Friday, July 10, 2009

Return to Joujouka/Jajouka BBC World service radio documentary

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Cover of Brian Jones presents the Pipes of Pan at Joujouka
painted by Mohamed Hamri, (Rolling Stones Record, 1971)


The BBC World Service documentary "Return to Joujouka" is available for free download on
radio documentary



It features interviews with Blanca Hamri, Ahmed "Titi" Attar, George Chkiantz who engineered the Brian Jones recordings "Brian Jones presents the Pipes of Pan at Joujouka" (Rolling Stones records, 1971)

and more...........................Recorded in Morocco, presented by Neil McCarthy this half hour documentary was first broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on 28 August 2000. Sadly this was the same day Mohamed Hamri , Joujouka painter and mentor to the Master Musicians, passed away in the village.


Master Musicians of Joujouka links
Official website
Master Musicians of Joujouka on Myspace
Ethical Shopping to buy Buy CDs and books Click Here

The Rites of Boujeloud by Jack Sargeant from Fortean Times Nov 2006


The Rites of Boujeloud

Jack Sargeant interviews the Master Musicians of Joujouka

from Fortean Times Nov 2006


"THE GREAT GOD PAN IS NOT DEAD BUT ALIVE AND WELL AND LIVING IN THE LITTLE HILLS OF MOROCCO" – Brion Gysin

The Master Musicians of Joujouka are steeped in mythology. Introduced to the west through the artist, writer and beat affiliate Brion Gysin, who saw in their music an accompaniment to his ethereal paintings and Dreammachine. Lost Rolling Stone Brian Jones famously recorded the Master Musicians and in the ensuing years musicians ranging from Ornette Coleman to Bill Lazwell to the Islamic Diggers have collaborated with the villagers.

The Master Musicians' music echoes back through generations, intimately linked to the village community, culture, and their saint the Sufi mystic Sidi Achmed Scheich, who one-thousand years ago heard in their music and circular breathing techniques melodies that could cure illness. As Master Musician Abdelslam Eertoubi states, "Joujouka has the sanctuaries of four saints. If you have a bad back or sore bones you visit Sidi Ghari's tomb and lie on the stonewall. This will help. My family are descended from Sidi Achmed Schiech who founded the village a long time ago. This is his land. He is the Cultivator with Lions and Healer of Crazy Minds. He used a lion to plough the land. People still come if they are disturbed in the mind and we play music of Sidi Achmed Schiech for them. They sit in his sanctuary and it helps them." Their genealogy has roots in a combination of mysticism, Sufism, Islam, mythology and local geography. The group play mountain music and it is informed by the magical nature of the landscape; "Joujouka has Boujeloud, the goat man. His cave outside the village is a special place."

The music is based in the story of the young shepherd Attar who would let his flock feast on the lush greenery by a cave. To enter this cave was taboo, but Attar would enter its depths and sleep. While sleeping he was entranced by beautiful music, hauntingly played across the threshold between sleep and wakefulness, between the sacred and profane worlds. As Attar awoke he saw Boujeloud – the Father of Skins - playing a pipe. Echoing descriptions of Pan, a situation further confused by Gysin's writing on Joujouka, Boujeloud appeared as a satyr; part man and part goat. Boujeloud taught Attar the secrets of the flute under two conditions, he would never share the music, and he would provide a bride from the village of Joujouka. Attar broke his oath, and played the music for the villagers. The enraged Boujeloud swore to take a bride, but the villagers tricked him by presenting him with Aisha Kandisha, the mad woman. But her insane dancing tired Boujeloud, who, sated but exhausted left the village alone. In his wake the harvest was successful.

Each year he would come to Joujouka when he heard the music, and each year he would return to his cave without a bride but leaving a rich harvest in his wake. Eventually Boujeloud vanished, but the ritual continued, with Attar dressed in sheep skins re-enacting Boujeloud's dance and with local boys taking the role of Aisha. This mythology informs the ritual, as the group play the music taught to Attar, Boujeloud is manifest through a chosen performer while other boys dress as women. The music reaches a trance-like plateau before finally blasting into an ecstatic revelry, celebrating and banishing Boujeloud for another year. In his wake he leaves fecundity and a blessed harvest.

While the music is passed from generation to generation, each player adds to the music. This is a living ceremony, which develops over time, "We have all played music since we were boys" says percussionist Ahmed El Attar, "each time we play together it is different, even if it is the same music. Joujouka music is healing music. It is of the moment." The music is passed through families and the wider community, rhiata player Abdellah Ziyat states, "It is not so much that we teach younger musicians. If you grow up in Joujouka then this music will be in your blood. You hear it at weddings and festivals. If there are musicians in your family you will hear it at home. Young people learn the rhythms, some might play the flute. If they want to become musicians then they must play with the group and learn little by little. We can all play drums or flutes but we do what we are best at. We are always teaching someone, we talk about music and argue about the correct way to play. A young musician must go step by step but the Masters, if we take him as one of us we will teach him."

