Mater Musicians of Jajouka

No matter where you're live, money's important, even in the Rif Mountains of Morocco. It's the reason the fabled, trance-y Master Musicians of Jajouka have canceled the U.S. tour that would have promoted their new eponymous release on Point Music.

"There wasn't enough money," said group leader Bachir Attar. "We needed a big tour with good venues, and we didn't find that. Maybe it's not the time for us in America now."

Over the last 50 years, the Master Musicians have had many famous friends. The Beat Generation writers who spent time in Tangier discovered them. Rolling Stone Brian Jones recorded them in the late ‘60s. Jazz giant Ornette Coleman has played with them.

And now Anglo-Asian percussionist and producer Talvin Singh, the leading light of the burgeoning Asian Underground scene, has produced them, and, Attar explained, "he was the right one for the kind of album I want to do, a bridge between Western, Arabic, and Indian music. He's a good mixer, and he's a good percussionist."

"In the next 50 years this music will be over, it'll die."

Singh traveled to the Berber village of Jajouka to record tracks with the 10-piece band, recalled Attar, "then my brother Mustapha and I went to London, and spent some time there working on other tracks."

Attar, the hereditary Master of the Masters (membership of the group passes from father to son), wrote or co-wrote all the material. The result is schizophrenic, veering from the purity of the oboe-like ghaita, and drums on "The Truth Forever" to the techno trickery of "Jamming In London," where the presence of Singh is strongly felt.

"The field recordings didn't seem to have a great deal of sonic attention, and the produced pieces were very concentrated," assessed adventurous American producer Bill Laswell, who recorded the Master Musicians in 1990 for Apocalypse Across the Sky. "Talvin had told me he and Bachir were trying things in the studio, and I thought that was an evolution of what had to happen."

It's a sound with a long history, with roots going back before the birth of Christ. For over a millennium, the Master Musicians were Morocco's court orchestra, playing for the country's kings. But in the 1930's, as the modern world encroached, they returned to their native village. In 1968 Brian Jones was introduced to their music, and recorded the seminal Brian Jones Presents the Pipes of Pan at Jajouka, released in 1971 and full of psychedelic studio effects like phasing and flanging - in some ways an earlier counterpoint to tracks like "Above The Moon" on the Singh disc.

That disc doesn't belong to the Master Musicans, however, since, Attar pointed out, it's owned by the Rolling Stones. They gave it to us for five years. We released it in 1995 (on Point) , and now our rights to it have run out. But the biggest always eats the smallest."

"He tried to recreate the effect of being stoned, but listeners at the time didn't know the sound had been processed," noted Laswell, whose own crystal-clear production of the group was made "to document the experience of being there, and what it could sound like with more clarity and if it was amplified."

For all the big names who've visited, however, life remains a struggle. A rival Jajouka group, whom Attar dismissed as "Jajouka is one band; it's never been two," has tried to horn in on the fame. There has even been physical violence, with members of the group attacked for their supposed riches. But, said Attar, "we don't make money, and you need money. It's not like earlier times. In this century you have to have money."

So while they won't be in the U.S., the Master Musicians will tour Europe, Japan, and Australia, where there's cash to be had. And after that Battar will make a solo album "with some Western musicians and my brother. That's my plan for next year."

But for the future of the group, and its music of trance and healing, Attar is pessimistic. "The families are leaving Jajouka," he said. "The younger generation see the problems we have with no money, and they don't want that.We are the last generation. In the next 50 years this music will be over, it'll die. And then people will realize what they've lost."

This article first appeared on Sonicnet.com

Mater Musicians of Jajouka

"In the next 50 years this music will be over, it'll die."

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