Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Book Now for Master Musicians of Joujouka Festival 4-5 June with optional extra night 6th June 2010

Master Musicians of Joujouka Festival 4-5 June 2010 with optional extra night 6th June 2010
Place: Joujouka, (Jajouka), Morocco.
Booking  Master Musicians of Joujouka website   or below.


Boujeloud dances at the Brian Jones 40th Anniversary Festival, 
Joujouka, Morocco July 2008. Photo Jill Furmanovsky/Rock Archive


The Master Musicians announce their summer festival will be held 4-6June 2010 in their village in Morocco. Guests will stay with the musicians and their families and experience three days and nights of ritual Sufi music in its natural setting. On Saturday 5 June the musicians will perform the Boujeloud ritual in the village square through the night. In July 2008 the Master Musicians of Joujouka hosted the Brian Jones 40th Anniversary Festival in their village in the southern Rif Mountains of Northern Morocco. The festival was a celebration of fortieth anniversary of Brian Jones’ recording the iconic LP Brian Jones presents the Pipes of Pan at Joujouka (Rolling Stones Records 1971). The festival brought the families of old Masters now passed on and a group of visitors from abroad including old friends of the errant Rolling Stone.


In 2009 the Master Musicians festival moved to June as the tempreture at the end of July can be above 40C. The festival was a great success and was reported on in The Wire magazine  October, 2009.


Guests will experience life in Joujouka staying with the musicians and their families in their isolated village. The Master Musicians of Joujouka will play in intimate sessions around their madrassa/school. The highlight of the festival wwill be the village’s celebration of the Boujeloud ritual in the village square.


Places at the festival are strictly limited as due to accommodation limitations with the families in Joujouka/Jajouka. Guests will be collected from Ksar El Kebir the nearest town to Joujouka on Friday 5th June and will be brought to the village. Full board will be provided. Food will be prepared in traditional Joujouka fashion from locally sourced produced. Joujouka is a framing community well as Sufi trance music the village is famous for its beautiful olives and olive oil.


The festival is booking now. The price for the main two days of the festival 4-5 June is €250 euro.
Accommodation for 4, 5, and 6 June is €300 (Euro)


Guests will be collected at Moulay El Mehdi train station in Ksar El Kebir on June 4th and transported to Joujouka or by arrangement . For Moroccan trains see www.oncf.ma


Full board lunch and evening meal on Friday 4 June
Breakfast, Lunch and traditional Moroccan mountain feast on Saturday 5
Breakfast (all guests) plus  lunch, and evening meal on Sunday 6th (for those with three day bookings)
Booking now on Master Musicians of Joujouka Web Site or below
For payment by credit transfer please email me for details joujouka@gmail.com
Places are limited to 75.
If you have any questions please do get in touch. joujouka@gmail.com 

Joujouka 2-day EUR 250, 4-5 June 2010


Click link below to pay with paypal account or credit cards. Secure payments by Paypal.




Joujouka 3-day EUR 300 4-6 June 2010
Click link below to pay with paypal account or credit cards. Secure payments by Paypal.







Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Re Mallim Ali Abdelslam El Attar

It is with great pleasure that I can announce that the posting stating that Mallim Ali had passed was incorrect. Mallim Ali is ill but thankfully still with us in the country of Sidi Ahmed Sheich and all our prayers and blessings are with him and his family.

Tickets for Master Musicians of Joujouka Festival 2010 will be available from tomorrow

Tickets for the Master Musicians of Joujouka Festival 4-5 June, 2010, Joujouka/Jajouka, Morocco go on sale tomorrow on joujouka.net.

There will be an option of a third night on 6 June.
Bookings paid in full by 31 December will recieve a free copy of the Master Musicians of Joujouka "Joujouka Black Eyes" CD or "Boujeloud " CD.

Saturday, October 17, 2009

Monday, October 12, 2009

Destroy All Rational Thought documentary in Polish Film Festival

The documentary Destroy All Rational Thought which is a film about the Here To Go Show , Dublin in 1992 is being shown from next weekend at

BWA Wrocław - Galerie Sztuki Współczesnej
ul. Wita Stwosza 32
PL 50-149 Wrocław
tel. 071/790-25-82
e-mail: info@bwa.wroc.pl

The film features the Master Musicians of Joujouka in performance at the first art show to feature the paintings of Brion Gysin and William S. Burroughs. The documnetary also feature music by Bill laswell, Material and includes a special tribute to Brion Gysin by William Burroughs, film by Antony Balch and Phauss and more................
http://www.magia.gildia.pl/news/2009/10/interzone_pokazy_filmow
http://www.bwa.wroc.pl/index.php?l=pl&id=345&b=4&w=1

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

The Guardian report on the Brian Jones 40th Anniversary Festival in Joujouka. Join the Master Musicians in 2010. Festival 4/5 June Booking opening

Join the Master Musicians of Joujouka in thier home village for 2 days of music. Stay in the homes of the Sufi masters and enjoy the pure trance of Joujouka.
For the third year in a row the Master Musicians of Joujouka are holding a summer festival to allow people the chance to come and see for themselves what life and culture is like in their famous village.

Enjoy informal and formal sessions under a starry sky in Morocco's Ahl Srif Mountains.
Witness Boujeloud dance in the flames. Hear the wild sounds of rhiata and the hypnotic drums with the people and musicians of Joujouka. all food is sourced locally and cooked by the people of the village. All proceeds go directly to the Master Musicians of Joujouka and all supplies are sourced in the community.
Tickets on sale here soon.

For advance booking
email joujouka@gmail.com
As with the Master Musicians website www.joujouka.net CD and book sales the master Musicians of Joujouka Festival is an ethical event organised by the Master Musicians of Joujouka.