Music and dance informs all of daily life as Mohamed El Attar observes his sons started playing flute while minding sheep, they danced to the music and now dance as Boujeloud. While the Master Musicians have released - or been featured on – numerous recordings the complete rites of Boujeloud have not been released. Now Sub Rosa have issued a CD featuring a series of recordings of Boujeloud from the 1990s. Although the music is part of the spiritual and cultural life of Joujouka its effects stretch beyond North Africa, Ahmed El Attar: "If you dance to Boujeloud, if you stamp his rhythm it will bring you good health. Morocco, London, America it is the same. People have come to Joujouka and they could not have babies, and after listening to Boujeloud they later had children. People from all over Morocco have traditionally come to Joujouka. They like to see it, they like to be in the country of Sidi Achmed Schiech. It is good for them." The first notes of the Joujouka pipes echoing into the hills, from his cave Boujeloud returns to dance and bless the community once more.

Further Reading Hamri, 'Titti's Tobacco', in Xochi 23, number 1, 2004. Brion Gysin, 'The Mountains of London', in Xocki 23, number 1,2004. V Vale & Andrea Juno, eds, ReSearch 4/5: William Burroughs, Brion Gysin, Throbbing Gristle, ReSearch Pubs, 1982.

Terry Wilson & Brian Gysin, Here To Go… Creation Books, 2001.


Jack Sargent is a writer and his latest book is the Third Edition of

Naked Lens: Beat Cinema [ILLUSTRATED]

From Library Journal
The highly influential writings of the original circle of Beat generation authors have been widely studied, but motion pictures emerging from the Beat movement have been largely neglected. Film journalist Sargeant (Lost Highways: Road Movies), an authority on underground movies, fills that void with this articulate and entertaining cinema history. Starting with a detailed synopsis and analysis of Pull My Daisy (1958), a film written and narrated by Jack Kerouac, and ranging through subsequent underground efforts, Sargeant shows that the nonconformist Beat attitudes of social disillusion and rebellion against convention are especially conducive to visual expression in alternative film. Also, several lively interviews, most notably with Allen Ginsberg and Jonas Mekas, brim with vivid digressions and flashes of insight about cinema and American culture. The original 1997 British edition, upon which this expands, was largely overlooked, likely owing to the lurid nature of other titles in the publisher's cinema series, such as Eros in Hell: Sex, Blood, and Madness in Japanese Cinema. However, for admirably examining the emerging genre of a Beat-related underground cinema, the present work is essential for cinema collections. Recommended for academic libraries. Richard W. Grefrath, Univ. of Nevada Lib., Reno
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review
Sargeant not only understands the mechanisms of the art world, he also knows the workings of the 'power of transgression'. He laces his essays with the ideas of theorists such as Foucault, Bataille, and Deleuze. In the process of conducting his interviews, Sargeant reveals that he is more eloquent and well versed than his subjects. Could this be further proof that intellectuals have a place in the underground after all? -- Your Flesh

The focus he (Sargeant) shines intelligently upon the concept of 'Beat Films' is years overdue. A book of this nature must surely have been done before, but no, it has not. As much a book about the atmosphere of Beat creation as it is of film making, Jack Sargeant has come up trumps here. -- Beat Scene



Master Musicians of Joujouka links
Official website
Master Musicians of Joujouka on Myspace
Ethical Shopping to buy Buy CDs and books Click Here

Thursday, July 9, 2009

Naked Lunch 50th Anniversary in Paris and William Burroughs The Last Words of Hassan Sabbah

Burroughs at typewriter
William Burroughs at his writing machine, New York, fall 1953. One of numerous, rarely seen photographs taken by Allen Ginsberg that feature in a special Gallery section of Naked Lunch@50, here Ginsberg’s Kodak Retina records a crucial moment for Burroughs, as he worked on the manuscripts of “Queer” and “Yage” before heading off towards Tangier and the writing of Naked Lunch… (Courtesy of the Allen Ginsberg Trust and Stanford University Library.) from reality studios

Last week in Paris the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the publication of Naked Lunch was celebrated by the publication of a book edited by Oliver Harris and Ian McFadyen Naked Lunch@50 anniversary essays published by Southern Illinois Press.
Book Launch Poster for NL@50
Poster announcing the launch of Naked Lunch@50: Anniversary Essays

Among those attending were many friend of Burroughs and his cut up collaborators Brion Gysin, Antony Balch, Harold Norse and Antony Balch. For further celebrations see www.nakedlunch.org
hear Willaim Burrough reading the Last Words of Hassan Sabbah. Hassan Sabbah was the founder of the Ismaeli sect of Islam and the "Old Man of the Mountain" in the fiction and writing of William Burroughs and Brion Gysin click link below

http://www.interpc.fr/mapage/westernlands/Derniersmots.html
Click here to listen to it or download it in Real Player : Last Words of Hassan Sabbah

