mick Jagger, Ornette Coleman, Debbie Harry, Maceo Parker, Sonic Youth and most recently Talvin Singh, who produced the latest Jajouka album ‘Searching for The Music’ for Point Music / Decca.June 2000