Take me into insanity

In the Moroccan mountains, village musicians gather each year to worship the goat-man Boujeloud ... and Brian Jones. Mark Paytress joins in the wild party


* Mark Paytress
* The Guardian, Friday 29 May 2009
* Article history

Joujouka, a village nestled in the foothills of the Rif mountains in northern Morocco, has been attracting enlightenment-chasing subversives and sonic novelty-seekers for decades. They are drawn by its Sufi trance music, played by the Master Musicians of Joujouka on a pipe called the rhaita and a drum called the tebel. In the 50s, Paul Bowles and William Burroughs visited, and the latter concluded: "We need more diabolic music everywhere." Timothy Leary proclaimed the Master Musicians to be "a 4,000-year-old rock'n'roll band". And in July 1968, Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones dropped in to record the village's Boujeloud - or Rites of Pan - festival.

That gruellingly intense annual night of music, magic and fertility still takes place every year, though the village has changed since Jones's visit: it now has electricity and a mobile phone mast that dwarfs the minaret of the mosque. Much, however, remains medieval: there is no running water, and the climate and landscape still dictate how life is lived.

When Jones's recordings were released posthumously in 1971, as The Pipes of Pan at Joujouka, the village gained a new level of fame - the guitarist was followed by more musicians, including Ornette Coleman - and Jones himself gained a new status in the village as a near-saint. Last July, I was among 40 or so westerners who went to Joujouka to mark the 40th anniversary of his visit. I often heard the Master Musicians chanting "Ah, Brahim Jones, really stones" as they worked through a rhythm.

The idea to commemorate Jones's trip came from Frank Rynne, a frequent visitor to Joujouka since he stumbled on its music at a Burroughs-related event in Dublin in 1992. "Brian Jones is so revered here that I felt the anniversary of his visit should be marked," Rynne says.

However, the festival long predates Jones. Its origins lie in the legend of the goat-man Boujeloud bestowing the gift of music on the village in return for the hand of one of its women. Every year, the festival pays homage to Boujeloud in order to guarantee the village healthy crops and purposeful procreation. Much has been made of the magic and transcendence associated with this ancient fertility rite, but its real purpose is to heal. "Yes, the music makes people go into a trance," Master Musician Mohamed el Attar tells me, "but it also heals souls. Psychopaths get better when they hear it. That is the secret of this place."

As the ceremony begins, I follow the nine magnificently attired Masters - resplendent in yellow hats, white collarless shirts and dark, one-shoulder robes - as they make their way down a long, dusty track to a gently lit corner of the village square, where some 120 villagers and visitors are gathered. Without realising it, I perch upon the same rock Jones sat on 40 years ago, as the Masters hit their transcendent stride.

A group of watching youths, some dressed in baseball caps and logo-emblazoned T-shirts, bounce boisterously in front of the bonfire. Women huddle in the shadows. When the rhaitas, sounding something like a herd of aroused elephants, nudge up a semitone, the tingle factor really kicks in. A trick long favoured by a generation of superstar DJs is, it seems, as old as time itself.

Then out hops the sprite-like Boujeloud. Hours ago, he was the soberly attired master of the house where I slept. Now, this apparition in a straw hat and goat-skin is mad-eyed and rubber-necked; he thrashes me with a pair of olive branches. My fertility apparently secured, at least for another year, I leap to my feet and join in this primal scream of a party. For five long hours, these rhythms and rituals play out against a backdrop of spitting bonfires, screams and the endless high-jinks of Boujeloud. At about five in the morning, it winds down. "Boujeloud" is back in his bum-freezer jacket and handing out cups of mint tea to the small handful of us who have survived this exhilarating, extraordinary but exhausting musical endurance test.

When Brian Jones returned to London in August 1968, he spent hours in the studio doctoring his tapes with psychedelic effects (mainly phasing), in an attempt to accentuate the far-outness of an experience he likened to "an incantation to those of another plane". Many later sonic adventurers, working in jazz or rock or experimental music, have drawn inspiration from the music of Joujouka. Even the Stones milked what Mick Jagger admitted was "a tenuous musical connection" by using the Master Musicians on their 1989 Steel Wheels album.

Since that time, artists from the village have travelled to the west - drawn as much by the financial as the spiritual rewards - to perform music from Joujouka and the surrounding region. As we drive off at dawn the following morning, the first of the day's five calls to prayer ringing in our ears, I wonder whether I have just witnessed a long, loud, final blast of a tradition that's now staring extinction in the face. But Rynne is more optimistic. He says the event has brought enough money and supplies to the village to keep the place thriving until the winter - and that's before the cash from a planned CD/DVD release rolls in.

"You saw the young men last night," he smiles, referring to the mass outbreak of Boujeloud-inspired mayhem. "It's impossible to my mind that those boys, growing up in the houses of musicians, won't one day be picking up drums themselves."

Maybe so. But whether they'll stay put in Joujouka rather than try their luck on the international stage is, of course, another matter.


Monday, October 5, 2009

Master Musicians of Joujouka Festival 2010, Joujouka/Jajouka, Morocco, Dates Announced 4/5 June 2010


Brian Jones 40th Anniversary Joiner Image by Jill Furmanovsky/Rock Archives

The 3rd annual Master Musicians of Joujouka Festival will take place Friday 4 and Saturday 5 June, 2010. Spend a weekend of music, food and Sufi hospitality in the village and stay in the homes of the Master Musician of Joujouka. Breakfast, lunch and dinner provided. Arrive Friday noon and depart Sunday afternoon/evening. Impromptu and formal music performances in the natural setting with the Masters and people of Joujouka/Jajouka.

Started in 2008 with the Master Musicians of Joujouka Brian Jones 40th Anniversary Festival on July 29 and 3O. The festival moved to June in 2009 as the dates in July coincide with the Fete de Throne of King Mohamed VI which the Master Musicians attend and perform at every year. The June date also ensures a more temperate climate in Joujouka/Jajouka rather than the typical 38 C at the end of July.

