Tribe Ahl Serif Master Musicians Of Jajouka 1975 LP 2 Vinyl Set World Folk Music

$

132

Very rare

Side 1:

1. Two Flutes

Traditional Arabic melodies recorded on the moun-tainside,

played by

Fahdal, the chief

musician,

Muhammed, the chief flute maker. The two musicians solo alternatively using the secret technique

circular

breathing

in the constant

flute note,

playing and improvising continuously without pause for breath.

Small ensemble: Flutes, Drums, Violin

Recorded at night indoors after the evening meal.

Atter tea and a smoke, about eight of the musi-cians, one after another, began to pick up their instruments and spontancously get into a jam with singing and dancing.

3. Gimbri

Tre incari is a thine trined instrument. Made

animals,

vaguely similar to a guitar (or bass)

and can be

found in most villages throughout Northern Africa.

This recording of another

traditional melody

done outdoors in the shade

of the small

music

school built by the Master Musicians with the aid of author Brion Gysin.

Side 2:

Festival, Part I

This recording begins in late afternoon (Part I) and concludes

Side 4

with Part Il recorded

late in the evening.

The festival, in honor of the

King and the Caid, summit of Jajouka.

took place on the broad grassy The full ensemble of musicians

was present (about 30 villagers and the Caid.

now as well as all the

Jong slow

processional,

The music begins with a

"the kaimonos,"

by the trumpeting of the

followed

in tribute to the patron

"thaitas" in a long note saint, Sidi Hamid Sherk.

From this into a short military-style tribute to the King and Caid.

Then drums and thaitas work into

their own thing, building

ana

The musicians begin to get it on, building.

changing rhythms.

Caid leaves and the party, goes on and on into the intense frenzy of Bou Jeloud music.

Side 3:

1. Flutes and Drums

Traditional tribal melodies and thythms. Bamboo flutes led by

Muhammed,

and

some of the older

the chief flute maker, Bautists. Drums led by

Berduz, the tribe's chief drummer and energist.

2. Violin

Arab melodies clean

one.

played on

violin by

Tahir,

"the

Tahir

is also the chief

one else

tea-maker; no

may make tea for the musicians.

time of this recording.

At the

Tahir is 21 years old, and

plays each of the tribe's instruments. He sits cross. egged on a mat with the base of the violin on his knee playing the instrument with a bow, cello-style.

3. Gimbri

This selection of Arab melodies again played on the gimbri is performed by Fahdal, chief musician. The music is romantic and one can feel, as well as hear, the Moorish-Berber influences and nuances found in jazz and rock music today.

Side 4:

Festival, Part II

word save an muste lovely an an guaren v the

by the diversity of the native musical folklore of Morocco.

Years ago, the music of the various musical brotherhoods scattered throughout the beautiful Moroccan countryside was known mainly to collectors, cultists, devotees of trance music, some expatriate jazz musicians, and occasional travelers. But music tastes constantly change. As an in-stance, more and more music lovers as well as tourists flock each year to the annual Moroccan Folklore Festival in Marrakech. One Moroccan music group, the G'naoua, toured the United States a few years ago. Others, like the Jilala, Hadaoua, Aissaoua, and Hamadcha are no longer unknown to the west.

This album is about another relatively obscure, but highly influential group of musicians of aristocratic heri-tage: the Ahl Serif tribe - also know as the Master Musicians of Jajouka.

The village of Jajouka is a small, high place in the western portion of Morocco's Rif mountains. Access to it is up a long, winding, rock-strewn dirt road. Don't look for it on any map. Here, the Ahl Serif tribe, or Master Musicians of Jajouka, and their ancestors have been making music for centuries. About 800 A.D., Sidi (Saint) Hamid Sherk brought Islam to this region. His remains are buried in a sacred tomb at Jajouka, thus adding more power, authority and mysticism to the music of these people. Each day, with the morning sun, the musicians play a musical tribute to their patron saint and

Descendants of Moors, Berbers and Arabs, the aristocratic heritage of the Master Musicians is evidenced in the papers they still retain given to their forefathers by the Alaovite Sultans who reigned in Morocco at the time of Charles Il of England.

The text of these documents

gave the musicians extraordinary rights over the Sultan; such as the right to play him to sleep, to play for him as he went to the mosque on Friday, and, among others, the right to live in the palace.

Today, there are no Sultans, and the Master Musicians of Jajouka survive solely from their music. They receive a kind of tithe from surrounding villagers whom they play to as the workers harvest wheat each season. Despite the fact that the Master Musicians have done albums with the late Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones, and with Ornette Coleman, and have been written about by such writers as William Burroughs, Paul Bowles, Brion Gysin and Allan Ginsberg, they've received little, if any, monetary benefits. There has been some progress, though, in advancing and promoting the music of the Ahl Serif, chiefly through their advisor and fellow tribesman Mohammed Hamri, a well-known Moroccan artist. Still, some younger musicians are forced to leave the village and seek paying jobs in large cities where the tourists visit. This is tragic indeed, as only the son of a Master Musician can receive the secrets of the esoteric rhythms and melodies of his ancestors and pass them on to his children.

The musicians live a simple, communal life on the hillside. They make their own instruments with a precision unique in this technological age. Their drums and three-stringed gimbris are made of wood and from the skins of animals. The flutes are carved from local bamboo shoots, and the shrill-sounding oboe-shaped rhaitas (named after the Datura flower usually used in combination with Kif, the cannabis sativa plant of Northern Africa) is expertly crafted from a hard wood similar to rosewood.

In Jajouka, one sleeps through most of the day's heat.

You breaktast on goat-cheese and honey spread on freshly baked natural bread. The Musicians loll about sipping the ritual mint tea, smoking their kif pipes (sebsis) and playing their flutes. At night, blue kif smoke drifts over Jajouka down across the Jebel.

Although the Ahl Serif are essentially Moslem, they have another patron. He is called "Bou Jeloud" - Father of Skins, Father of Love, Father of Fear. He is Pan, the ancient little Goat God with his pipes and cloven hooves.

The rites of Pan survive in the Moroccan hills in the form of Bou Jeloud, a young boy chosen, stripped naked in a cave, sewn into the bloody skin of a freshly killed goat, and masked with an old straw hat tied over his head and face. He is also the Father of Flocks, the shepherd who tends the goats in the hills. Bou Jeloud is. taboo as long as he remains. Women flee from his presence. When he dances, he and the earth vibrate, and all around feel his great mystical powers.

I've related to you only some facts about the Master Musicians of Jajouka; the music speaks for itself. In the flute and thaita passages on each side, you may notice

pause for breath. They

and similar to Rassan Roland Kirk) the secret of which has been passed on to them by their forefathers.

All the music on this album was recorded live on location as part of the sound track to a film. It's all here, from classic and traditional to counterpoint to multiple rhythms to the intense frenzy of Bou Jeloud music. Get into it and be moved. The pipes of Pan are alive.

HAJI-ARNOLD STAHL