Jil Jilala - Daouiwah (1984)

Here is an absolutely gorgeous album by Jil Jilala. As I understand it, this album dates from 1984 and is the last of the group's albums made with the participation of Moulay Abdelaziz Tahiri, the guinbri player and singer who joined the group in the mid-1970s after leaving Nass el Ghiwane. 

As a guinbri player, Tahiri differs from both Paco Abderrahmane (who he replaced in Jil Jilala and who replaced him in Nass el Ghiwane) and from Mustapha Baqbou (who replaced him in Jil Jilala) in that he did not emerge from the Gnawa ritual tradition. Having grown up in Marrakech, however, he was familiar with the sound and melodies of the guinbri. In a 2006 interview, he addresses his relationship to the instrument and to Gnawa music:

Q: Why did you choose this magical Moroccan instrument, the sintir? 

A: The sintir existed long before Nass El Ghiwane and Jil Jilala. I saw it in Jamaâ El Fna square. Admittedly, I've been presented as the first Moroccan artist to have used this instrument. In fact, it belonged to a great master of the sintir: the late Layachi Bakbou, who participated with us in the play "El Harraz," performed by the El Wafa troupe. I was happy to learn alongside him, especially since I could create and play pieces outside of the Gnawa tradition. 

Indeed, I have always felt Tahiri's playing did not sound rooted in the Gnawa tradition. This is not a criticism - his guinbri melodies are inventive and unbound to traditional role of the instrument, which makes sense in the then-uncharted musical field of Ghiwani song.

I am particularly struck by the album's title track "Daouiwah". The opening guinbri solo passage showcases Tahiri's approach to the instrument - he strums it here like an oud, using pull-offs and tremolos, exposing the melody of the song before the rhythm enters. At that point, there is a glorious, shimmering 3-lute approach - guinbri, gnibri, and buzuq - exposing the lovely, angular melody. Add the soaring group vocals and the drums, and you have something special! 

I've shared this video of Jil Jilala lip-syncing "Daouiwah" before, but I'll share it again here 'cos I love everything about it so much:

Enjoy the whole album here. And condolences to supporters of the Moroccan national football team on the AFCON loss this weekend. 💔

Jil Jilala جيل جيلالة
Daouiwah دَاوِيوَهْ
Disques GAM cassette G.B.25 اسطوانات ڭام
1984

A1 Daouiwah دَاوِيوَهْ
A2 Anti Zian Halak أَنْتِ زْيَانْ حَالَكْ
B1 Assabtya السَبْتِيه
B2 Dak Bya Amrak ضَاق بِيَ أمْرَكْ
B3 [bonus guinbri]

FLAC | 320 

Reference cited:

[1] Omar EL ANOUARI. "Moulay Abdelaziz Tahiri : Pourquoi la chanson marocaine n'est pas exportable ?". La Gazette du Maroc, 2006-07-31.

Orchestre Houcine (Eddoug) - Nouveaute 90 (File Under Massnawa, Part Two)

Ooh here's a good one, unearthed at a friend's house in El Sobrante. It's a vintage 1990 chaâbi album credited to Orchestra Houcine. The artist is one Houssine Eddoug, who rose to fame as a member of the group Massnawa out of Casablanca. 

We've written a little bit about Massnawa here. The key members of that group are the brothers Rachid and Hamid Batma, with lyrical help from their brother Mohammed Batma of the group Lemchaheb. (All of them are brothers of the legend Larbi Batma of Nass el Ghiwane.) The name Massnawa refers to the tribal group from which the Batma family originates, and it resonates with the rural (ârobi) musical inspiration for the group's early works. For more info on the origins of the Massnawa group, see this documentary (in Arabic) about the group that aired on the Moroccan channel 2M:

The documentary highlights the contributions of the Batma brothers. However, another key component of Massnawa's sound was the vocals and buzuq playing of Houssine Eddoug. Here is a clip of him performing (well, lip-syncing) with Massnawa: 

  

<--- You can also find this fine Massnawa album featuring Houssine over at Bodega Pop. Houssine is pictured at top left.

I haven't found much information about Houssine's history or career trajectory. I gather that he was one of the original members of Massnawa when they formed in 1980, that he continued with the group for quite a few years but at some point he moved to Italy. I see some solo recordings of his on the Ajial Ghiwania2 YouTube channel that refer to him as Houcine al Messnawi الحسين المسناوي and on the Hafed Vision channel as Messnawa Houssine. 

