Rescuing my old reviews for PopMatters: Hamid El Gnawi, Saha Koyo

I wrote a number of reviews for PopMatters back in the day, and most of them have now disappeared from the PopMatters website. So I've decided to use the Wayback Machine to try to recover them. Here's the first. More to come. This was published some time in 2001.

Hamid El Gnawi
Saha Koyo
(Wea/Atlantic/Detour)
US release date: 16 January 2001 by Ted Swedenburg
PopMatters Music Critic

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Of all the music genres produced in Morocco, it is Gnawa that has gained most circulation in the West. Jazz luminaries like Randy Weston, Pharoah Sanders and Don Cherry have recorded with master Gnawa musicians, as have Robert Plant and Jimmy Page, most notably on No Quarter. A stream of albums by gnawa musicians continues to be released; probably the most well known of the lot is the Bill Laswell-produced Night Spirit Masters (1990).
The appeal of the Gnawa is apparent from the first listen. The distinctive sound of the central Gnawa instrument, the three-stringed guimbri, resembles that of the acoustic bass. The music, moreover, is based on a pentatonic (five-note) scale, and hence is more readily accessible to the Western ear than other North African music, mostly based on Other-sounding Oriental modes. Finally, the most important point of attraction is that the Gnawa has the same origins as African-American music, for it is music played by the descendants of slaves from West Africa who began to settle in Morocco in the medieval period. 

It is the similar origins of the blues and Gnawa music that have inspired the collaborations between Western and Gnawa artists. When a Gnawa master plays his guimbri, it is fairly easy for blues-trained Westerners to play over him. But only seemingly so. In fact, Randy Weston and Pharoah Sanders' recordings with Gnawa do not really work all that well. Such collaborations frequently turn out to be not a dialogue but extemporaneous playing while the Gnawa do their thing. In effect, the Gnawa provide the "natural" base and the Western musicians provide the (supposedly) "creative" juice. This mode of engagement has become so popular, in fact, that it forms the basis for the annual Essaouira festival, a three-day musical extravaganza held since 1998. Every year the festival in Essaouira attracts more Western and "World" musicians, who jam on stage with the major Gnawa ensembles from around Morocco. I attended in 1999, and found the experience both invigorating and frustrating. By themselves, the Gnawa groups were simply awesome. But when the "guest" musicians jammed with them, the results were, at best, mixed. Great musicians (these included the likes of Archie Shepp, Reggie Workman, Doug Wimbush, and Susan Dayhem) frequently came in over Gnawa vocals, regularized the beat in a way violated the usual Gnawa flow, and sometimes turned the overall sound into a muddy mess. 

On occasion, Gnawa collaborations do work, usually as a result of sustained ensemble practice rather than just jamming. The work of Don Cherry, Adam Rudolph, and Richard Horowitz with Hassan Hakmoun on Gift of the Gnawa is a stellar example, and Plant & Page's collaboration with M'allim Brahim on "City No Cry" from No Quarter is surprisingly satisfying. 

But the singular contribution of Hamid El Gnawi's Saha Koyo is that it shows that the Gnawa don't need outsiders to "help" them develop and modernize their music. Saha Koyo is the result of a collaboration between Gnawa musician Hamid Faraji (a.k.a. El Gnawi), who sings and plays guimbri, and producer and jazz keyboard player Issam-Issam. The result is a kind indigenous Gnawa jazz. Unlike most of the collaborations with Western jazz or rock players, here the fit between the playing of the guimbri and the jazz keyboards is just perfect. The keyboard work is faithful to the spirit of the Gnawa, and yet turns it into something new. Issam-Issam's playing on the organ and the Rhodes piano not only meshes, but also manages to capture the mood of the Gnawa songs, which are sometimes joyful, sometimes redolent with dread. The spirits (known as muluk) the songs are meant to propitiate are capricious, neither wholly good nor evil, and they can bring blessings, or harm. 

The overall sound is rich and full, although produced by only keyboards, guimbri, and the distinctive Gnawa percussion, metal castanets known as qaraqeb. Issam-Issam's playing, especially when he's on the Rhodes piano, reminds me of 1970s Creed Taylor/CTI vintage jazz-only funkier. Hamid Faraji has chosen to sing well-known numbers from the vast Gnawa repertoire, and each one receives a fine treatment. My favorite, however, is "Merhaba", a song that welcomes and calls the spirits to the healing ceremony. (The true function of Gnawa music is to propitiate the spirits at healing rituals.) "Merhaba" demonstrates the funky side of Gnawa, moving at a fast pace, with booming guimbri basslines. The album might seem, on the first few listens, to have a certain sameness, but repeated listenings will reveal the distinct beauty of each of the songs. 