The dates allow for visitors to Morocco to also attend events at the Festival of Sacred Music in Fes.


Booking will be available here soon but anyone who wants to reserve a place should email joujouka@gmail.com

Short clip from the Brian Jones 40th Anniversary Festival from a film currently in production below.



Visitors will stay in the homes of The Master Musicians of Joujouka in their home village and enjoy a weekend of life in the Sufi village in the Ahl Srif Mountains near Ksar El Kebir, Morocco.

Info and advance bookings contact joujouka@gmail.com

See The October 2009 issue of The Wire for Lise Blanning's report on the 2009 Festival.
Download 10min MP3 in exclusive with The Wire http://www.thewire.co.uk/articles/3035/

Mark Paytress reported on the Brian Jones 40th Anniversary Festival in The Guardian and Mojo see
Guardian

Take me into insanity

In the Moroccan mountains, village musicians gather each year to worship the goat-man Boujeloud ... and Brian Jones. Mark Paytress joins in the wild party

.........


As the ceremony begins, I follow the nine magnificently attired Masters - resplendent in yellow hats, white collarless shirts and dark, one-shoulder robes - as they make their way down a long, dusty track to a gently lit corner of the village square, where some 120 villagers and visitors are gathered. Without realising it, I perch upon the same rock Jones sat on 40 years ago, as the Masters hit their transcendent stride.

A group of watching youths, some dressed in baseball caps and logo-emblazoned T-shirts, bounce boisterously in front of the bonfire. Women huddle in the shadows. When the rhaitas, sounding something like a herd of aroused elephants, nudge up a semitone, the tingle factor really kicks in. A trick long favoured by a generation of superstar DJs is, it seems, as old as time itself.

Then out hops the sprite-like Boujeloud. Hours ago, he was the soberly attired master of the house where I slept. Now, this apparition in a straw hat and goat-skin is mad-eyed and rubber-necked; he thrashes me with a pair of olive branches. My fertility apparently secured, at least for another year, I leap to my feet and join in this primal scream of a party. For five long hours, these rhythms and rituals play out against a backdrop of spitting bonfires, screams and the endless high-jinks of Boujeloud. At about five in the morning, it winds down. "Boujeloud" is back in his bum-freezer jacket and handing out cups of mint tea to the small handful of us who have survived this exhilarating, extraordinary but exhausting musical endurance test..........

Read More http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2009/may/29/master-musicians-joujouka-festival-morocco


Mojo October 2008 PDF http://media.mind2hands.com/insom/MJMM01.pdf

Further Info advance booking email joujouka@gmail.com

Saturday, September 19, 2009

The Wire Magazine October Issue article on 2009 festival and free download of Master Musicians of Joujouka


The Wire magazine has a feature Jajouka in its Global Ear section by Lise Blanning who attended this year's Master Musicians of Joujouka Festival, June 5-7. Lise stayed with leader of the Master Musicians of Joujouka, Ahmed Attar,and obviously enjoyed her stay in the village and the music and people she encountered there .

The Master Musicians are proud for the offer to allow a free download and music stream on The Wire magazine website which will be permantently available on http://www.thewire.co.uk/articles/3035/

The download is a preview , rough mix, of the first ten minutes 23 seconds of the recording of the Brian Jones 40th Anniversary Festival, main night poerformence. This performance started 40 years to the hours after Brian Jones recorded the seminal Brian Jones presents the Pipes of Pan at Joujouka LP in 1968. This is the start of the Boujeloud performance and is a rough mix of an edit from a continuous performance that lasted over 1 hours 30 mins.

It was produced by Frank Rynne and engineered by David Slevin.

Title

Habibi Wan Amali
/ My love what more have I/L'Aita /The Call
Artist
The Master Musicians of Joujouka



The Master Musicians of Joujouka/Jajouka on this recording are

Ahmed El Attar drums
El Kahil Radi drums
Mustahpa El Attar drums
Ahmed Bouhsini rhiata
Mohamed Mokhchan rhiata
Abdelslam Errtoubi rhiata
Abdellah Ziyat rhiata
Mohamed El Attar rhiata
Mohamed El Tahami rhiata


http://www.thewire.co.uk/articles/3035/


Buy the October 2009 issue of The Wire for Lise Blanning's article reporting on the 2009 festival.

Saturday, August 22, 2009

EDDIE WOODS BACK IN NO TIME: Jajouka, Bou Jeloud and the Moroccan Magic of Brion Gysin



Brion Gysin Boujeloud at Joujouka 1958

BACK IN NO TIME: Jajouka, Bou Jeloud and the Moroccan Magic of Brion Gysin
By EDDIE WOODS

“I'm not here to put anyone down. I'd just like to make a few suggestions.”
Ira Cohen

Dear Eddie,

I first heard the Master Musicians of Jajouka in 1950. It was at a festival outside of Tangier on the beach, a small harbor that went back to Phoenician times... I was there with Paul Bowles. Paul, of course, was an established composer before making his name as a writer and also an archivist of North African music. Anyway, it was Paul’s idea that I go to Morocco, he had bought a little house there and all. And I heard some music at that festival and was so taken by it, so enchanted, that I said to Paul, “I want to hear that music every day for the rest of my life. I want to hear it every day all day long.”

For sure, there were many other kinds of extraordinary music offered to one, mostly of the Ecstatic Brotherhoods who enter into trance, such as Jilala. But above all of that I had heard this funny little music, and I said, “Ah! That’s my music! I must find out where it comes from.” So I stayed and within a year I found that it came from Jajouka, a village in the Rif mountains where on several occasions during the year, whenever a festival comes round, the entire population of the Ahl Serif valley pours across the fields and wends its way, in procession, up the mountainside.