The album we're sharing today hits all my chaâbi sweet spots:

• That raucous drum kit high up in the mix
• Orchestre driven by a plucked string instrument - the buzuq sounds fantastic here
• Aita-based forms, melodies, and singing styles.
• We'll forgive the keyboard-bass here. It's light, unobtrusive, and in-the-pocket
• Keyboard accompaniment is inventive in terms of timbre and texture, never overpowering or overbearing.

So yeah, grab this thing below or stream it on YouTube here 👇🏼 It's a chaâbi good time!

Serendipitously Similar Posts note: This tape rhymes with the tape we shared in our recent post about Zitouni Bourgogne insofar as it:

• Features a musician who:
• rose to fame with a 1980s Casablanca-based group, who 
• was less famous than other members of that group, and who
• is noted as an important and creative member of that group in YouTube comments.
• Is a 1990s solo album by that musician that 
• is more conventionally chaâbi than the music of their former group and that
• rocks 
• Was gifted to me by a dear friend 

Orchestra Houcine اركسترا الحسين
Nouveaute 90
Presente Par Sawt Ennassime 
Sawt Nassim cassette EN 574

A1 Rijal L-Ghaba
      Rah Ellil راح الليل
A2 Khoukoum Al-Bnat خوكم البنات
A3 Mina مينا
B1 Mina (continued) مينا
B2 Saken Hrizi ساكن حريزي
B3 Ana F-Hmak Htta Nmout 

 FLAC | 320

Lemchaheb - Not the Village Green Preservation Society but rather the Jefferson Airplane of Moroccan Folk Revival Groups

First off, let me say that in fact there is no good reason to think of Lemchaheb as the Jefferson Airplane of Moroccan folk revival groups. Further, as Hawgblog pointed out some time ago,

"compar[ing] artists who are relatively unknown in the West to Western artists, with the aim of helping Western readers make sense of said artists [gives] results [that] are frequently ridiculous"

On the other hand, sometimes these comparisons are so purposefully ridiculous as to be awesome! Hammer at the (too long silent) Audiotopia blog titled a number of posts in this fashion, many of which pop up on the blog's homepage as among his most popular posts. (The classic "Sadoun Jaber: Iraq's Pat Boone? - سـعـدون جـابـر." is my favorite!)

With regard to Morocco's folk revival groups, a comparison with classic rock bands has long been invoked by Western writers. "The Beatles of Morocco" most often refers to Nass el Ghiwane, though Google also reveals instances of Jil Jilala being so dubbed. "The Moroccan Rolling Stones" also refers most often to Nass el Ghiwane, though one can also find the term applied to Jil Jilala. Ridiculous? Ridiculously awesome? Or actually worthy of merit?

Although the music of these groups did not particularly sound like the Beatles or the Stones, there are a number of reasons why comparisons of folk revival bands with counterculture Euro-American groups make some actual historical sense. Philip Schuyler (1) notes the influence of Euro-American counterculture on Moroccan youth culture when these groups came into existence (early 1970s), as well as the use of group names rather than names of individual star performers. These groups' stage presentation (individual musicians at individual microphones, spread out across the front of a stage) seems modeled on that of rock bands. And even Nass el Ghiwane's combination of banjo, Gnawa guinbri, and drums hearkens to the bass-guitar-drums power trios of the Who or Led Zeppelin. Furthermore, Schuyler notes, groups like Nass el Ghiwane and Jil Jilala drew on the music of the brotherhoods (e.g., Gnawa, Jilala, Aissawa). Such brotherhoods have at times "served as the focus for protest and resistance to the government", thus becoming countercultural role models of sorts.

It's one thing to note actual historical influences from Western artists on non-Western artists, or parallels with similar musico-historical contexts. Such observations can be interesting and illuminating. It's quite a different thing to claim that the zeitgeist or oevre of one artist is equivalent to that of another artist from a Western canonical tradition.

What does it mean to say that Jil Jilala and/or Nass el Ghiwane ARE the Beatles and/or Rolling Stones of Morocco? It assumes an agreement about the salient characteristics and impacts of the Beatles and Stones. It also assumes that those characteristics are so iconic and universal as to set a standard by which Moroccan artists can be measured.