When I visited Essaouira in summer 1999, I found two cassettes from this group (known in Morocco as Saha Koyo and not Hamid El Gnawi), and I heard these cassettes played all over town-in restaurants, shops, on the street. Hamid El Gnawi not the only example of indigenous experimentation with the Gnawa form. Gnawa master Mahmoud El-Guinea (who recorded with Pharoah Sanders) has released some "experimental" Gnawa cassettes in Morocco, and there are other local examples of Gnawa jazz groups. I hope that even more examples of these indigenous experiments will become available here. It's time that the music of the Gnawa stop being treated as raw material for outsiders to play with, and be regarded as dynamic, creative and experimental in its own right.

Gnawa Spirit: The Youngbloods and Orchestre Nationale de Barbès

I just discovered, while looking for used vinyl, that a photo of a Gnawi is featured on the cover of The Youngbloods' 1971 live album, Ride the Wind (other notable songs on it besides the title track are "The Dolphin" and "Get Together," the group's only hit).

The same photo also features on the Orchestre Nationale de Barbès' 1998 concert album. A big difference between the two albums, of course, is that the ONB actually use the Gnawa instrument depicted, the ginbri, in their work.

 I've not been able to find any live footage of the ONB using a ginbri, but here's a clip of them doing one of their many great songs, "Salam."

"La Nuit de Possession" -- Gnawa

Very good documentary on a lila, or ritual of possession, of the Gnawa. This is filmed in Essaouira (where I spent part of summer 1999), and features the late, great Gnawa master, M'allim Mahmoud Guinea (1951-2015), and his wife Malika, a shuwwafa (clairvoyant), who is in charge of the ceremony. Directed by Frank Cassenti (2011).

You can find a number of great Mahmoud Guinea recordings at Moroccan Tape Stash.

Blanca Li, Gnawa, Nana et Lila, Abdenbi Binizi (allah yarhamu)

In a previous post I wrote about Spanish dancer Blanca Li's connection with Hassan Hakmoun and Safia Boutella. Here is a bit from an article about Blanca Li by Luke Jennings that appeared in The New Yorker, April 28 & May 5, 1997, entitled "The Days and Nights of Blanca Li." The Etienne in question is Etienne Li, Blanca's partner, a Franco-Korean mathematician and graffiti artist who was posted to teach in Morocco in 1986.

Screen shots of the relevant sections:

Here's a video of excerpts from "Nana et Lila." It looks and sounds quite remarkable. Damn it, I was at the 1992 Avignon festival, missed it by one year! The Gnawa who perform are Gnawa Halwa from Marrakesh, led by the terrific singer and guinbri player, the late Abdenbi Binizi, who I had the privilege of meeting in Morocco in 1999.


Nana et Lila from Blanca Li on Vimeo.

Here's a video clip of Abdenbi performing by himself:

And a photo of him with Gnawa Halwa. 

Star Trek Beyond marginalia: Safia Boutella

I've not yet seen Star Trek Beyond but I plan to. Safia Boutella, who plays the alien scavenger Jaylah, has received quite good reviews.

Safia Boutella, born in Bab El Oued, Algiers, is an Algerian dancer and actress. You can read about the high points of her career here.

She is the daughter of Algerian jazz musician Safy Boutella, who is best known to me due to the fact that he co-produced with Martin Meissonier, and and collaborated on, Cheb Khaled's great 1988 album Kutché. (He's shown on the cover reclining in a chair.) I have a longer post where I explain the context in which this album -- the first Khaled album produced in France -- is made, but briefly, the story is that members of the liberal wing of the Algerian government paid for its production and sent Khaled to France to produce it. It was not a major seller but it is the prelude to Khaled's 1992 breakthrough with "Didi" and the album Khaled.

Safia has worked with Spanish choreographer Blanca Li (born Blanca Gutierrez) since age 17 (she is now 34).

It was Bianca Li who recruited Gnawa musician Hassan Hakmoun in 1986 to appear in a collaboration called Trio Gna & Nomadas, a "fusion" project involving a Gnawa group (including Hakmoun) and a Spanish dance group (flamenco, modern) led by Bianca's partner Etienne Li, and in which she danced. You can see a video here, with a number of photos. Trio Gna & Nomadas traveled to the US in 1987, and Hakmoun stayed, in New York, where he has been ever since. He put out his terrific first album, Gift of the Gnawa in 1992. And he performed together with Adam Rudolph at the MESA meetings in San Antonio in November 1991, which is when I first became familiar with him.

So, the connections: Star Trek - Khaled - Hassan Hakmoun. There you have it.

One more: Blanca Li also collaborated with the late great Gnawa artist Abdenbi Binizi, who sang on her project "Blanco Y Pan." Check out the CD by Gnawa Halwa called Rhabaouine.

