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.
Whoops - this is a correction to my previous post about the recordings of Nass el Ghiwane 1.0. I incorrectly assumed that the first two Nass el Ghiwane 7-inch singles (1972) contained the same version of "Siniya", "Ya Bani El Insane" and "Al Madi Fate" that appeared on their first LP Disque d'Or (1973). I was mistaken. I commend to you the outstanding YouTube channel of Ismael Abo Salma, who has put together chronological playlists of most of the great Moroccan Ghiwani groups. His Nass el Ghiwane playlist starts off with these two singles, and indeed they are different recordings of these groundbreaking songs!
Here is a corrected version of my discography of Nass el Ghiwane 1.0 released while they were together, now with YouTube links:
To atone for my research error, I have obtained a copy of one of these early singles and am sharing a remastered version from my vinyl rip here.
These 1972 studio versions are actually quite different from the 1973 versions. The recording quality is not as good, and the band improved as a unit between 1972 and 1973. By the time they re-recorded these songs for the LP, the arrangements were much tighter. String players Allal Yaala and Moulay Abdelaziz Tahiri are supporting the vocals with more sensitivity and playing off of each other more. The 1972 arrangement of "Siniya" is a bit different, including an additional rubato section in the second half of the song. In all, it's fascinating to hear these early versions of the songs. I prefer the 1973 remakes, but these initial sides were what catapulted the group to success.
Nass el Ghiwane - the game changers. Bursting onto the Moroccan musical
scene in 1972 out of the slums of Hay Mohammadi in Casablanca, they changed
what was possible in modern Moroccan music. Drawing musical and lyrical
inspiration from the deep roots of Moroccan art, folk, and religious
traditions, Nass el Ghiwane composed and performed new songs that felt traditionally Moroccan but spoke to modern experiences and discontents. It is said
that hundreds, perhaps thousands of musical groups were launched across North Africa in
their wake by young people who found the Ghiwanian expressive mode potent, timely, and
accessible.
I've shared a bit of Nass el Ghiwane's music on this blog, but not a whole
lot. I have written about them quite a bit here over the years, often when
sharing or discussing the music of other artists. This post is intended as
the first of several posts focusing directly on the group and some of the
many recordings they released on vinyl and tape from 1972 to the
present. This is my attempt to sketch some of the early history of the group leading up to the first recordings of the group for the Polydor label. I'll call the quintet featured on those recordings Nass el Ghiwane 1.0. And I'm delighted to share here my vinyl rip and remaster of their first LP. I think it sounds better than any of the digital versions I've heard streaming around out there on the webs and tubes.
Nass el Ghiwane 1.0: Origins
According to Larbi Batma's memoir Ar-Rahil [1], the initial core of the
group was the trio of Batma, Boujmiî Hgour, and Omar Sayed. The three had
participated first in neighborhood amateur theater groups and later as actors and singers in Tayyeb Saddiki's professional troupe. Filmmaker Ahmed Maanouni (director of
the Nass el Ghiwane documentary film "Trances") says that Saddiki had a grant from a trade
union to produce plays using young actors from the poor neighborhoods of
Casablanca [2]. By the time the young Ghiwanis were working with Saddiki, he
had established a new style of Moroccan theatre that drew themes and
inspiration from old literary and oral sources like melhoun poetry and the
Sufi poetry of Sidi Abderrahmane al Majdoub. This new theatre movement also
drew inspiration from folk performance aesthetics, specifically
the halqa circles that form around street
performers in places like Djemaa el Fna plaza in Marrakech, interactive
circles in which the audience is as much a part of the performance as the
performers. The plays were not, however, simple recreations of archaic or
folk forms, but dynamic vehicles using deeply held cultural resonances to
create new and modern experiences in a new postcolonial era.
Boujmiî Hgour, then Larbi Batma, singing vocal solos in the play "Al Harraz":
Omar Sayed and Boujmiî Hgour singing a duet in the play "Al Harraz":
During their tenure with Saddiki's troupe, Batma and Boujmiî began writing their own original songs and the
trio began performing these as a short opening act before the start of the
plays. Like Saddiki's plays, these songs drew on archaic, folk, and religious
song styles, forms, and lyrics, and wove into them themes that spoke to the
lives of their contemporaries. Adding to this tapestry of sources is the
fact that the group's neighborhood, Hay Mohammadi, was home to migrants from every corner of Morocco.
