I've obtained copies of the two Atlassiphone singles of Jil Jilala that feature Abderrahmane Paco on sintir, before he joined Nass el Ghiwane. I wrote about Paco's early career in this post a few months ago. At that time, I thought that the Atlassiphone and Casaphone singles represented separate recordings of the same songs. I'm now convinced that they are the same recordings in different pressings.
DISCOGRAPHIC CLARIFICATION: Ismael Abo Salma (of the excellent YouTube channel of the same name) dates these two singles to 1972, and includes them as the group's first 2 singles on his massive Jil Jilala chronological playlist. When I checked his playlist back in March, I noted that he thought the Atlassiphone and Casaphone singles represented different recordings. Either I misread his posts or he has since edited his playlist and no longer views them as different recordings. His YouTube clips of the Casaphone versions of Leklam Lemrassa3 and Ha L3ar A Bouya are the same recordings heard on my rips of the Atlassiphone edition shared below. And his rip of the Atlassiphone version of Jilala is missing Paco's opening vocal and sintir solo - I previously thought this represented a different version, but it's the same version, just missing the intro.
I've done my best to clean up the sound - they aren't the most dynamic of recordings, but they sound alright here.
If the Atlassiphone 555 single of "Jilala" is in fact the first singe from Jil Jilala, it's amazing to me that it opens with a solo vocal and sintir passage from Paco - a sound and voice we would come to associate so heavily with Nass el Ghiwane in the future.
After Paco's arresting 40-second intro, the sintir repeats a single 4-beat riff over the remaining 10-1/2 minutes of the track. The simple riff is not particularly Gnawi in feel or melodic content. This initially bored me, but I've grown to appreciate the minimalism of the riff and the slow burning development of the various vocal sections of the song.
"Leklam Lmrassa3" features no sintir, but does feature an introductory vocal from Sakina Safadi, who was part of the group for its first few years of existence. Later recordings of this song feature a bouzouk through the entire song, but in this initial version, the bouzouk is heard only during Sakina's vocal intro, and the main body of the song is accompanied by drums alone.
"Ha L3ar A Bouya" is probably the most interesting track with respect to the sintir. The song features two different sintir riffs, one before the tempo change, another after the change. They are more interesting rhythmically than theriff in "Jilala" - a bit closer to a Gnawi way of playing, especially in the second half of the song, where Paco varies up the rhythmic accents and phrase repetitions in interesting ways.
"Ha L3ar A Bouya" includes the most interesting vocal and instrumental arrangements of the 3 songs. Wordless backing vocals change registers, Sakina's voice joins the male group vocals, and the initial verse returns at the song's end, superimposing itself on different backing vocals and rhythms. Unusual and innovative stuff!
After these two singles, Jil Jilala recordings would feature no sintir for a few years, until Moulay Abdelaziz Tahiri joined the group. The group's records begin to feature Tahiri's photo in 1976 (e.g. here and here). However, the lovely 1974 single "Lighrara" features Tahiri's unmistakable guinbri-playing.
Jil Jilala جيل جيلالة Atlassiphone 555 & 556 اطلسيفون 1972
555 A/BJilala جيلالة 556 A Leklam Lmrassa3 الكلام المرصع 556 B Ha L3ar A Bouya ها العار أبويا
This post looks at the short but seminal period of Nass el Ghiwane 2.0, from the time Abderrahmane Paco replaces Moulay Abdelaziz Tahiri until the untimely death of Boujemiî Hgour in October 1974.
Nass el Ghiwane 2.0: Exit Tahiri, Enter Paco
At some point in 1973 or early '74, Moulay Abdelaziz Tahiri left Nass el Ghiwane. Larbi Batma wrote in his memoir ar-Rahil [1] that Tahiri's leaving was a function of interpersonal matters related to an unnamed person from Marrakech, not a function of any musical or creative differences.
Although the narrative of Nass el Ghiwane's formative days centers on the creative duo of Boujemiî and Batma, Tahiri's creative contribution to NG 1.0 should not be discounted. In addition to being musically proficient on various instruments and fluent in various styles, he was absolutely committed to the project of creating a new type of modern Moroccan song anchored in traditional forms. Batma notes that Tahiri contributed to the group's songwriting in those early days. Memorably, his solo guinbri opens the Disque D'or album's opening track "El Madi Fate (The Past is Gone)", and he sings the vocal lead in the song's opening verses.
