Centuries-old music from Morocco inspires new-world artists, audiences
Mick Jagger hailed the Master Musicians of Jajouka as "one of the most musically inspiring groups still left on the planet.”
Beat icon William S. Burroughs called the group a 4,000-year-old rock 'n' roll band. "Listen with your whole body," urged the writer, who, along with other westerners, discovered them in an ancient village in the foothills of Morocco's Rif Mountains. "Let the music penetrate you and move you, and you will connect with the oldest music on earth.”
Royce Hall audiences will be able to find out why some of the most important musical and cultural revolutionaries of our time have found these musical traditions so transformational when the Master Musicians of Jajouka perform Feb. 6 for UCLA Live.
For more than a millennium, the ancestors of these Jajouka musicians played for Morocco’s royal court. But they retreated back to their native mountain villages as the modern world encroached in the early 20
th century.
It was in these mountains that adventuring Europeans and Americans found them while searching for more meaningful experiences than those provided by “advanced” civilization. The primal quality of the music during all-night sessions often fueled by various intoxicants provided the altered consciousness they were looking for – culturally, musically and otherwise. Writers Paul Bowles, Burroughs and Brion Gysin wove colorful tales of these experiences, motivating other pilgrims to travel to the region.
Transported from their isolated village to the global stage in the late '60s, they introduced the world to their music’s power, reinforced by the blaring drone of handcrafted ghaita reeds and lira bamboo flutes, rustic vocal chants and burbling percussion.
Jazz innovator Ornette Coleman, who journeyed to the village to record a track for his landmark 1973 album "Dancing in Your Head," said, “This music is human music, music that preserves life.”
Rolling Stones guitarist Brian Jones' storied journey to the village of Jajouka brought the music out of the hills and to the attention of fans and musicologists alike via his legendary album, "The Pipes of Pan at Jajouka," released two years after his 1969 drowning death. A festival was held in the village last summer to commemorate the 40
th anniversary of Jones’ visit.
Jagger renewed the Stones association with the group by taking Keith Richards and Ron Wood to Jajouka to record for the band’s song, “Continental Drift.”
This long-running heritage of famous associations has continued under the leadership of Bachir Attar, who was just a young boy when the first of many mysterious Englishmen arrived. At that time, his father was head of the ensemble.
“The music of Jajouka changes every generation, as it absorbs various influences,” Attar said. The essence remains constant, handed down through the centuries with purity and power unmatched, and still mesmerizes audiences from stages around the world.
Tickets run from $26 to $48 and may be purchased
online, by phone at (310) 825-2101 or in person at the UCLA Central Ticket Office.