I mean, there would always be (and still is) a small group of the Masters traveling somewhere in the valley to animate a wedding or to honor some visiting dignitary. And my restaurant, The 1001 Nights, came about entirely because of them, it was their idea, as a way for me to stay in Morocco, hear their music all the time and earn my living. They said, “Why don’t you open a café or something in Tangier? Then we’ll come down, make the music and we can split the money.” Which is how it worked until 1956, when Moroccan independence wiped me out practically overnight... But I knew the Musicians for nearly 35 years, right up till the end, many of them in intimate daily contact.

Now in Jajouka when they play, and those things go on for seven days and nights, blue kif smoke rises and drops in veils and the air is flooded with this marvelous music, very magical, tirelessly executed by the Master Musicians, more than twenty strong. Each night they play 10-hour nonstop sessions as a cloud of dancing boys shimmers and sashays around a huge bonfire. The crowd whoops and hollers approval, while the women, all of them dressed in white, are heaped up on a hillside, their heads thrown back and mouths open, ululating to the heavens.

At some point a sense of urgency enters the music: the drums thunder and the shrill, almost bagpipe-sounding blare of the rhaitas (a double reed oboe-like instrument, similar to the Indian shanai) becomes like sheet lightning in the minds of the spectators. Higher and higher goes the music, heralding the appearance of a young man dressed in goat skins with a huge straw hat tied around his blackened face and carrying long sycamore branches. Chosen for the task since childhood, he is suddenly transformed, a young villager no longer. Bou Jeloud is there, the Great God Pan.

Oh, there are many confirmed stories of the Musicians on tour, even in Europe, picking off (as it were) unsuspecting members of the audience and--using only their horns, their Pipes of Pan--making these people dance, literally forcing them to, controlling them. But when Bou Jeloud dances alone in Jajouka, his Musicians blow a sound like the earth sloughing off its skin. When you shiver like someone just walked on your grave, that’s him; that’s Bou Jeloud, the Father of Fear, the Father of Skins, Pan...

If you want to disappear, come round for private lessons. Remember? OK, you’ve just had yours. Back in no time.

Love,
Brion

This particular presentation of Jajouka music is from a live performance in France and comes in cassette form. Published by Staaltape (Amsterdam), it is in some ways well done and in other respects a most unprofessional job. The nicely-printed cassette cover gives no information at all about the Musicians, the performance...nada. The cassette itself is unlabeled and has its tabs intact; not only does it look like a blank cassette, it can easily be recorded over by accident. Ditto for the accompanying cassette, an interesting but incomplete 40-odd minute interview with Brion that also tells nothing of Jajouka (there is a brief 'reference in passing,' bas) and which is recorded on only one side, the other side being (in)conveniently empty. Ah, and no times are given for the music tape, although my stopwatch assures me it’s 54 minutes. Both cassettes (+ plastic covers, thank goodness) come in a plain wooden box with a slide-off top, along with a well made hardbound book, Back In No Time: Some aspects of Brion Gysin and suggestions for use, by A.M. McKenzie. The title phrase is from a small sign Brion used to hang on the outside of his door whenever he left the house, whether for five minutes or five weeks. The whole shebang (this is a limited edition of 500 copies, by the way) was selling for the equivalent of ca. €18.00 when first released in 1989.

Brion Gysin, who died on July 13th 1986, discovered the cut-up method of writing. Indeed, he introduced William Burroughs to the technique. The above letter (from Brion) was received by this reviewer on May 8th 1989. Back in no time. Get it?
Full size image here
THE MASTER MUSICIANS OF JOUJOUKA (Staaltape documentary series)
(Office) Staalplaat, P.O. Box 11453, 1001 GL Amsterdam, The Netherlands
(Shop) Staalplaat, Flughafenstrasse 38, D-12053, Berlin, Germany
(Tel.) +49 30 2005 4697
(Website) http://www.staalplaat.com/
front left to right Miles, Frank Rynne, Eddie Woods reading 9 Rue Git le Couer by Harold Norse at the William S. Burroughs Naked Lunch @50 celebrations outside the Beat Hotel, 9 Rue Git le Couer , Paris, July 1 2009.

Text and Brion Gysin letter © Eddie Woods
Music © Master Musicians of Joujouka
The above review and letter were published at the time the staalplaat 2 cassette set was published in 1989. the 2 cassette limited edition of 500 was presented in a wooden box. special thanks to our friends Eddie Woods and Andrew McKenzie.

Master Musicians of Joujouka live in Paris 1980 download


Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Jack Sargeant ¨Who Let The Mice In?¨interview with Master Musicians and more

Who Let The Mice In?

A variant of this appeared in the Fortean Times in 2007.

“THE GREAT GOD PAN IS NOT DEAD BUT ALIVE AND WELL AND LIVING IN THE LITTLE HILLS OF MOROCCO” – Brion Gysin
The Master Musicians of Joujouka are steeped in mythology. Introduced to the west through the artist, writer and beat affiliate Brion Gysin, who saw in their music an accompaniment to his ethereal paintings and the spinning hypnogogic magic of the Dreammachine. The music adding to the multi-coloured flashes that played across his eyelids as he sat facing the spinning Dreammachine - the only piece of art you look at with your eyes closed - the patterns transforming into shapes, the music taking him across oceans, to other worlds and transformed realities.