So what is it about Nass el Ghiwane/Jil Jilala that makes the comparison with the Beatles/Stones so attractive? Each are the two most popular groups of their respective traditions, working within youth-oriented popular culture. Both sets of groups broke the mold and redefined what a performing ensemble could be, influencing everything that came in their wake. Do we really need to use the Beatles and Stones as archetypes to make this observation? Does doing so, in fact, serve to belittle the value of NG or JJ, or Moroccan music? or Moroccan culture? I mean, if I told you Bob Marley was the Beatles of Reggae, I'm doing a disservice to Bob Marley and to reggae, and possibly insulting your musical knowledge at the same time, right?

The other dumb thing about using the Beatles/Stones metaphor is that it invites additional and worse metaphors for other musicians within the tradition. What of Lemchaheb, for example? When one speaks of only one band, it's Nass el Ghiwane. If one speaks of two, it's NG and Jil Jilala. If one speaks of three, it's NG, JJ and Lemchaheb (unless one includes the Soussi/Tachelhit/Berber groups). If we are to stick with our first-wave-of-British-Invasion-rock-bands metaphor, then I think we'd have to propose Lemchaheb as The Kinks of Morocco.

Wait - perhaps there is some merit in that comparison! Lemchaheb arose slightly later than Nass el Ghiwane and Jil Jilala, as the Kinks arose slightly after the Beatles and Stones.  Few would argue that the Kinks or Lemchaheb were more influential or mold-breaking than the Beatles/Stones or NG/JJ. Yet there is something singular and distinct about the Kinks and Lemchaheb that let them flourish as creative forces within a newly established genre.

The most comprehensive information in English about Lemchaheb seems to be this biography by Imad Abbadi (who appears to be the author of several very good Amazon reviews of Moroccan music in the early 2000's). The author points out that, unlike JJ and NG, Lemchaheb did not draw on folk and religious sources for their compositions. From a purely musical point of view, I'd also add that Lemchaheb drew on non-Moroccan sources more liberally than JJ and NG (use of non-Moroccan instruments like bouzouki, some use of polyphony/chords here and there, and collaboration with the German rock band Dissidenten.)

But to buy into Lemchaheb being the Kinks, one has to first buy into Nass el Ghiwane and Jil Jilala being the Beatles and/or the Rolling Stones, and really, I don't want to go there. There are so many elements of each group's story that do NOT hold up to comparison. I mean, did NG or JJ have a prancing lead singer? Did one group break up early and the other continue on for decades? Did either sing a lot of love songs? Do class differences exist and are they relevant? Is one group clearly more blues/roots-oriented and the other more pop-oriented? Is NG's Boudjemâa the Brian Jones of Moroccan folk revival bands, or the John Lennon? And on the flip side, did the Beatles or Stones come together in a theatre troupe? Did they ever swap bass players? Did either have a female member?

So, rather than assert and stand by the Kinks analogy (to which there is some merit but which rests on an uncomfortable set of assumptions about the importance and universality of the first wave of British Invasion rock bands), I will instead propose that Lemchaheb are the Jefferson Airplane of Moroccan folk revival groups, for the following spurious and superficial reasons:

• This 1980 Lemchaheb album steals the design and background photo from the Airplane's 1968 album "Crown of Creation"

• The 1980 all-male Lemchaheb bears some resemblance (at least in terms of hair) to the 1980 all-male Jefferson Starship

• Each group included a female singer in a past and future incarnation

• Each group made excellent use of group vocals (dig the very end of Talit El Haramain for some contrapuntal vocal lines)

• There are some (perhaps unintentional) psychedelic elements to the Lemchaheb album:
• The track "El Jounoud" (The Soldiers) opens with gunshot and bomb sound effects. (Crown of Creation came out during the Vietnam War, though it wouldn't be until the next studio album "Volunteers" that the Airplane would get explicitly political. I don't know what the context of "El Jounoud". "Talit El Haramain", though, is about Palestine.)
• OMG, there is an Indian sitar section at the end of "El Jounoud"! I don't think the Airplane ever actually used a sitar, but the aroma of sitars sort of permeates the whole psychedelic era...
•  There is some tripped out decay on the bouzouk - dig the opening to "Ya Latif"

I hope you enjoy this fine Lemchaheb album more than my convoluted musings. Thanks to Nathan Salsburg for another swell tape rip!

Lemchaheb - "Succes 80" (EH 1143)
1) El Jounoud
2) Ya Latif
3) Talit El Harmaïn
4) Aji Netsamhou

Get it here.