Images from the Naked Lunch 50th in Paris. Below

Friends of William Burroughs and Brion Gysin take a break between sessions
L-R Eric Anderson, Terry Wilson, Trolley Bus/Bryan Mulvihill,
Philippe Baumont, Lucy Baumont
, Barry Miles, and Udo Breger. 2 July 2009
The Naked Lunch 50th Confernece with collage
Miles and Udo Breger
Eric Anderson, Terry Wilson and Barry Miles

Oliver Harris and Miles before the plaque unveiling at the
Beat Hotel/ Viuex Paris, 9 rue Git le Couer , Paris 75006.
1 July 2009

All photos by and copyright Frank Rynne



William Burroughs from Nova Express

LISTEN TO MY LAST WORDS anywhere. Listen to my last words any world. Listen all you boards syndicates and governments of the earth. And you powers behind what filth consummated in what lavatory to take what is not yours. To sell the ground from unborn feet forever - "Don't let them see us. Don't tell them what we are doing -" Are these the words of the all-powerful boards and syndicates of the earth? "For God's sake don't let that Coca-Cola thing out - " "Not The Cancer Deal with The Venusians - " "Not The Green Deal - Don't show them that - " "Not The Orgasm Death - " "Not the ovens - " Listen: I call you all. Show your cards all players. Pay it all pay it all pay it all back. Play it all pay it all play it all back. For all to see. In Times Square. In Picadilly. "Premature. Premature. Give us a little more time." Time for what? More lies? Premature? Premature for who? I say to all these words are not premature. These words may be too late. Minutes to go. Minutes to foe goal - "Top Secret - Classified - For The Board - The Elite - The Initiates - Are these the words of the all-powerful boards and syndicates of the earth? These are the words of liars cowards collaborators traitors. Liars who want time for more lies, Cowards who can not face your "dogs" your "gooks" your "errand boys" your "human animals" with the truth, Collaborators with Insect People with Vegetable People. With any people anywhere who offer you a body forever. To shit forever. For this you have sold out your sons. Sold the ground from unborn feet forever. Traitors to all souls everywhere. You want the name of Hassan i Sabbah on your filth deeds to sell out the unborn? What scared you all into time? Into body? Into shit? I will tell you; "the word." Alien Word "the." "The" word of Alien Enemy imprisons "thee" in Time, In Body. In Shit. Prisoner, come out. The great skies are open, I Hassan i Sabbah rub out the word forever. If you I cancel all your words forever. And the words of Hassan i Sabbah as also cancel. Cross all your skies see the silent writing of Brion Gysin Hassan i Sabbah: drew September 17, 1899 over New York. PRISONERS, COME OUT "Don't listen to Hassan i Sabbah," they will tell you. "He wants to take your body and all pleasures of the body away from you. Listen to us. We are serving The Garden of Delights Immortality Cosmic Consciousness The Best Ever In Drug Kicks. And love love love in slop buckets. How does that sound to you boys? Better than Hassan i Sabbah and his cold windy bodiless rock? Right?" At the immediate risk of finding myself the most unpopular character of all fiction - and history is fiction I must say this: "Bring together state of news - Inquire onward from state to doer -" Who monopolized Immortality? Who monopolized Cosmic Consciousness? Who monopolized Love Sex and Dream? Who monopolized Life Time and Fortune? Who took from you what is yours? Now they will give it all back? Did they ever give anything away for nothing? Did they ever give any more than they had to give? Did they not always take back what they gave when possible and it always was? Listen: Their Garden Of Delights is a terminal sewer - I have been at some pains to map this area of terminal sewage in the so called pornographic sections of Naked Lunch and Soft Machine - Their Immortality Cosmic Consciousness and Love is second-run grade-B shit - Their drugs are poison designed to beam in Orgasm Death and Nova Ovens - Stay out of the Garden Of Delights - It is a man-eating trap that ends in green goo - Throw back their ersatz Immortality - It will fall apart before you can get out of The Big Store - Flush their drug kicks down the drain They are poisoning and monopolizing the hallucinogen drugs - learn to make it without any chemical corn - All that they offer is a screen to cover retreat from the colony they have so disgracefully mismanaged. To cover travel arrangements so they will never have to pay the constituents they have betrayed and sold out. Once these arrangements are complete they will blow the place up behind them. And what does my program of total austerity and total resistance offer you I offer you nothing. I am not a politician. These are conditions of total emergency. And these are my instructions for total emergency if carried out now could avert the total disaster now on tracks: Peoples of the earth, you have all been poisoned. Convert all available stocks of morphine to apomorphine. Chemists, work round the clock on variation and synthesis of the apomorphine formulae. Apomorphine is the only agent that can disintoxicate you and cut the enemy beam off your line. Apomorphine and silence. I order total resistance directed against this conspiracy to pay off. peoples of the earth in ersatz bullshit. I order total resistance directed against The Nova Conspiracy and all those engaged in it. The purpose of my writing is to expose and arrest Nova Criminals: In Naked Lunch, Soft Machine and Nova Express I show who they are and what they are doing and what they will do if they are not arrested. Minutes to go. Souls rotten from their orgasm drugs, flesh shuddering from their nova ovens, prisoners of the earth to come out, With your help we can occupy The Reality Studio and retake their universe of Fear Death and Monopoly (Signed) INSPECTOR J. LEE, NOVA POLICe
Photos of the plaque unveiling at William S. Burroughs' Naked Lunch 50th Anniversay
1 July in Paris see

http://brianjonesjoujoukafestival.blogspot.com/2009/07/burroughs-naked-lunch-50th-in-paris.html