Lost Rolling Stone Brian Jones famously recorded the Master Musicians and in the ensuing years musicians ranging from Ornette Coleman to Bill Lazwell to the Islamic Diggers have collaborated with the villagers.
The Master Musicians’ music echoes back through generations, intimately linked to the village community, culture, and their saint the Sufi mystic Sidi Achmed Scheich, who one-thousand years ago heard in their music and circular breathing techniques melodies that could cure illness. As Master Musician Abdelslam Eertoubi states, "Joujouka has the sanctuaries of four saints. If you have a bad back or sore bones you visit Sidi Ghari's tomb and lie on the stonewall. This will help. My family are descended from Sidi Achmed Schiech who founded the village a long time ago. This is his land. He is the Cultivator with Lions and Healer of Crazy Minds. He used a lion to plough the land. People still come if they are disturbed in the mind and we play music of Sidi Achmed Schiech for them. They sit in his sanctuary and it helps them.”
Read Full piece on Jack´s Blog Here

Thursday, August 6, 2009

Naked Lunch @50 special event in Chicago in support the new documentary William S. Burroughs: A Man Within directed by Yony Leyser

Please support this important event.

Please join Academy Award Nominee, actor Peter Weller for an evening of art, readings, happenings and performances to support the new documentary William S. Burroughs: A Man Within directed by Yony Leyser. It will feature a rare exhibition of William Burroughs' paintings and drawings on paper, and a special preview screening of the documentary trailer.

5:30 pm to 9:30 pmFriday, August 28, 2009 TH!NKART SALON 1530 N. Paulina, Suite F, Chicago, IL Map it!


Live music by Maya Jensen Sumptuous cuisine catered by Chef Daniel Mejia

Open bar serving Burroughs' special elixirs
FEATURING LIVE PERFORMANCES AND READINGS BY: -

Peter Weller Star of David Cronenberg's film Naked Lunch (1991) -
Penny Arcade Andy Warhol Superstar, Writer and Performance Artist
-
Anne Waldman Poet & Co-Founder (with Allen Ginsberg) of The Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics
-
Hal Willner Musical Director, Saturday Nigh Live,
recorded Burroughs, Dead City Radio (1990) -
James Grauerholz William S. Burroughs Estate Executor-
John Girono Poet, Giorno Poetry Systems -
John Long Author, Drugs and the Beats -
Kurt Henner Author, Encyclopedia of Beat Literature -
Tony Trigilio Author, Allen Ginsberg's Buddhist Poetics -
Dr. Bill Ayers Distinguished Professor, University of Illinois at Chicago-
Davis Schneiderman Editor, Retaking the Universe: Williams S. Burroughs in the Age of Globalization
,

More at www.burroughsthemovie.com/fundraiser

AFTER PARTY WITH LIVE MUSIC 9:30 pm Penny Arcade, David Daniell & Douglas McCombs (Tortoise, Thrill Jocky, FPP), and DJs at the STOP SMILING Storefront Open Bar 1371 N. Milwaukee Ave. Chicago, IL Just Around the corner from Th!nkArt in Wicker Park The spirit of William S. Burroughs will come to escort you over. TICKETS ! Donations in support of the documentary, accepted online at http://cimmfest.org/ for $60 or at the door for $75. Price includes main event and after party. For more information call 773.252.2294. SPACE IS LIMITED, RESERVE YOUR TICKETS TODAY!More at www.burroughsthemovie.com/fundraiser

See also the Official Naked Lunch @50 web site http://nakedlunch.org/events/chicago/


Wednesday, July 29, 2009

41st Anniversary of Brian Jones recording Master Musicians of Joujouka


Today, 29 July 2009, is the 41st Anniversary of Brian Jones recording the Brian Jones presents the Pipes of Pan at Joujouka (Rolling Stones Records 1971) by Master Musicians of Joujouka.
Brought to Joujouka by Mohamed Hamri the mentor of the Master Musicians and artist Brion Gysin, Brian along with a small group of friends and George Chkiantz, a recording engineer arrived in Joujouka to record the Master Musicians of Joujouka ritual music.

Our thoughts today are with the families and friends of all the great musicians no longer with us who recorded that day.

Last year Master Musicians of Joujouka organised a special festival to commemorate the 40th Anniversary. The performances were all recorded and preparations for releasing this music are well advanced.


Slide show of Master Musicians of Joujouka Brian Jones 40th Anniversary Festival 29-10 July
2008.




Slideshow of Master Musicians of Joujouka Festival 5-7 June, 2009.



The oldest musician in Joujouka who recorded with Brian Jones is Mallim Ali Abdeslam Attar.


Mallim Ali Abdelsalm Attar reviews the press from Brian Jones 40th Anniversary Festival, at the MMOF Festival 5-7 June 2009.

Saturday, July 25, 2009

Video from Beat Hotel

Video from The Beat Hotel more at http://nakedlunch.org/events/paris/documents/

A short vignette capturing the unveiling of the plaque at the legendary Beat Hotel by Jean-Jacques Lebel.

With Eddie Woods - Oliver Harris - Jean Jacques Lebel - Lee Harris - River Styx

The Beat Hotel was a small, run-down hotel of 42 rooms at 9 Rue Gît-le-Cœur in the Latin Quarter of Paris, notable chiefly as a residence for members of the Beat poetry movement of the mid-20th century
Allen Ginsberg and Peter Orlovsky first stayed there in 1957 and were soon joined by William Burroughs, Derek Raymond, Harold Norse and Gregory Corso, as well as Sinclair Beiles. It was here that Burroughs completed the text of Naked Lunch [4] and began his lifelong collaboration with Brion Gysin. It was also where Ian Sommerville became Burroughs' 'systems advisor' and lover. Gysin introduced Burroughs to the Cut-up technique and with Sommerville they experimented with a 'dream machine' and audio tape cut-ups. Here Norse wrote a novel, Beat Hotel, using cut-up techniques [5]. Ginsberg wrote a part of his moving and mature poem Kaddish at the hotel and Corso wrote the mushroom cloud-shaped poem Bomb.