Despite Tahiri's early departure from the group, the Ghiwanis would find a more than competent replacement in Abderrahmane Kirouch "Paco". Paco would come to be one of the primary creative drivers of the group from that time forward, adding substantially to the group's already rich poetic and musical tapestry.
Like Tahiri, Paco was not native to Casablanca. Tahiri came from Marrakech and Paco came from Essaouira. Also, like Tahiri and the other Ghiwanis, Paco had some experience in unconventional theatre, but of a very different type. In the summer of 1969, the experimental American theatre troupe The Living Theatre took up residence in Essaouira, which was at that time a renowned destination for hippie and other anti-establishment seekers. Jimi Hendrix visited Essaouira that summer, and Paco claims to have performed a lila ceremony that Hendrix attended there [2]. Critically for his artistic itinerary, Paco participated with The Living Theatre in a local production in Essaouira wherein he played the guinbri and sang wordless melodies [3]. This is likely the origin of the "sonorous Gnaoua chant from Morocco" that runs throughout The Living Theatre's production "Seven Meditations on Political Sado-Masochism".
Paco's experience with Living Theatre and their deconstruction of foregoing theatrical conventions must have resonated with the other Ghiwanis' experience with Tayeb Saddiki's troupe - i.e., openness to the idea that music and performance could be deployed in the service of transformative experiences beyond the confines of the proscenium stage. And of course Paco also had practical experience of these transformative possibilities through Gnawa musical-ritual practice.
Before Paco joined Nass el Ghiwane, however, he spent time as a member of Morocco's other top group working in the new style. The Marrakech-based group Jil Jilala wanted to add a guinbri player to their ranks. Members went looking for Baqbou in Marrakech but were told he had gone to Essaouira. They set off for Essaouira and were unable to find Baqbou, but someone pointed them in the direction of Paco, who liked the idea and joined the group.
From what I can surmise from the online resources, Paco is featured on two pairs of 7-inch singles released by Jil Jilala, both containing the same songs in different versions, for the Atlassiphone and Casaphone labels. YouTube user Ismael Abo Salma (well worth following) has put together an excellent chronological playlist of Jil Jilala's recordings, and he dates these singles to 1972, making them the earliest of the group's recordings. He lists the Atlassiphone singles as being the initial recordings, and the Casaphone singles being subsequent re-recordings of the same songs:
Klam Lmrassah الكلام المرصع / Ha Lâar A Bouya ها العار أبويا (Atlassiphone ATL 556) (Discogs)
Jilala جيلالة (Casaphone CSP 5084) (Discogs , YouTube - I think this is the Casaphone recording - you can clearly hear Paco's solo voice and guinbri at the beginning of this track, and the image is from the back of the Casaphone sleeve)
Klam Lmrassah الكلام المرصع / Ha Lâar A Bouya ها العار أبويا (Casaphone ???) (YouTube)
[UPDATE 11/2026: My thinking about the Atlassiphone and Casaphone 45s has changed - I now believe that they are different editions of the same recordings, not separate recordings of the same songs. See here for more info.]
Despite Paco's participation in these early successes of the group, it was apparently not an ideal musical fit as far as Paco was concerned. The story goes that he was in a recording session with the group and got into an argument about the rhythm of the song being recorded. Frustrated, he walked out and never returned [4]. Fortuitously, this coincided with Tahiri's departure from Nass el Ghiwane, and soon thereafter Paco joined the Ghiwanis.
Nass el Ghiwane 2.0: Recordings - Falastiniyat
The recorded output of Nass el Ghiwane 2.0 while they were together consists of 3 singles comprising a total of 4 songs, 3 of which were included on their second LP. Each of the three singles features the word "فلسطينيات (Falastiniyat)" in the top right of the sleeve. I don't detect any explicit references to Palestine in the lyrics of these songs, so I'm not sure what is the significance of the moniker "Falastiniyat" here.
Along with his powerful singing voice and muscular guinbri playing,
Paco brought to the Ghiwane his experiences with both the ritualistic performance art theater aesthetic of the Living Theatre and the
ritual mise-en-scène of the Gnawa lila ceremony, where music is
the element that structures time. Adding this powerful force brought the group's already rich compositional and performance mix to a new level, making good on the idea of New
Dervich.