Master Musicians of Joujouka links
Official website
Master Musicians of Joujouka on Myspace
Ethical Shopping to buy Buy CDs and books Click Here

Brion Gysin on The Magic of Joujouka/Jajouka and Boujeloud from Gnaoua Magazine 1964

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The below article on Joujouka first appeared in the Ira Cohen edited Gnaoua magazine published in Tangier in 1964.  Ira also edited the Hashish Cookbook.

The magazine featured among others Brion Gysin, William Burroughs and Paul Bowles. Gysin's article was later incorporated by Brian Jones into the booklet that accompanied the 1971 release of the album he recorded and produced by the Master Musicians of Joujouka: "Brian Jones presents the Pipes of Pan at Joujouka", Rolling Stones Records, October 1971.

A controversial 1995 reissue CD featured a version of Brion Gysin's text from which Cherie Nutting edited out the second paragraph which references Gysin's discovering Joujouka/Jajouka through Mohamed Hamri. Brion died in 1986.

Hamri was the torch carrier for the true Sufi music of Joujouka/Jajouka . The type of manipulation of historical and current fact such as the posthumous editing of Brion Gysin's text is typical of Nutting's commercial drive on behalf of her then husband Bachir Attar. Nutting and Bachir's dishonest self proclamation that he is a "hereditary" leader of the Master Musicians forms the cornerstone of the pr to promote his saccharine World Music group "Master Musicians of Jajouka led by Bachir Attar" A.K.A. " Master Musicians of Jajouka featuring Bachir Attar". which Nutting still manages.


Sadly avarice has led them to campaign against the village and musicians of Joujouka/Jajouka and it continues to this day, depriving the masters and the village of their royalties from old releases and interfering with their ability to tour their Sufi trance music. The Master Musicians of Joujouka and their representatives have over the past two years sought a mediated solution to this problem as the path of the Sufi is a path of peace. These attempts at a peaceful and honest resolution have been rebuffed. However, the Master Musicians of Joujouka will continue to perform their pure Sufi trance music. Peace is the path of the righteous. (If you would like to help the Masters email joujouka@gmail.com)

Gysin's words are below restored to the full original text. You can download a pdf of the original Brian Jones sleeve and booklet from www.­greylodge.­org/­occultreview/­glor_015/­media/­Joujouka/­joujouka_booklet­.­pdf

The painting of Brian Jones and the Master Musicians on the original LP is by Hamri who introduced Gysin and Burroughs to the Sufi trance masters and also brought Brian Jones to Joujouka on three occasions in 1967 and 1968.
See the 1992 Cherie Nutting photo of her husband which replaced the art by Hamri which Brian Jones commissioned for his LP.
Here




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Brion Gysin painting of Boujeloud, 1958

MAGIC calls itself The Other Method for controlling matter and knowing space. In Morocco, magic is practised more assiduously than hygiene though, indeed, ecstatic dancing to music of the brotherhoods may be called a form of psychic hygiene. You know your own music when you hear it one day.You fall into line and dance until you pay the piper.

My own music turned out to be the wild flutes of the hill tribe, Ahl Serif whom I met through the Moroccan painter, Hamri. He turned me on to the Moorish fleshpots, the Magic and the misery of the Moors. The secret of his mother's tribe, guarded even from themselves, was that they were still performing the Rites of Pan under their ragged cloak of Islam.

Westermark, in his book on pagan survivals in Morocco forty years ago, recognized their patron: Bou Jeloud, the Father of Skins, to be Pan the little goat god with his pipes. An account of their dances led him to conclude they must be celebrating the Roman Lupercalia which once occurred in the first two weeks of February, but attached itself to the principal Moslem feast when the Arab invaders turned the calendar back to the lunar year. Westermark never saw the dances and believed they no longer took place. Pan may soon stop dancing in the Moroccan hills but I first saw him there in 1950. Later I ran several times in the panic of the Lupercalia. It is the "holy chase" of which Julius Caesar speaks in Act 1, Scene 2 of Shakespeare's play: "Forget not, in your haste, Antonius, to touch Calpurnia; for our elders say the barren, touched in this holy chase, shake off their sterile curse." Marc Antony should be wearing a fresh, foul-smelling goatskin. "I saw Marc Antony offer him a crown; yet 'twas not a crown neither, 'twas one of those coronets. .."

Bou Jeloud wears a yokel's big, floppy straw hat, bound round his face with a fillet of ivy. ". . . it was mere foolery; I did not mark it." Elizabethan "Morris" dances were Moorish .