A big thank you to Lee Harris and River Styx

http://www.myspace.com/leeharrismeets...
http://www.myspace.com/riverstyxworld
http://www.nakedlunch.org

Full version to be screened at the Portobello Film Festival 2009 http://www.portobellofilmfestival.com


Thursday, July 23, 2009

1992 Here to Go Show poster / Master Musicians of Joujouka

The Here to Go Show was held in Dublin Ireland in 1992. It was a celebration of the life and work of Brion Gysin. The Master Musicians of Joujouka played most days during the festival. The below is poster for the show and advertises Master Musicians of Joujouka for Sept. 30th 1992. The concert was a benefit for Somalian Famine Relief held at the Project Arts Centre. In fact they played every night.
Here To Go poster medium

Photobucket


For full size image click here

The book in a box, Man from Nowhere Storming the citadels of Enlightenment with William Burroughs and Brion Gysin was published with 16 postcards of work by Gysin and Burroughs and photographs with personal tributes to Brion Gysin by Bill Laswell, William Burroughs, John Giorno, Ira Cohen, Terry Wilson, Keith Haring, Stanley Booth, Mohamed Hamri, Paul Bowles and more was published to coincide with the event.




















Naked Lunch at 50 press coverage

Press coverage of the Naked Lunch 50th in Paris can be found on Naked Lunch.org

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Master Musicians of Joujouka on Myspace

The Master Musicians of Joujouka Myspace page provides songs, videos and images of The Master Musicians of Joujouka. With over 72,000 song plays the Myspace page provides access to released and unreleased music from the Masters.
the first two tracks in the music player are two rough mixes of sections from the Boujeloud rites held last year in the village to commemorate the 40th Anniversary of Brian Jones's visit to Joujouka/Jajouka to record Brian Jones present the Pipes of Pan at Joujouka (Rolling Sones Records 1971).

The festival was a chance for musicians and their families as well as relatives of old masters now deceased to celebrate the rich history of Joujouka in music, dancing and song.
Mixing has advanced and the full release of the festival recordings is now at an advanced stage. Two films of the festival are also in production.

Visit the site The Master Musicians of Joujouka Myspace

Monday, July 20, 2009

Brion Gysin The Process first edition cover paintings by Hamri

Brion Gysin,hamri

Brion Gysin,Brion Gysin,hamri,hamri
The 1969 first edition of Brion Gysin's novel the Process featured two paintings by Hamri. The Moroccan painter was a constant in Gysin's life throughout his 23 years in Morocco. Hamri famously introduced Brion to the music and musicians of his mothers tribe The Master Musicians of Joujouka/Jajouka. The character Hamid in the novel is based on Hamri.
The first edition was published by Jonathan Cape, London in 1969.
large versions
front cover

and back cover

William S. Burroughs review of the Process

In 1959, Gysin wrote : ” Writing is 50 years behind painting.” He attributed this time lag to the fact that the painter can touch and handle his medium, whereas the writer cannot. The writer does not yet know what words are. He deals with abstractions from the source point of words. Few writers are even trying to establish tactile communication with words. Words are secret untouchable objects, is it not? Superstitious awe of one’s medium is crippling, and cripples fall behind. This cultivated distance from the medium also places writing behind film and TV, regardless of content. Unless writing can bring to the page the immediate impact of film, it may well cease to exist as a separate genre. We are no longer living in the 19th century. The omniscient author who can move into the past, the future and the minds of his characters is an outworn device.

In “The Process”, Gysin has eliminated the obtrusive explanatory author.

Read More http://niqnaq.wordpress.com/2008/02/24/burroughs-review-of-gysins-the-process/

Sunday, July 19, 2009

Photo Set from Master Musicians of Joujouka Festival 5-7 June 2009

Thanks to Joachim Montessuis and Gael for uploading this photo set of the Master Musicians of Joujouka Festival, 2009. they stayed in the house of Mohamed Hatmi AKA Boujeloud.

See full set here






































































































William Burroughs and Mohamed Hamri

William Burroughs painting sent as New Year card to Mohamed Hamri 1989

Hamri and I had first met him [Burroughs] in the hired gallery of the Rembrandt Hotel in Tangier in 1953, when he wheeled into our exhibition, arms and legs flailing, talking a mile a minute. We found he looked very Occidental, more Private Eye and Inspector Lee: he trailed long vines of Bannisteria Caapi from the Upper Amazon after him and old Mexican bullfight posters fluttered out from under his long trench coat instead of a shirt. An odd blue light often flashed around under the brim of his hat. (Brion Gysin Let the Mice In, p.8) See Oliver Harris on Rembrandt Hotel


William Burroughs on the video Destroy All Rational Thought which features Hamri and The Master Musicians of Joujouka, Brion Gysin, William Burroughs and more.

Feb 28, 1994
I have seen the Dublin videos and they look very impressive. I am sure the actual performance must have been a real knock-out.
We need more ‘diabolic music’ everywhere.
Not destroy all rational thought but put in proportion the 1/10 of the iceberg that appears above the water.
All best
William S. Burroughs

Saturday, July 18, 2009

Frank Rynne and the Master Musicians of Joujouka







Frank Rynne's
Membership card of Master Musicians of Joujouka/Jajouka/Jahjouka association.

Since 1994 Frank Rynne has been a member of the association of the Master Musicians of Joujouka/Serifya Association of the Master Musicians of Jahjouka/Jajouka/Joujouka. This membership carries with it the responsibilities and requirements to treat with and treat all fellow members equally. His representation of the Master Musicians of Joujouka in the West is an elected position and his views and actions are guided by the majority view of the Master Musicians of Joujouka/Jajouka/Jahjouka. It is not a relationship based on the contractual norms of the Western music business but rather, he is a fraternal member of the Master Musician's association.