(1) Schulyer, Philip D., "A Folk Revival in Morocco", in Everyday Life in the Muslim Middle East, ed. Donna Lee Bowen and Evelyn A. Early. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1993.

The Guinbri in Jil Jilala before Baqbou

Early 1980's Jil Jilala personnel. 

Clockwise from top left: Moulay Tahar Asbahani, Mohamed Derhem, Moulay Abdelaziz Tahiri, Hassan Miftah, Abdelkrim Elkasbaji

I know the guinbti is not the most important thing to focus on when considering the work of the venerable Moroccan band Jil Jilala. But we're pretty mgennwi here at Moroccan Tape Stash, addicted to the guinbri. So here are some notes on the use of the guinbri in Jil Jilala before Mustapha Baqbou joined the group.

Jil Jilala has had a guinbri player from its very inception in 1972. Founding member Hamid Zoughi relates that when the group was first coming together in Casablanca, they wanted to have a guinbri player join the group. So they drove to Marrakech looking for Mustapha Baqbou. Finding that he was in Essaouira, they then drove to Essaouira. But their friends in Essaouira told them to check out a different, local guinbri player, Abderrahmane Paco. They hit it off with Paco, and Paco hit the road with them to Casablanca.

I assume the earliest recordings of the group feature Paco - he's pictured on the sleeve for the single of "Lklam Lmrassa3" above - but I don't hear any guinbri on the recording. I've heard a couple times the story that Paco left Jil Jilala in the middle of a recording session, after getting into an argument about the rhythm of the song they were recording.

Of course, Paco's story continues when he joins Nass el Ghiwane. I don't know why Moulay Abdelaziz Tahiri, the left-haded guinbri player who was in the initial lineup of Nass el Ghiwane, decided to leave that group for Jil Jilala, but it seemed to work out well for all. Here's a very early Nass el Ghiwane concert featuring Tahiri:



One huge difference between Nass el Ghiwane and Jil Jilala is the instrumentation and texture they used. Nass el Ghiwane tended to use the same instrumentation on most songs: bendir, tam-tam, snitra (banjo) and guinbri (plus the gwal, while Boujmiî was still with the group). Jil Jilala, on the other hand, used many different combinations of stringed instruments and percussion in their many recordings and performances. Not to mention the presence of a female singer, Sakina Safadi, in many of their 1970s recordings.

So when Moulay Abdelaziz Tahiri joined Jil Jilala, he was not a full-time guinbri player. In videos from his tenure in the group, he is usually featured playing ta'rija or bendir, as in the clip below - a live performance from Kuwait. Tahiri is the one in the light blue vest, singing the solo verses in this version of "Allah ya Moulana", a song made famous by Nass el Ghiwane.



The typical Jil Jilala song from this period features one stringed instrument (a banjo or bouzouki), and some combination of percussion instruments (bendir, ta'rija, tam-tam, or congas). Now and then, Tahiri plays the guinbri, but not very often on the recordings I've heard.

The last album to feature Tahiri (prior to the 1996 reunion album), according to Smagal is from 1984, entitled "Dawiweh". I haven't found the album, but I did come across an amazing video clip of the title song. The instrumentation is an unusual, shimmery combination of 3 stringed instruments - Tahiri on guinbri, Miftah on bouzouki, and Asbahani on gnibri (something I'd never seen him play before) - plus Derhem on congas and Elkasbaji on bendir. It's a lovely piece:



Tahiri's playing is great, and very different somehow from Paco's and Mustapha Baqbou's. I suppose it's because he wasn't brought up (as far as I've heard) in the Gnawa tradition. I wonder how he learned to play guinbri back in the days before it was widely heard outside of Gnawa circles - it sometimes sounds like he's translating techniques from other stringed instruments (oud, perhaps) to the guinbri.

The only tape I have from Tahiri's tenure in Jil Jilala (whose tracks aren't up on Amazon) is this album on Edition Hassania. The catalog number suggest that it dates from the early 1980s, but many of these songs are from much earlier. (I believe that Nass el Ghiwane similarly "re-recorded their old hits" for an album on Edition Hassania around this time.) The song "Al-âr A Bouya" dates from the group's earliest days (B-side of the 45 pictured above), but is re-recorded here featuring a prominent guinbri.

Jil Jilala - Rih L-Bareh (Edition Hassania EH 1274)
01 Baba Mektoubi
02 Al-âr A Bouya

03 Goulou Lkhlili
04 Rih L-Bareh
05 Errifia
06 Jilala

Get it here.