Pan, Bou Jeloud, the Father of Skins, dances through eight moonlit nights in his hill village, Joujouka, to the wailing of his hundred Master Musicians. Down in the towns, far away by the seaside, you can hear the wild whimper of his oboe-like raïtas; a faint breath of panic borne on the wind. Below the rough palisade of giant blue cactus surrounding the village on its hilltop, the music flows in streams to nourish and fructify the terraced fields below.

Inside the village the thatched houses crouch low in their gardens to hide the deep cactus-lined lanes. You come through their maze to the broad village green where the pipers are piping; fifty raïtas banked against a crumbling wall below sheet lightning to shatter the air. Fifty wild flutes blow up a storm in front of them, while a platoon of small boys in long belted white robes and brown wool turbans drums like young thunder. All the villagers, dressed in best white, swirl in great circles and coils around one wildman in skins.

Bou Jeloud leaps high in the air on the music, races after the women again and again, lashing at them fiercely with his flails. "Forget not in your speed, Antonius, to touch Calpurnia . . ." He is wild. He is mad. Sowing panic. Lashing at anyone; striking real terror into the crowd. Women scatter like white marabout birds all aflutter and settle on a little hillock for safety, all huddled in one quivering lump. They throw back their heads to the moon and scream with throats open to the gullet, lolling their tongues around their empty heads like the clapper in a bell.

Every mouth is wide open, frozen into an O. Head back and hot narrow eyes brimming with dangerous baby. Bou Jeloud is after you. Running. Over-run, Laughter and someone is crying. Wild dogs at your heels. Swirling around in one ring-a-rosy, around and around and around. Go! Forever! Stop! Never! More and No More and No! More! Pipes crack in your head. Ears popped away at barrier sound and you deaf. Or dead! Swirling around in cold moonlight, surrounded by wild men or ghosts. Bou Jeloud is on you, butting you, beating you, taking you, leaving you. Gone! The great wind drops out of your head and you hear the heavenly music again. You feel sorry and loving and tender to that poor animal whimpering, grizzling, laughing and sobbing there beside you like somebody out of ether .Who is that? That is you.

Who is Bou Jeloud? Who is he? The shivering boy who was chosen to be stripped naked in a cave and sewn into the bloody warm skins and masked with an old straw hat tied over his face, HE is Bou Jeloud when he dances and runs. Not Ali, not Mohamed, then he is Bou Jeloud. He will be somewhat taboo in his village the rest of his life. When he dances alone, his musicians blow a sound like the earth sloughing its skin. He is the Father of Fear. He is, too, the Father of Flocks. The good shepherd works for him. When the goats, gently grazing, brusquely frisk and skitter away, he is counting his flock. When you shiver like someone just walked on your grave—that's him: that's Pan, the Father of Skins. Have you jumped out of your skin lately? I've got you under my skin.

Up there, in Joujouka. you sleep all day—if the flies let you. Breakfast is goat-cheese and honey on gold bread from the outdoor oven. Musicians loll about sipping mint tea, their kif pipes and flutes. They never work in their lives so they lie about easy. The last priests of Pan cop a tithe on the crops in the lush valley below. Blue kif smoke drops in veils from Joujouka at nightfall. The music picks up like a current turned on. The children are singing, "Ha, Bou Jeloud! Bou Jeloud the butcher met Aisha Homolka, Ha, Bou Jeloud!"

On the third night he meets Aisha Homolka who drifts around after dark, cool and casual, near springs and running water. She unveils her beautiful blue-glittering face and breasts and coos. And he who stammers out an answer is lost. He is lost unless he touches the blade of his knife or, better still, plucks it out and plunges it into the grcund between her goatish legs and forked hooves. Then Aisha Homolka, Aisha Kandisha, alias Asherat, Astarte, Diana in the Leaves Greene, Blest Virgin Miriam bar Levy, the White Goddess, in short, will be his. She must be a heavy Stone Age matriarch whose power he cuts off with his Iron Age knife-magic.

The music grooves into hysteria, fear and fornication. A ball of laughter and tears in the throat gristle. Tickle of panic between the legs. Gripe of slap-stick cuts loose in the bowels. The Three Hadji. Man with Monkey. More characters coming on stage. The Hadji joggle around under their crowns like Three Wise Kings. Monkey Man comes on hugely pregnant with a live boy in his baggy pants. Monkey Man goes into birth pangs and the Hadji deliver him of a naked boy with an umbilical halter around his neck. Man leads Monkey around, beating him and screwing him for hours to the music. Monkey jumps on Man's back and screws him to the music for hours. Pipers pipe higher into the air and panic screams off like the wind intothe woods of silverolive and black oak, on into the Rif mountains swimming up under the moonlight.
BRION GYSIN. Copyright 1964 Brion Gysin.