This membership has set Rynne apart from other westerners who have produced the Master Musicians of Joujouka as he is accepted as an equal in the village but his designated and elected role has been to promote the Master Musician's music and to deal with people outside Morocco on their behalf.



Click on newspaper image below for actual article by Frank Rynne on his introduction to Master Musicians of Joujouka. Click links for text.


A Rolling Stone’s Moroccan odyssey

The Irish Times
22 Jul 2008

WHEN I FIRST visited Morocco in 1994, I took a one-way charter flight to Malaga and a ferry across the Straits of Gibraltar. On one side of the Straits were the burnt hills of Southern Spain, on the other the high colossus of the Rif Mountains. Soon I...read more...


The Guardian
29 May 2009: Article on Brian Jones 40th Anniversary Festival 2008 and Master Musicians of Joujouka Festival June 2009



Mojo Article on Master Musicians of Joujouka Brian Jones 40th Anniversary Festival
October 2008 OR click here for PDF of article with photos.

No Stone Unturned Frank Rynne and Bachir Attar interviewed re the controversy surrounding the reissue of the Brian Jones presents the Pipes of Pan Cd in 1995 from the Independent newspaper in the UK Friday, 21 July 1995

Past Masters from National Dubai March 6 2009. Though the Master Musicians disagree with many assertions in the article it is of interest as it is written by an unbiased journalist and musician Jace Clayton.


The Faded Myth of the Goat God
German report on the damage to Joujouka and its future caused by Bachir Attar's controversial activities. 2005

An Interview with Bachir Attar July 9th, 2008 Walrus magazine Claims by Bachir Attar with refutations by Frank Rynne speaking on behalf of the Master Musicians of Joujouka

No Stone Unturned by Philip Sweeney

No Stone Unturned Indpenedent Friday, 21 July 1995 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/no-stone-unturned-1592456.html
It's a place. Brian Jones went there in the Sixties. It's also a type of music. Now Joujouka is back, in more ways than one. It's all very confusing. By Philip Sweeney

PHILIP SWEENEY
Friday, 21 July 1995SHARE PRINTEMAILTEXT SIZE NORMALLARGEEXTRA LARGE
Did Brian Jones ever guess at what he had started when he made his way from the Minzeh hotel in Tangier some time in 1968 to a village in the Rif mountains, 100 kilometres to the south, to undertake what turned out to be his last recording project? Judging by contemporary accounts of Jones - stoned semi-comatose in Chelsea apartments, or playing non- existent basses on Covent Garden nightclub stages - the extent to which his imagination, and other aspects of cerebral activity, functioned was highly debatable.

The story of Brian Jones and Joujouka, and indeed of the phenomenon of Joujouka music itself, tends to rely heavily on extracts from a small bibliography: in the first place, a handful of pieces by Paul Bowles, William Burroughs, Brion Gysin and, to a lesser extent, Timothy Leary, and the unreliable but prolific newcomer Steven Davis, author of a 1993 novelisation Joujouka Rolling Stone. Tangier pioneer Bowles, composer and musicologist before writer, probably "discovered" the hermetic, hereditary Joujouka musician caste in the late 1940s, and introduced their sound to the painter and writer Brion Gysin when Gysin came over from Paris looking for a new direction to his life. Gysin was so knocked out by the musicians that he engaged a group of them as house band at the restaurant he opened in an old Tangier palace, the 1001 Knights. It was here that Burroughs, Leary, Joe Orton and countless other members of the beat generation, the ensuing rock generation, and assorted seekers after Tangier's drugs, homosexual liaisons and general eroticism encountered them.

It was Gysin who took Brian Jones to Joujouka to record the album released in 1971 as Brian Jones Presents the Pipes of Pan at Joujouka, and an account by Gysin novelised by Steven Davis has the Rolling Stone in Afghan coat, spending one night at the guest house in Joujouka, where he gasped in stoned premonition at the resemblance of a long-haired blond goat slaughtered for supper to himself, recorded a hasty approximation of the Joujouka's ceremonial music and left ecstatic to pore over the tapes and add electronic effects.

Evidently Jones's visit made an impression on the 400 or so villagers. William Burroughs's account of his visit five years later with the next celebrity recorder, the jazz saxophonist Ornette Coleman, features the refrain of a drummer named Berdouz: "Very good. Very good everything. Out of sight."

And here is the very same Berdouz, now a sprightly 80, sitting two musicians away from me in the circle of djellaba-clad figures in a Cotswold farmhouse, chuckling "very good" and doing Brian Jones in headphones impressions when I ask him for his recollection of the 1968 visit. Berdouz's real name, it transpires, is Mohamed Attar, and there are three more Mohamed Attars among the 13 musicians here, as well as a Mustapha Attar and a Bachir Attar. The latter, now leader of the group, but an eight-year-old apprentice drummer in 1968, is telling me how the Attar family inherited the gift of their unique music from an ancestor who emigrated from Persia centuries ago, and how impostors will stoop to changing their names to Attar to claim the status of a Joujouka musician. Bachir makes it very clear, in response to my questions on how to contact master musicians of Joujouka, that, whether I ask at the Hotel Central in Tangier or make my way up the track to the village itself, I must always specify in my enquiries the master musicians of Bachir Attar.

We are in the house of the film composer John du Pre, and the musicians are temporarily headquartered on an assortment of camp beds upstairs, partly because Du Pre is planning to use extracts of their music in his soundtrack for Fierce Creatures, the sequel to A Fish Called Wanda. In addition, they are touring Europe - Womad this weekend and the Queen Elizabeth Hall on Monday. And they have a new record out, but this is where things start to get confusing, not least for the British music press. Joujouka Black Eyes, just released, is, according to July's Mojo magazine, the new record from Bachir's group. But mention of this record to Bachir Attar brings snorts of indignation and much use of terms like "impostor" "rip off" and "hustler". Bachir Attar's Master Musicians of Jajouka's (sic, Bachir Attar claims the change of spelling is irrelevant) record is the re-release by Point Music of the original Joujouka record Brian Jones Presents etc. Of course, mention this project to people associated with Joujouka Black Eyes, and you'll get symmetrically indignant accusations of sharp dealing and skulduggery.