Omar Sayed has characterized the neighborhood as Morocco in miniature [3].
Thus while he and the other group members from the neighborhood grew up in
close proximity, they were raised with linguistic and musical vernaculars
from very different regions: Batma from Chaouia, Boujmiî from Tata, and Omar
from Aït Baha in the Souss [4].
In addition to their warmup spot at the Theatre Municipale, the trio began
performing their songs in cafes and other venues. Eventually they were able
to record a performance for broadcast on Moroccan TV, where they made quite
a splash, being absolutely different from anything seen before them.
The group's lineup was shifting around in these early days. Allal Yaâla was
known to them from their neighborhood as a top-notch musician and
music teacher with an encyclopedic knowledge of
Moroccan styles as well as a quick learner of songs. Allal accompanied the group on oud for its initial TV appearance, but he did not join
them permanently at that time [5]. The earliest photos of the group show the founding trio along with musician Mahmoud Saadi (also an early
member of Jil Jilala) playing the bouzouki and Moulay Abdelaziz Tahiri
playing the sintir (the Gnawa guinbri).
Unlike the rest of the group, Tahiri, whom we've profiled here before, hailed from Marrakech. He did two years
of study at the prestigious Conservatoire National de Musique, de Danse, et
d'Art Dramatique in Rabat, after which he returned to Marrakech and worked
with several local theatre troupes [6].
I believe Tahiri relocated to Casablanca due to his Marrakech theatre work. He
had played the role of Mahmoud in the Wafa troupe's production
of Abdeslam Chraibi's "Al Harraz". That play was later produced in
Casablanca by Tayeb Saddiki (see video embedded above). I read somewhere that
Tahiri helped Saddiki's troupe with the melhun vocal styles
used in the production. It was here that the Ghiwane group got to know Tahiri
and appreciate his talents.
By sometime in 1972, Mahmoud Saadi had left the group [7] and they reached out
to Allal Yaâla to join. The addition of Tahiri and Allal increased the group's
scope exponentially on the strength of the stringed instruments they could
bring to the songs as well as percussion and vocals. Both musicians were
steeped in the melhun tradition and various other styles. It is
this quintet that we hear on the group's first recordings, pictured here on the
back of their first album:
Nass el Ghiwane 1.0 existed from 1971 or '72 to 1973 or early '74. As far as I can tell from the world wide web in 2026, they released five 7-inch singles and one 12-inch LP during 1972 and 1973. Two songs from the 1973 singles also appear on the second Nass el Ghiwane album in 1974. By the time that album was released, Tahiri had left the group and Abderrahmane Paco had joined to begin the brief era of Nass el Ghiwane 2.0.
Here is a detail of the releases by NG 1.0 while they were together:
NOTE 3/22/2026: I subsequently found some errors in the discography below. For details, see here.
Some concert recordings of Nass el Ghiwane 1.0 were released commercially in the 1980s. I have not included them in this list, but I am planning to devote a blogpost to them sometime this year.
Disque D'or: A spurious album title, but golden nonetheless
The album cover for the first Nass el Ghiwane LP reads prominently "Disque D'or 1973". In his memoir, Larbi Batma writes that this gold record award was announced by the record company Phillips (I think he means Polydor) but the group never saw or received an actual prize. He eventually asked someone about it and was told that the record company just wrote Gold Record on the album for publicity [8]. Despite this unawarded award, the record will always be gold in my book. It's a collection of groundbreaking, classic songs with inventive arrangements, sung passionately and with an urgency that leaps off the record over 50 years later. Here are a few of my subjective takes and random thoughts:
El Madi Fate (The Past is Gone) - leading off the album with a bold, anti-nostalgic declaration of a new (cultural) moment.