Special thanks to Ira Cohen http://www.magic.be/Akashic/Ira.html

Master Musicians of Joujouka links
Official website
Master Musicians of Joujouka on Myspace
Ethical Shopping to buy Buy CDs and books Click Here


Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Master Musicians of Joujouka 2006 Boujeloud CD review

Review of Master Musicians 2006 CD, Boujeloud from Dusted magazine

Dusted Reviews


Artist: The Master Musicians of Joujouka

Album: Boujeloud

Label: Sub Rosa

Review date: Jan. 25, 2007


It’s an oddity of information-sharing that within the indie music community, the Master Musicians of Joujouka are one of the best-known names in world music. It’s partially due to the fact that their music has been released not on "world music" labels but on respected indie labels such as Sub Rosa (perhaps better-known for modern works by Scelsi and Feldman, or electronica by Tone Rec and Scanner). But perhaps more than that, it goes back to how the Master Musicians originally came to the notice of western music listeners.

In 1950, artist, author and bon vivant Brion Gysin operated a restaurant in Tangier, Morocco. He happened to hear the music of Joujouka, and was immediately obsessed by it. Local artist Mohamed Hamri took him to the village of Joujouka, where Gysin observed a tribal celebration known as the festival of Boujeloud, which Gysin believed to be derived from the ancient Rites of Pan. Gysin thereafter had the Master Musicians perform at his restaurant, and seemingly introduced them to every visitor to Tangier, including most notably William Burroughs and the Rolling Stones. Brian Jones was so taken by the music that he produced an album, Brian Jones Presents The Pipes Of Pan At Jajouka (1971).

After years of silence, beginning in the 1990s (following the film of the Paul Bowles book The Sheltering Sky), a number of albums have been released, primarily by two different ensembles: one led by Bachir Attar and his father, the other led by Ahmed Attar. The latter released two albums on Sub Rosa in 1995 and 1996, and now 10 years later the third volume, Boujeloud, sees the light of day despite having been recorded by producer Frank Rynne between 1994 and 1996.

As the title indicates, the recordings here are music for the festival of Boujeloud. As such, there are several versions of the title song, varying by instrumentation and participants from sparse flute (lira) to rhaita ensembles. While there are several versions of Boujeloud here, they differ enough to be considered different songs – although the album might work better as one long dive into the sound of the village of Joujouka.

Often, the term "world music" is used to tag dumbed-down, spiritless versions of indigenous musics, carefully filtered to provide harmless, easy-listening background music. The Master Musicians are certainly not that: this is challenging stuff, trance-inducing yet filled with energy and adrenaline. This is music befitting a festival wherein the Father of Skins descends from the mountain to claim his bride, a celebration of fecundity, a harvest festival of endless dancing. It is not for background listening, and in fact is a music for which there is no easy place in western culture. It almost feels wrong not to dance while listening to Boujeloud, and, given the rarity of free-form celebration here in the west, it’s tempting to use this music as an excuse for a good urban frenzy.

By Mason Jones

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View all articles by Mason Jones

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You can buy copies from the Master Musicians of Joujouka
website http://joujouka.net/4Store/

All proceeds go directly to the musicians.

There are 2 tracks on the Master Musicians Joujouka official MySpace
Jewash Halal / Tweka Miserisa 03.51
Mali Mal Hal M'Halmaz Everyone is Together 05.48


Master Musicians of Joujouka links
Official website
Master Musicians of Joujouka on Myspace
Ethical Shopping to buy Buy CDs and books Click Here

Monday, July 6, 2009

Michael Pollock's reflections on the Joujouka Festival June 5-7 2009

Michael Pollock the American Icelandic bluesman/Hillbilly Viking and general beatnik world traveller attended both the 2008 Brian Jones 40th Anniversary in Joujouka and this year's festival from 5-7 June.
Michael was a great spirit at both festivals. Last year he stayed with Master Musician Abdelsalm Ertoubi.
this year he was the guest of Mohamed Attar another of Joujouka's Master rhiata players.
Michael is a friend of and collaborator with Honey Boy Edwards
Edwards was a friend to the legendary Robert Johnson. Folklorist Alan Lomax recorded Edwards in Clarksdale, Mississippi in 1942 for the Library of Congress.[1]
Read Michael's account of his visit to Joujouka below:




Master Musicians of Joujouka, Ahl Srif mountains, Northern Morocco - Photo by Frank Rynne.

Michael Dean Odin Pollock
Reflects of Joujouka 2009

Reel back...eary April of this year i am invited to do a guest appearance onstage with Honeyboy Edwards , visit his home and hang out in Chicago´s blues mecca two days and nights.

- David "HoneyBoy" Edwards, Michael Dean Pollock and Michael Frank of Earwig Music -  Click Here to Learn More About David "Honeyboy" Edwards!

Reel forward...early June sitting in Boujeloud/Pans cave overlooking the beautyfull lush fertile grounds of Joujouka in the hills of Morocco i feel like i have died and gone to paradise feeling humbled and blessed with a powerful sense of inner peace and strength.

Mohamed Hamri's painting for the cover of "Brian Jones presents the Pipes of Pan at Joujouka"

I first encountered the healing music of The Master Musicians of Joujouka via recordings Brian Jones founding member of The Rolling Stones had made during a visit to the village in 1968...immediately enchanted by the otherworldy exotic sounds pouring out of the speakers i am compelled to search further encountering several collaborations between Ornette Coleman and the Master Musicians released on vinyl 1973.