Although the recorded output of this lineup is small, it lays the course of the group for the next 20 years with the addition of the Gnawa element. Specifically here, the songs "Lahmami" and "Ghir Khoudouni" incorporate melodies, structures, and symbolism from the Gnawa ritual repertoire.
"Lahmami", which kicks off the 2nd LP, contains a whole opening section that the group seems to have dropped in future re-recordings and performances of the song ("La la la la lal ya oueddi lal"). The familiar, energetic Lahmami section of the track takes much of its melody and structure from the Gnawa song "Baba Laghami" [5]. Nass el Ghiwane transform it from a sort of saint's invocation song to something secular and quotidian, with lyrics evoking rural beauty as well as the imperative of departure and the impermanence of life, yet retaining the driving urgency of Gnawa ritual musical structures.
There is so much going on in "Ghir Khoudouni" that I'm planning to devote a separate post to a musical analysis of the song. Suffice it to say here that to this day (2026) I know of no song that has so sophisticatedly, sympathetically, and meaningfully transformed musical material from Gnawa ritual in a way that approaches the rich web of signification that drives Gnawa ritual practice.
A couple of additional subjective takes on the 2nd Nass el Ghiwane LP:
The Nass el Ghiwane 1.0 songs included on this LP are remarkable. Youm Malkak (aka Ah Ya Ouine) sounds like nothing else recorded by the group and really shows off for the first time the haunting quality Omar Sayed could bring to a plaintive melody. Al Hassada brings the rural influence to the forefront. The celebratory short call/response phrases that structure the song, the driving rhythmic punctuations, and the ecstatic singing make this one of the most joyful tracks the group ever recorded.
Side 2 of the LP juxtaposes the celebratory Al Hassada with the existential despair and defiant hope of Ghir Khoudouni. Boujemiî's unexpected death before or shortly after the release of this LP makes this juxtaposition all the more devastating and heartbreaking.
Please enjoy the Ya Sah single and the 2nd LP, remastered from my vinyl rips.
Nass el Ghiwane ناس الغيوان Ya Sah 7" يا صاح Polydor 2.225.041 1974
01 Ya Sah يا صاح
Nass el Ghiwane ناس الغيوان Polydor LP 2.944 008 1974
A1 Lahmami لهمامي A2 Mazine M'Dihek مزين امديحك A3 Youm Malkak يوم ملقاك B1 El Hassada الحصادة B2 Ghir Khoudouni غير خدوني
[2] Abderrahmane Paco, interviewed in Abderrahmane Kirouj (Paco), episode of Nostalgia, dir: Rachid Nini, 2003
[3] Hassan Habibi, interviewed in Abderrahmane Paco, episode of Fi Adhakihra, dir: Imane Tadouat, Jahan Inouaoui.
[4] Larbi Riad, interviewed in Abderrahmane Paco, episode of Fi Adhakihra, dir: Imane Tadouat, Jahan Inouaoui.
[5] L-Ghmami is one of the cohort of mluk entities known as the Bawwab that includes Sidi Mimoun the Gnawi, Lalla Mimouna, L-Ghmami, Sidi Mimoun Ganga, Baba Siyaf, etc. We've shared a version of this song as recorded by the late great maalem Hmida Boussou (blogpost, youtube). Also, here's a weird version by Mahmoud Guinia with synth drum and electric guitar.
Well I just stumbled across a whole dramatic film starring Jil Jilala as a band called Jil Jilala! The film "Le Paradis des Pauvres جنة الفقراء", directed by Imane Mesbahi, was released in 2001 or 2002, but it appears to have been filmed much earlier. Mustapha Baqbou is in the film and looks very young (and thin), but the songs featured are studio recordings from before Baqbou's tenure, including two from the Daouiwah album (1984). Baqbou joined the group around 1985, so I'm guessing this may have been filmed around that time.
The leading role is played by group member Moulay Tahar Al Asbahani, and Mohamed Derham is featured prominently in several scenes, in which he acquits himself quite well as an actor. The film also features the well-known Moroccan actress Touria Jabrane. You can watch the whole film on YouTube. It is in French and Moroccan darija, but there are no subtitles.
The film includes lip-synced performances of Jil Jilala's songs "Dak Bya Amrak", "Ah Ya Jilala", "Al Âar A Bouya", and "Daouiwah". It also features incidental music composed and performed by chaâbi/rai star Hamid Bouchenak, and a solo performance by Baqbou of the Gnawa song "Berrma Nana Soutanbi" that appears to have been recorded live for the film (though the synchronization in the YouTube version of the film is a little bit off). If you go to the YouTube page where the film has been uploaded, you can
find my comment which contains time code links to the various musical
pieces in the film.