As Siniya (The Tea Tray), the group's first single and probably their most well-loved song, a complaint sung to a tea tray, the tea tray being the physical artifact around which a ritual of sociality and belonging is enacted - the preparing and sharing of tea. A complaint about the state of the singer's tea glass among other glasses on the tray. Language evocative - unspecific about what has brought on this condition, but universally resonant in Morocco by virtue of its imagery. And with a rousing refrain declaring departure and that "bahr al ghiwane ma dkhaltu bil3ani
بَحْرَ الْغِيوَانْ مَا دْخْلْتُ بَلْعَانِي" - the ocean of Ghiwane - I didn't enter it intentionally. The cryptic term "Ghiwane" which of course became synonymous with the group itself - Nass el Ghiwane = People of Ghiwane - something to do with song, something archaic, something that one does not simply walk into by design but that one falls into. The references to trance were here from the very beginning of the group, even before the Gnawi Abderrahmane Paco joined them. (See also the name of the group in English on their first 2 singles: New Dervish.)
Allah ya Moulana - cooling down with a heartfelt supplication to God and the Prophet ﷺ in the form of a legitimate earworm, complete with an unforgettable wordless singalong wo-wo-wo melody before the Dan-Dani part of the song.
Side two expands the discourse to more philosophical and ethical matters, leading off with Ya Bani Al Insane (Oh Children of Man) - my condition, my promise, today pushes me, I want to pose a question and say it in the tongue of Ghiwane, Oh Children of Man, why are we enemies?.
An ecstatic, quick paean to love and beauty in Yamna/Joudi Berdak with terrific long held high vocal notes from Omar while Allal goes wild on the banjo.
Then finishing up with two more philosophical questions: Fin Ghadi Bya Khouya (Where are you taking me, brother) on individual connection and blame in a time of social and cultural rupture - with an eerie ethereal vocal harmony placed a fourth above the main melodic line, and Wach Hna Houma Hna (Are We Still Us?) on the existential effect of greed and inequity on society and humanity as a whole.
I'm so happy to be able to share this good sounding vinyl rip. My copy of the LP is far from the cleanest in the world, but the recent addition of stem splitter capabilities to Logic Pro X allowed me to isolate vocals on one track while the pops and clicks got shunted onto another track, which I could then mute during the a capella passages. TLDR - it sounds really clean where it counts the most. And it sounds better than any streaming digital version I've heard.
I am of course conflicted about the use of AI tools in this work and in general. They are resource-hungry, and as much as we are being told we will not lose jobs, we will definitely lose jobs, which is terrifying in a society where existing rips and tears in our social safety nets are being widened in order to make oligarchs imperial again. I hope my limited use of these tools to restore a work of beauty does not exacerbate the situation. I'm sure a professional could do a better job at this than I have done, but until that happens, please enjoy this new version of this historic LP.
Nass el Ghiwane ناس الغيوان Disque D'or 1973 نال اسطوانة الذهب السنة Polydor 2.944.007 1973
A1 El Madi Fate الماضي فات A2 As Siniya الصّينية A3 Dane Dany (Allah Ya Moulana) أدَانْ دَاني - الله يَا مُولانَا B1 Ya Bani El Insane وايّى يابني الإنسان B2 Yamna جودي برضاك B3 Fin Ghadi Bya Khouya فين غادي بي خويا B4 Wach Hna Houma Hna واش احنا هما احنا
[1] Larbi Batma. Ar-Rahil. This book has not been translated from Arabic, but there
is a monograph in English that examines the work in depth: Lhoussain
Simour's 2016 book
Larbi Batma, Nass el-Ghiwane and Postcolonial Music in Morocco. To date, this is probably the best source in English about Nass el Ghiwane,
but keep your eyes open for the results of research in progress by
Alessandra Ciucci.
[3] Omar Sayed, interviewed in
ناس الغيوان - الجزء الأول
(Nass el Ghiwane - Part 1), Al Jazeera Documentary. Directed by عمر كاملي بن حمو Omar Kamli Benhamou,
2010.
[7] In his memoir (p. 168) Batma refers obliquely to some interpersonal
conflicts stoked by an unnamed person from Marrakech, ostensibly someone from
Jil Jilala or their circle.
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. 💔
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.
