Abitbol - Asbar!

Dig it! Here's a delightful cassette from singer and guitarist Haim Bobtol (billed on his Tichkaphone releases as Abitbol). You can read about Botbol's history and musical career in this old post at Jewish Magrib Jukebox. As far as I can tell, Botbol is still alive and nearly 90 years old here in 2026.

The opening tracks on each side of the album are of the fun, participatory chaâbi variety where a short phase is repeated by backup singers (and the audience) in response to the singer, who reels off line after short poetic line to keep the assembly engaged until he lets the violin take over to propel the dancing. The subsequent tracks on each side lean toward the Andalusian/classical end of the chaâbi spectrum in melody and texture. 

If you've read my posts, you know I love the sound 1980s wedding-type chaâbi groups with their raucous drum kits and strummy rhythm guitars. Botbol's style of orchestral chaâbi heard here emerges from an earlier generation. Many elements are the same: repertoire drawn from various Moroccan genres, violin driving the melody, several other instruments providing melodic and rhythmic support. But the sum of the parts feels different - somehow more urbane and more earthy at the same time. 

A contemporary in this era and approach to chaâbi is Abdessadek Chekkara, whom we profiled here last year. Both he and Botbol are children of the 1930s, born into a musical families, raised learning elite traditions (Andalusian, mehlun), but also with interest in the broad swath of Moroccan musical styles. Both began recording in the vinyl era and continued into the cassette era. 

You can hear a trace of this history in Botbol's vocal stylings - the vocal mawwal passages in the track "Lataâmal Âchir", where you can hear the ornamentation styles particular to Jewish Moroccan singers of classical genres.

  

The participatory chaâbi tracks feature some eclectic elements. In addition to darbuka, kamanja, female chorus and clapping, there is some kind of ghaita/oboe-sounding instrument on some of the instrumental breaks. Is it a keyboard? whatever it is, I love it. I'm also crazy about the harpsichord-sounding keyboard instrument - the same instrument can be heard on some Hajja Hamdaouia recordings of the period (late 60s? early 70s?). I wonder if there was a keyboardist in the Tichkaphone house band that added this instrument to the recordings of both artists. Finally, add Botbol's electric guitar deep down in the mix and you have a distinctive, very enjoyable track!

 

Hope you enjoy! I've got some more Botbol in the stash. But I'm working on a major Nass el Ghiwane post that you may see before I get back to Botbol.

Abitbol أبيطبول
Tichkaphone TCK 523 تشكافون
A1 Asbar الصبر
A2 Lataâmal Âchir لا تعمل عشير
B1 Rah Additiou راه الديتو
B2 Rassoul Lhoub رسول الحبيب
B3 Taârida 

FLAC | 320

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.

Radio Annajah G'nawa Succès 94 - More Popstalgic Enjoyment

Time keeps on slippin' slippin' slippin' into the future... and the cassette era recedes further and further back in the rear view mirror. For our first post of 2026, we're going back to 1994 for some early electrified Gnawa music. And when I say electrified, I mean one dude with a keyboard!

1995 me picked up this tape probably in Marrakech and, played it maybe once or twice, said "meh", and set it down to languish in the Stash until 2026. 1995 me was more interested in either straight-up Gnawa recordings (you know, just the guinbri and qarqabas) or in hipper fusion things like Hassan Hakmoun's first 2 albums (Gift of the Gnawa and Zahar), the Gnawa rock of Houssaine Kili, or the wild Mahmoud Guinia + drum kit tapes (which I now believe NOT to be Mahmoud Guinia, at least on vocals). 1995 me was not interested in a Gnawa group accompanied by a keyboardist playing sax, flute, marimba, organ, and straight-up synth sounds along with a drum kit. 

While 2026 me still prefers electric guitars to keyboards in chaâbi ensembles, I have developed occasional warm feelings for the sounds of the North African electric keyboard (especially those of the 1980s Algerian raï variety). And whereas a standard wedding band drum kit was nothing special to 1995 me, 2026 me waxes nostalgic at the sound of a prominent and raucous drum kit, and for the days (nights, really) before production values got so smooth. Its sound brings a time-traveling grin to my face and an old school derdeg to my feet and hips.

This is all a prelude to saying that 2026 me is rather enjoying the "meh" tape that 1995 me dismissively filed away so long ago. 

Sure, it's an anonymous studio creation meant to capitalize on the growing popularity of Gnawa music, crediting no particular musicians and using stock images of Gnawa from postcards for the cover. But as I spieled recently, pop textures of yesteryear age differently for different ears. For me, the keyboards here are never awful, sometimes retro-delightful, and the drum kit is always in the pocket, sometimes just grooving steadily with the qarqabas, sometimes pushing things forward with accents, punctuations, or backbeats. 

So you may dig this or you may not. For mid-90s Gnawa-and-keyboards cassettes, you may prefer the cassettes released by the duo Saha Koyo, but they don't float my popstalgic boat like this Radio Annajah cassette, and I don't find them interesting as fusion items. But ask me again in a few years - perhaps my ears' viewpont will have changed!

Discographic note: The songs listed on the j-card flap appear in a different order on the cassette. Also, I believe Side 2 is actually the beginning of the album. Side 1 fades in mid-song, and side 2 fades out mid-song. These two songs typically run together in performance, so I have edited them together into one long track. The edit is not seamless - there appears to be some missing music - but the tempo and the key are the same, so the edit is pretty smooth. Side 2 does not fade in but rather starts with a guinbri and keyboard unmetered intro section, so it feels much more like the beginning of an album. So I've tagged track B1 as the first song of the album and the edit of B2-A1 as the second song.

G'nawa ڭناوة
Succes 94 مفاجأة
Radio Annajah cassette RN 136 راديو النجاح
1994

B1 Taj Lâin A Ya Habib Allah تاج لعناية حبيب الله
B2 Nebda Bennbi Wensbeq Allah Feklami نبدا بالنبي ونسبق الله فكلامي
A1 Ach Qdaw Ila Berhou Biya آش قضاو إلى برحوا بيا
A2 A Moulati Fatma أمولاتي فاطمة
      Lâafou Ya Moulana العفو يا مولانا
A3 Hamouda Baba Hamouda حمودة بابا حمودة

Production and Distribution انتاج و توزيع
Radio Annajah راديو النجاح

 FLAC | 320