Gnawa NYC

Yep, there is now a Gnawa zawiya in the South Bronx.

The photo is courtesy Samir LanGus via Facebook. LanGus is the guy in green clanging the kerakeb in the photo above. He is part of the South Bronx-based Gnawa troupe Innove, who, amazingly, were selected in May by the MTA to be part of their Music Under New York program, meaning they would get perform in “prime subway station spots.”

 Innove Gnawa Band

And here is a vid of them playing "Merhaba" (a song that welcomes the mluk, the "spirits" that the Gnawa cult propitiates), on September 7, at the 34th St Herald Square station (on the BMT Broadway Line and the IND Sixth Avenue Line of the New York City Subway), the third busiest station in the system.

For more on how Gnawa music can now be seen commonly in New York City, please read the fantastic article in the New Yorker (September 2) by my friend and colleague Hisham Aidi, entitled "Claude McKay and the Gnawa Scene." And yes, McKay first saw the Gnawa in 1928, in Casablanca.

And Innove isn't the only Gnawa group in the city. As Aidi informs us, there is also Gnawa Boussou and Nass Gnawa.

Nass Gnawa (which includes the great Brahim Fribgane) live:

And Gnawa Boussou (also featuring Brahim Fribgane):

I went to several Gnawa lilas when I was in Morocco in summer 1999. I hope I get to go to one in NYC, sometime soon! 

More on Paco (RIP) and Nass El Ghiwane

Please read this great obituary on Paco (Abderrahmane Kirouche), the gnawi from Essaouira, and member (from 1974-1993) of one of Morocco's best and most beloved bands, Nass El Ghiwane. The obit, from The Audiotopia, is full of info about both Paco and Nass El Ghiwane. The piece confirms that Paco had an affiliation with The Living Theater. According to The Audotopia, Paco met up with them in summer 1966 while traveling in England. Maybe the group's encounter with Paco is what brought them to Essaouira, where they spent part of the summer of 1969 (July) in Essaouira. Who knows? I've read about The Living Theater's time in Essaouira in John Tytell's The Living Theatre: Art, Exile, and Outrage (New York: Grove Press, 1995). Tytell tells us that a group of Gnawa slept on the roof of the company’s group house and that they performed a purification ceremony and taught company members how to trance and stick knives into their bodies without drawing blood. Tytell does, however, specifically name Pacca. During their stay in Essaouira, the Living Theater were also visited by psychiatrist R.D. Laing, Stokely Carmichael, Anaïs Nin and Jimi Hendrix. The Audotopia claims that Paco jammed with Hendrix. I met other gnawa in Essaouira when I was there in 1999 who claimed the same thing. Caesar Glebbeek claims that this didn't happen, that Hendrix didn't even bring his guitar with him to Essaouira. Who knows, maybe someone handed him a guitar. The legend lives large in Essaouira.

Paco married a woman named Christine who was affiliated with The Living Theater, according to The Audiotopia, and the post comes with a picture of Christine. But he eventually divorced her. I'd like to track down more info on this.

Check out as well this blog devoted to the poetry of Nass El Ghiwane (in Arabic). Be sure to download the rare Nass El Ghiwane sides that The Audiotopia has posted with the obit. Finally, Tim over at Moroccan Tape Stash has recently posted some more recorded material from Paco. Allah yarhamu.

Majid Bekkas

Majid Bekkas was in Fayetteville (Arkansas) last week, as part of the Caravanserai program. He performed in a number of venues, together with his Gnawa ensemble and the multi-talented Brahim Frigbane ('ud, percussion) -- at Fayetteville and Bentonville High Schools, for several classes at the University of Arkansas, and at the Walton Arts Center. I was out of town for the WAC performance, alas, but I did see him perform at Fayetteville High, and I also got to spend a couple hours hanging out with him and Brahim at Arsaga's cafe on Dickson.

I had seen Bekkas perform with a Moroccan jazz ensemble (a kind of Gnawa-jazz fusion) at the Salé festival in Morocco in summer 1999, and since then I've acquired a number of his recordings. But seeing him perform again here as well as speaking with him made me appreciate even more how serious and multi-talented a musician he is. At the high school, besides performing his Gnawa repertoire (singing and playing guimbri), he also played the kalimba (the African thumb piano), and played it incredibly well. (And I think his vocals might have been in Zulu. Not sure.) No doubt he learned to play on one of his tours of sub-Saharan Africa. Here's a taste, from his performance in Grand Rapids, Minnesota.



He is also a very accomplished 'ud player, as demonstrated below, as he performs the song "Louhid," from his latest album (highly recommended), Makenba.



Another of my faves from Makenba is this song, "Bambrouia," which features Majid on guimbri. On the album the song has a very African feel. Here it sounds somewhat different, as he performs with a sax player and a drummer.



