Alan Lomax's Moroccan Tape Stash

 

Well, his Moroccan stash is but a tiny tiny pinch of shake from his huge stash of field recordings. His recordings of American folk music are, of course, the most famous, but he also did his share of international recordings during his many years of research.

Association for Cultural Equity and the Alan Lomax Archive recently went live with over 800 hours of sound recordings as well as video and photographs from Lomax's collection. Perhaps the mother of all tape stashes!

I had no idea Lomax had recorded in Morocco! I'm just starting to dip into this collection, and I'll try to link to anything that particularly catches my ear.

First question I had, of course... is there any Gnawa music? Indeed, there is one short piece recorded in the Djemaa el Fna in Marrakech - it's an excerpt from "Negsha".

Explore the Moroccan collection here.
Explore the entire audio collection here.
Or start at the main menu to get to photographs, video, and other resources.

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UPDATE:
I found 2 more short Gnawa tracks, in Lomax's recordings from Fez. They are from outdoor processional âada repertoire, thus feature the tbola rather than the guinbri. The recordings were made at the moussem of Moulay Idriss, and include recordings of Aissawa and Hamadcha as well!

More Aita Haouzia - Mustapha & Latifa El Issawia

I wanted to post more chaâbi after my last chaâbi post, but didn't find anything that inspired me. Like I said last week, my fave chaâbi stays pretty close to the rural, aita end of the field (rather than the Andalusian end, the smooth orchestrated end, or the pop-rai end). I'll try to dig out a good Stati tape soon. In the meantime, here's some more bitchin' aita haouzia. 

After scanning the shell, I realized that this tape comes from the same production house as my last aita haouzia post - Edition Atif, or Aâtiphone, based in ... Kelaat es-Sraghna? I've been thru Sraghna a bunch of times, since it's the biggest city on the road between Marrakech and Beni Mellal, my 2 main perches in Morocco. But never had any reason to stop there (except for one time when it was Ramadan and time to break fast - the bus parked and everyone was able able to get that important bowl of harira...) At any rate, I don't know if these performers are from Sraghna or Marrakech - I would guess Marrakech. The other haouzia group on this label was from Marrakech, and the little picture in the top-left corner of the j-card and on the spine is of the Menara - a royal-summer-house-turned-public-garden in Marrakech.

Track titles on the j-card didn't seem to match the lyrics I heard on the tape, so I didn't transcribe them. The front panel reads "The star of Haouzi song". And track 2 is seamlessly edited together from the end of side A and the beginning of side B by yours truly.

Excerpt from track 2 (of 3):


Get the whole thing here.

Great few weeks for Moroccan Stashes!

Wow - props to my blogosphere colleagues for a bumper few weeks of Moroccan grooves! Well worth checking out:

Snap, Crackle & Pop
Mr. Tear over at Snap, Crackle & Pop is back from a recent Morocco trip and promises to share some goodies in the weeks to come. If the current offerings are any indication, these should be fantastic! Already up is the Mustapha Baqbou tape pictured above - IF YOU LIKE GNAWA MUSIC, YOU NEED THIS TAPE!! This is my all-time favorite Baqbou tape - stunning virtuosity on the guinbri, masterful control of dynamics and drama, passionate singing, and songs from deep in the Ghaba suite! I lost my copy about 15 years back - so happy to hear this again. Also up at SC&P is a lovely album by the group Izmaz - an intense yet laid back offering from one of the '70s folk revival groups. 




Bodega Pop
Gary recently dropped a CD by old-school amarg artist Rais (Hajj) Omar Wahrouche. These are some great recordings, well worth a listen!









Audiotopia
Still digesting this huge cache of Jil Jilala tunes over at Hammer's. Some of it familiar, some of it very obscure!







See ya soon!