"the story of five young Moroccans who leave their village in northern Morocco to go work somewhere in Europe. Despite their good intentions, they are confronted daily with racial hatred and xenophobia."
The Wikipedia page for the film claims (without attribution) that it was unsuccessful when released due to poor distribution and an ill-chosen release date. I'm no film expert, but it definitely feels to me like a 1980s film rather than a 2000s film, so that can't have helped its fate in 2001. It's not what I'd call a brilliant film, but it's fun to see these legendary musicians in a different setting (and in swell leather jackets)!
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. 💔
An article entitled “Odes of Solidarity”: Moroccan Artists Amplify Palestinewas published in December 2024 in the recently resurrected journal Souffles. Written by Aomar Boum and Brahim El Guabli, it discusses the topic of Palestine in Moroccan popular song. The article is worth checking out, as is the entire issue, Morocco's Palestine, dedicated to the history of Moroccan people’s engagement with Palestine since the 1920s.
The article lists more than 30 songs, most of them from artists working in the Ghiwani style (the acoustic folk-based style pioneered by the group Nass el Ghiwane). I found a few additional songs mentioned in articles on Megazine and Al-Quds Al-Arabi, plus I knew that Nass el Ghiwane's "Sobhane Allah" contained a Palestine reference as well. And I went hunting on YouTube to find them. Here's the playlist I put together, limiting the list to songs/styles from the vinyl and cassette era:
Below is a list of the individual songs and links to each one on YouTube. The titles and images found in YouTube videos are wildly inconsistent, so I've searched for the "correct" spellings and names of songs as best as I could, linking to Discogs where possible for info on the original releases. Additionally Aomar has translated the lyrics to several songs into English at Souffles, so I've linked to those as well. I do urge you to have a look at the article - it's quite short but makes some important points that situate this era of Moroccan musicking within the larger context of postcolonial nationhood and identities. Props to the team at Souffles for their great work and to the artists who continue to bring attention to the injustices suffered by the Palestinian people.
Artist: Jil Jilala جيل جيلالة
Song: Palestine فلسطين
Date: 1973
Notes: not sure if this is the 1973 Cléopatre album version or the 1974 Polydor album version ("Kouds")
Note: Undoubtedly there are additional Moroccan songs from this era that touch on the theme of Palestine. Boum and El Guabli identify the following Nass el Ghiwane songs as mentioning the issue:
M'zine M'dihek مزّين مديحك
Ya Sah يا صاح
Ghir Khoudouni غير خدوني
and Metwally identifies these as doing the same:
Daïyne (aka "Ya Ahli Lhal") ضايعين
Narjak Ana La M'Chite نرجاك انا لامشيت
Echams Ettalâa الشمس الطالعة
El Oumma الامّة
but I haven't scrutinized the lyrics deeply enough to find the references, and there's plenty of Nass el Ghiwane in the playlist already. 🎵 بَحْرَ الْغِيوَانْ مَا دْخْلْتُ بَلْعَانِي 🎵
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 ofbanjo, 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
(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.
One more Jil Jilala tape for ya - I dubbed this from someone else's copy years ago, and I don't recall seeing any cover art. (The photo above is quite unrelated to my tape, but is pretty cool - see below for more info.)
The tape is from a live performance, and the featured songs suggest that it dates from the late '80s/early '90s (the Baqbou period). The group is augmented by keyboard strings and horn section. (Or is it an actual horn section? Hard to tell...) A bit unusual, but not without its charm. (Hammer, if you're reading, do you know anything about this release? I noticed that these tracks were part of your Jil Jilala mega-post some time back.)