Majid has recorded three albums (Out of the Desert, Kalimba, and Chalaba) with the very talented and respected German jazz pianist and saxophone player Joachim Kühn, with Ramon Lopez on drums. So far I've only heard Out of the Desert, which is very, very fine and one of the best gnawa "fusion" recordings ever done. I asked Majid how he started working with Kühn. He said that Kühn saw him in concert in Europe, came up after the show, introduced himself, and suggested that they try working together.

Here's the trio playing live, performing the song "Sandiye" (recorded by Majid on his African Gnaoua Blues album).



Finally, here's a photo of Majid and his group performing at Fayetteville High School on October 17. He's in the center, on guimbri, and Brahim Fribgane, on 'ud, is at the left.

Here are his qarqaba players and dancers.

Majid at Arsaga's cafe, Fayetteville, October 16.

Abderrahmane Paco, Gnawi, member of Nass El Ghiwane: RIP

The great Paco passed away over the weekend. Trained as a gnawa m'allim in Essaouira, he was a key member of Nass El Ghiwane in its heyday, bringing the sound of the guimbri/hajhouj and Gnawa influences in general into the distinctive ghiwanian mix. Here's a short obit from Libération (Morocco). Here, thanks to Tim, is an example of Paco's work with Nass El Ghiwane.




Here, at Moroccan Tape Stash, you can find, and download for free, a couple Paco cassettes and a rare casette of Nass El Ghiwane featuring both Paco and the late Boujemâa.

Battle of Algiers Soundtrack

I've been a big fan of the film The Battle of Algiers ever since I first saw it in winter 1968-69. For the last few years I've been in the habit of screening it for my Introduction to Cultural Anthropology class in the summer, for the unit on violence. Unlike other movies I show in this class, I'm always keen to watch this one again. One of the things about the film that I've become more and more interested in is the amazing soundtrack. (Unfortunately, and despite all the continued interest in The Battle of Algiers and in the soundtrack composer, Ennio Morricone, the recording is no longer in print.)

Two things in particular intrigue me, in part because I seek more information. The first has to do with the famous "milk bar" scene, the site of one of the three terrorist bombings, carried out by women militants of the FLN who are dressed up to look French. It's the milk bar that gets to me in particular, in part because I used to go to similar milk bars in Beirut when I was a teenager, in 1964 and after. Not that long after the bombings in Algiers (which took place in 1956). And not that different a setting. (Lebanon is a former colony of France, and if Lebanon wasn't a colony in the sixties, it was certainly a neo-colony).

In the milk bar the young French colons are dancing to the song, "Hasta Mañana." I've hunted around for the version that plays on screen, and can't track it down. There are lots of versions of the song available, but I can't find the one. (You can watch the segment on youtube here--the song starts about 10 seconds in.)

[See the comments, which informed me that the song in question is "Rebecca," by The Chakachas.]


The other bit of the soundtrack that I've thought a lot about is the use of gnawa music, and in particular the thunderous sound produced by the playing of qraqeb, metal castanets, backed by the pounding of the tabl, a large frame drum hit by wooden sticks. You hear these sounds at two key moments, first, when the three women are preparing to plant their bombs in the European quarter of Algiers, as they take off their veils and cut and dye their hair and put on European clothing. Knowing that the women are preparing to plant bombs, the intensity of the percussive track serves to rachet up your tension. (Watch the segment here, about 1:20 minutes in.)


The other key moment where you hear the Gnawa qraqeb and tabl is at the end of the film, when demonstrations break out in Algiers in 1962. Right at the end, when you hear the sounds of the demonstrators yelling and in particular the sounds of women ululating, the percussion starts up and the camera focuses in particular on two Algerian women who are waving flags and confronting the police. It is significant, of course, that the film ends with shots of militant women. (In the supplementary material that comes with the 2004 Criterion DVD release, the director Pontecorvo states that this was a comment on the fact that whereas women played an important role in the Algerian war of independence, by the time he shot the film in Algiers, only 2-3 years after the end of the war, women were already being marginalized.) As the narrator comes on, states that Algeria finally won its independence, and as the credits begin to roll, the Gnawa percussion merges with a piano, playing classical-style chords. You can watch this segment on youtube--go here and start watching about 4 minutes into the clip.

According to what I learned from the supplementary material on the DVD, what is being played in both instances is a traditional Algerian song, "Baba Salem." Gnawa Diffusion recorded a song called "Baba Salem," which you can here. I don't know what relation the Gnawa Diffusion song has to what we see and hear in the film. And here is a "Baba Salem" from contemporary Algeria. Since I know very little about Gnawa in Algeria, I know nothing about the meaning of the song. (But I will try to find out.)