I had also hearing soundbytes of The Master Musicians incorperated into taped audio cutup experiments by Brion Gysin and William S. Burroughs quickly realizing that the only way i was going to experience this music full throttle was to some day visit Joujouka and experience it live so when i received a call from Frank Rynne early last year telling me the musicians would be celebrating the 40th anniversary of Brians visit to the village i immediately recognized NOW is the time!

Michael Dean Odin Pollock at Hotel El Muneria, William S. Burroughs old Moroccan residence in Tangiers. - Click Here To Read his Joujouka Reflect. - Photo by Daragh McCarthy.

Michael Pollock tangier 2008 pic Darragh McCarthy

I have traveled to many places in my life´s journey but little did i imagine how stunning and powerful Morocco is...rife with magic unfolding right under under yr nose at all times. Something changed inside of me forever for the better. It's hard to find words to describe the power of the music. I have listened to a lot of traditional and contemporary Morrocan music but no way was i remotely prepared for the music i was about to hear in Joujouka...these cats are genuine bad ass´ playing with an intensity way beyond the norm breaking all barriers as Jimi Hendrix and John Coltrane for example did in their own time in the western world and beyond.

Michael and Marlon Pollock in Joujouka 2009.

Michael and Marlon Pollock

My son, Marlon Pollock and i arrived in Tangiers early June of this year staying at Hotel El Muniria , Tangier's Beat Hotel where Burroughs lived for months creating his ground breaking novel " Naked Lunch " When we arrived in Joujouka we were delighted to find ourselves welcomed into the home of master musician Muhamed El Attar and his family who showered us with love and hospitality for three days and nights.

Michael Dean Odin Pollock with Muhamed El Attar in the village of Joujouka 2009.

Michael Pollock and Mohamed Attar master rhiata player MMOJ


It was a different scene from my visit the previous year. Having Marlon with me i came into full contact with the youth of Joujouka who were almost invisible last year the town square filled with flood lights , filming and recording gear that most of the villagers tend to shy away from.

Marlon Pollock with the children of Joujouka. - Click Here To Learn More About Marlon Pollock.

Marlon Pollock and the Joujouka boys in the hood

Though it was necessary to document last years event for release on dvd & cd ( soon coming ) this time around all filming and recording was banned which made for less distractions and the peoples of Joujouka joyfully filled the town square on a full moon saturday night to dance and celebrate. Not only did i experience some of the greatest music i have ever heard but i also experienced some brilliant dancing as well an integral part of the ancient timeless festivities as Aisha cast her spell and Boujeloud / Pan whipped the dancers into a frenzy urging the musicians to further heights of ecstacy i felt in that moment i was at the greatest universal jazz concert in the universe as the band pulled out riff after riff riding a tidal wave of variating beats for hours...

Boujeloud copyright Jill Furmanovsky/Rock archives

i have never witnessed such power , passion and stamina in any group of musicians before...i surrendered to the music as the flames from the bonfire leapt into the sky...as dawn was approaching Marlon and i walked or rather floated back to our sleeping quarters bathed in a luminous light as a star raced across the sky disappearing behind the hills on the horizon i made a silent vow to return to Joujouka at every opportunity up to my last breath...

inshallah

Michael Dean Odin Pollock - 2009




also of note .

To Learn More about this wonderous celebration of Music, Spirit and the Master Musicians of Joujouka Click Here and visit www.joujouka.net .

Also be sure to visit the Master Musicians of Joujouka MySpace Page for more Info, Photos, Videos and Mp3's!

The October 08' issue of Mojo Magazine carried Mark Paytress' feature article on the Brian Jones 40th Anniversary Festival in Joujouka, "You Should be Trancin" Click Here To Read!

Frank Rynne article in The Irish Times, Click Here to Read, A Rolling Stone's Moroccan Odyssey .


From http://www.insomniacathon.org/MMJ09MP.html



Master Musicians of Joujouka links
Official website
Master Musicians of Joujouka on Myspace
Ethical Shopping to buy Buy CDs and books Click Here

Saturday, July 4, 2009

Mallim Ali Abdeslam Attar and The Master Musicians of Joujouka

click on image to view full photograph
The Master Musicians of Joujouka at the Brian Jones 40th Anniversary in Joujouka 29 July 2008. Mallim Ali Abdeslam Attar on far left in white. At 100 he is the oldest Master Musician of Joujouka still surviving who recording with both Brian Jones in 1968 and Ornette Coleman in 1973.

Friday, July 3, 2009

Brian Jones 40th Anniversary special radio Broadcast


Brian Jones (28 February 1942 – 3 July 1969)
R.I.P.
To commemorate the 40th Anniversary of the untimely death of Brian Jones there is a special radio broadcast featuring Donovan and Julian Jones plus the homage to Brian written by Mohamed Hamri "Brian Jones Joujouka very Stoned".
The Master Musicians of Joujouka's thoughts are with Brian and his family on this day.