There have been other Jil Jilala fusion things, especially in the last few years. In 2007, they followed in the footsteps of fellow Moroccan folk-revival group Lemchaheb and collaborated on an album with the German rock group Dissidenten. The Lemchaheb collaboration Sahara Elektrik and the Jil Jilala collaboration Tanger Sessions share the annoying practice of renaming actual songs of the Moroccan groups with random titles in English. Here, for example is "Morock'n Roll", which is actually the well-known Jil Jilala song Leklam Lemrassa3:
More reverent (perhaps) is a 2010 collaboration with a European group called The Ghiwanyat Orchestra:
****
As I look back at my recent Jil Jilala posts, I see that I've presented some interesting information and shared some very good music, but didn't really cover what would be considered "The Best Of" Jil Jilala, or even the most well known of their songs. Such are the pitfalls of restricting the blog to music in my collection that's not available elsewhere. I'd urge you to check out these albums to fill in more of their groundbreaking 1970s work:
Chamaa: Early tracks, including the title cut ("The Candle"), with which Jil Jilala achieved the amazing feat of making centuries-old melhun poetry and melodies popular among 1970s Moroccan youth! Amazon or Yala.
Aghani al Khalida: Compilation of a number of their early sides, including the group's most enduring song, Leklam Lemrassa3. (These versions are, like those in my last post, very likely 1980s re-recordings of early singles.) Snap Crackle & Pop or Yala.
Laayoune Ainya: Title track is a well loved nationalist anthem commemorating the Green March of 1975. Snap Crackle & Pop shared this a while back with a nice historical summary and link to a fab vintage videoclip.
Jil Jilala - And His Orchestra - Live
01 Dakh Biya Amrek 02 Ya Men Narjak
03 Darat Bina Eddoura - Ila daq el hal
04 Hada Wa'dek Ya Meskin
05 Naditak Falghonna
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 orbouzouki), 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
I've been revisiting the Jil Jilala albums featuring the Gnawi mâalem Mustapha Baqbou. It's an interesting group of recording.
Baqbou joined the group in the mid-1980s following the departure of Moulay Abdelaziz Tahiri (who was originally with Nass el Ghiwane in the early '70s before Paco joined that group). Despite playing guinbri in Nass el Ghiwane, Tahiri was not a specialist in Gnawa music but rather in melhun, a stately old Moroccan sung poetry tradition. With Jil Jilala, Tahiri brought brought a modern, youthful exuberance to old melhun classics like "Chamâa" and "Lotfya", endearing these songs to a new, young audience.
After Tahiri's departure, the group, naturally, took a different direction, with the addition of Mustapha Baqbou. Baqbou had performed in the Netherlands-based folk-revival band Tiq Maya, but was also deeply rooted in the Gnawa ritual tradition. In the 1980s-90s, Mustapha appeared on at least the following albums:
I featured "Hada Wa'dek ya Meskine" in a recent post and I called it "the most Gnawa-influenced" Jil Jilala album. Today's offering, "Lqalb Lmeskun", is perhaps the most Ghiwani of their albums. That is, it comes closest (to my ear) to the sound and feel of Nass el Ghiwane. That ain't necessarily a bad thing - it's a great sound. But it does seem an odd direction for Jil Jilala to take so many years into the its history, and at a time when Nass el Ghiwane's style was going out of fashion. On the other hand, when you have a great Gnawi guinbri player in the group, why wouldn't you use that to its greatest effect and play up the Gnawa influence as Nass el Ghiwane did.
Apparently, these albums were not very successful commercially, and the group changed their approach for the final 3 albums listed above. The most comprehensive and concise biography I could find on the group (in English) was in a post by Smangal at rateyourmusic.com. Regarding this period, he writes:
"In a desperate move to salvage their name,
they tried to modernize their sound a little bit by introducing a drum
machine to play all their percussive sounds. As a consequence, albums La
Tayess and Nour el Anouar sounded processed and mechanical, even if
they had good song writing. They tried to follow the trends but failed
to gain any noticeable attention, and this made Mohamed Derhem amicably
leave the band in 1995."
The use of the drum machine is pretty weird. And even weirder that they would use a synthesized bass to play lines clearly designed for the guinbri, as here, in "Dib el Ghaba", a track from "La Taiesse":
Weird, but it does have a certain charm, and it clearly represents a (perhaps jarring) break from the folky/Ghiwani sound. You can hear it on the latter 3 albums listed above, as well as on Mohamed Derhem's solo album. The album Nour al Anwar in particular features some great songs.
While their albums featured these mechanical sounds, I believe their live performances always featured the organic, acoustic instruments of the ensemble. Check out this live version of Dib el Ghaba - BAQBOU'S GUINBRI RIFFING IS UNBELIEVABLY GROOVY:
My copy of Lqalb Lmeskun is a cassette dub of someone else's cassette. I don't have the album art, so am using Yala's copy of the art from the CD.