If you missed it try http://www.rocksoff.org/h9-brianjones-40th.mp3

ROCKS OFF - The Rolling Stones Message Board

This is to invite you to listen on-line--- LIVE our web-radio special dedicated to commemorate Brian Jones life and his contribution to the music of the sixties, of course making emphasis in his work with the Stones, Jimi Hendrix, The Beatles, his soundtrack, his gingle, his World-music experimentation, etc, etc

Again, you can call us and contribute to this programme, we are trying to get a two-hour special this time. We’re gonna have simultaneous translation to English and to Spanish

Now the good news, we’re going to have some very special guests, Donovan, yes the legendary Donovan already confirmed and Julian was invited and we’re waiting his confirmation.

In addition to the best of Brian we’re gonna put some songs dedicated to Brian like “Local Boy Chops Wood” by Donovan and one or two songs by Julian.

The appointment is on Friday, 3rd July 2009, we’re gonna be on the local air and on the world wide cyber air!

Live Signal: http://ibero909.fm/index.php/envivo
Windows Media Player: http://ibero909.fm/index.php/envivowmp
Real Player: http://ibero909.fm/index.php/envivorealplayer
Phone: +52-(55)-5292-5909
Instant Messenger: obladioblada909@hotmail.com

•Stones Song

•Stones Song

•Degree of Murder (audio extracted from DVD) with Jimmy Page and Nicky Hopkins

•Stones Song

•Rice Crispis Jingle

•Thank you for being there my love a poem by Brian Jones performed by Julian Jones

•"You know my name, look up my number" w/The Beatles

•My Little One w/Jimi Hendrix, Dave Mason and Mitch Mitchell

•Heavy Inside (Julian) a song inspired by and dedicated to Brian

•Local Boy Chops Wood a song composed and performed by Donovan, dedicated to Brian

• Brahim Jones Joujouka Very Stoned (A song dedicated by the MMOJ to Brian)


Donovan and Linda will be on the air, after "Local Boy Chops Wood"


Time Schedule

Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Master Musicians of Joujouka Festival 5-7 June, 2009 Slideshow 1


images Frank rynne

The Master Musicians of Joujouka Festival 2009, 5-7 June, proved to be an exploration of the music and the culture of Joujouka/ Jajouka/ Zahjouka for the guests who attended.
This slide-show captures some of the action, Mallim Ali Abdelsam El Attar, the oldest musician in the village leading the musicians in song was one of the highlights of the festival for those privileged to have seen the 100 year old Master take the lead of the ancient group.

The Master Musicians of Joujouka welcomed their guests in their homes and the village celebrated with ritual and trance.

Burrough's Naked Lunch 50th Anniversary in Paris First photos of Plaque unveiling at Beat Hotel 1 July 2009 .

Jean Jacques Lebel and Miles photo Frank Rynne

Eddie Woods read from Harold Norse's 9 Rue Git le Couer

Frank Rynne producer and manager of Master Musicians of Joujouka
photo Lars Movin



Lars Movin co director William Burroughs On the Road centre,
Eddie Wood's back and Philip Woods with shades photo Frank Rynne



Terry Wilson interviewed by Prof. Oliver Harris on Gysin and Burroughs
at the 50th Anniversary of the publication of Naked Lunch Symposium, 1 July, 2009.

Beat Hotel


Jean Jacques Lebel unveiling the plaque photo Frank Rynne


Burrough's Naked Lunch 50th Anniversary of publication in Paris.
Photos of Plaque unveiling at Beat Hotel Jean-Jacques Lebel and the proprietress of the Vieux Paris . all
photos by Frank Rynne except as stated.


Today marked the opening of the Paris leg of the 50th Anniversary of Naked Lunch in Paris. Events can be found HERE

Many friends of Brion Gysin, William Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg and the oeuvre de Burroughs met today at the Beat Hotel for the unveiling of a plaque commemorating the Beat Hotel. It was in the Beat Hotel that Brion Gysin, infused with eight years of Moroccan life, began to influence William Burroughs to adopt the Cut-Up Method of writing.

Gysin and Ian Somerville, to a backdrop of Gysin's own recordings of the Master Musicians of Joujouka, developed the Dreamachine at the Beat Hotel. Burroughs experimented with all kinds of Cut-Ups including tape cut ups with Ian Sommerville and Brion Gysin which, were the precursor of modern day sampling. Antony Balch took the Cut-Up to kineculture with his movies with Burroughs like Towers Open Fire and The Cut Ups.



Burroughs devised magical spells and the results of his experiments are well documented in Terry Wilson's Here to Go Planet R101 Revisited book with Brion Gysin.

Terry was guest speaker today at the symposium. He spoke of the dark world and the tragic individuals who were drawn like moths to the flame of the Burroughs/Gysin nexus. Wilson is the last true practitioner of the the black arts of fiction writing that Burroughs and Gysin delved into. His novels are a testimony to an enduring spirit of documentation and exorcism that is also evident in the novels of William Burroughs.





excerpt from Towers Open Fire by dir. Antony Balch