The two recordings feature the same instruments - ghita flutes and assorted drums - but are rather different in feel. Joujouka Black Eyes, recorded by an Irish musician named Frank Rynne in Joujouka during a lengthy stay this winter, is relatively restrained, with gentle solo passages, whereas The Pipes of Pan recording captures the wild blast of the full-spate Boujouloudia goat-god rituals which inspired so much purple prose from the beats. "Women... scream with throats open to the gullet, lolling tongues around their empty heads... More and No more and No! More! Pipes crack in your head," wrote Brion Gysin, and it's true Joujouka at times resembles nothing so much as a Scottish regimental pipe band running amok on a mixture of amphetamine sulphate, Special Brew and helium. ("How did you play at the 1001 Knights?" I asked Berdouz, trying to imagine Tangier socialites nibbling pastela aux pigeonneaux against such fiendish muzak. "After they'd finished eating," was the reply.)

What is the schism that has apparently divided Joujouka? From the morass of unverifiable claims and counter-claims, it would appear to centre around a shift of the external leadership of the Joujouka musicians towards Bachir Attar over the past decade, coupled with an argument over who may be counted a "master musician of Joujouka [or Jajouka]". "Only 19 practising musicians connected to my family," says Bachir Attar, who claims leadership was conferred on him by his father, the master Hadj Abdesalam Attar, before his death in 1981. "A much larger number, belonging to the regional Serifya Folklore Association, which signed the original recording contract with Brian Jones," claims Frank Rynne, co-producer of Black Eyes. "These are not real musicians, and many are not from the village, and anyway, I'm the president of the Folklore Association, if it exists," ripostes Bachir. "No, the president is Mohamed Hamri, who signed the original Brian Jones contract and painted the cover artwork, which is now dropped from the re-release sleeve," says Rynne. "We dropped Hamri's art because we don't want anything more to do with him," says Bachir. "We've got a new contract now, and he's a hustler." And so on. In the Cotswold farmhouse Boujeloud the goat-god sips his mint tea and lights another Marlboro. To be continued.

n Womad Festival, Rivermead, Reading (01734 591591) to Sunday; Monday, QEH (0171-928 8800); 'Brian Jones Presents' by the Master Musicians of Jajouka (Point Music) and 'Joujouka Black Eyes' by the Master Musicians of Joujouka (Le Coeur du Monde) on release

Academy of Everything is Possible



As well as helping restore peace and harmony in the village of Joujouka, the Academy of Everything is Possible has recently sponsored and hosted the Calligraffiti of Fire exhibition in London's October Gallery.

the web site www.briongysin.com, the official Brion Gysin portal is currently being upgraded

10%: file under Burroughs


















Track listing
DISC 1: BEATS:
1. William Burroughs Don't Play Guitar - Islamic Diggers
2. Divination One - Divination
3. 5 Ml. Barrel - Bomb The Bass (version)
4. Gazelle in the Desert - Scanner (mellow mix)
5. Ineffect - Material
6. His Name Is William Burroughs - Your Nemesis
7. Gazelle in the Desert - Scanner
8. Hashishin - Islamic Diggers
9. Cut Up - Brion Gysin
10. Radio Alamut - Islamic Diggers

DISC 2: BEAT:
1. Here to Go Blessing - Joujouka/Hamri
2. I Travelled Mostly on the Road - Herbert Huncke/Chuck Prophet
3. My Only Friend - Marianne Faithfull/The Master Musicians Of Joujouka
4. For Here to Go - William Burroughs
5. Dying on the Vine - John Cale
6. Remembering Brion Ira Cohen, Tery Wilson, Felicity Mason, Hamri, Trolley Bus
7. Sorcere's Apprentice, Terry Wilson
8. Visting Gysin's Studio - Paul Bowles
9. Liallah Ou Gnouai - Gnoua Brotherhood Of Marrakesh
10. Hassan in the City - Joe Ambrose
11. Little Goat God, The - Stanley Booth/Chuck Prophet
12. L'Aitaa (The Call) - The Master Musicians Of Joujouka
13. From Here to Go - Brion Gysin

Produced by Frank Rynne and Joe Ambrose

Not destroy all rational thought but put in proportion the 1/10 of the iceberg that appears above the water.
All best
William S. Burroughs

Friday, July 17, 2009

John "Hoppy" Hopkins Exhibition London

John “Hoppy” Hopkins: Against Tyranny exhibition of photographs is at the Idea Generation Gallery, 11 Chance Street, Bethnal Green, London until 19th July 2009, admission free.

INTERNATIONAL TIMES LAUNCH ONLINE ARCHIVES

THURSDAY 16TH JULY 6.30 - 8.30, IDEA GENERATION GALLERY

To celebrate the launch of International Times online archive we are hosting a one-off event at the gallery. Featuring vintage copies of the International Times, an 'Against Tyranny' documentary screening and a live oil projection from Bardo Light Show, inspired by the legendary UFO club.

The event also provides one of the last opportunities to have a look at Hoppy's photographs and films, and we are also offering a 10% discount on prints bought throughout the evening.

Please RSVP to rachel@ideageneration.co.uk for more information

JOHN "HOPPY" HOPKINS: Against Tyranny

OPEN FROM 19TH JUNE - 19TH JULY.

We've had loads of great responses to Hoppy's previously unsung work, the Evening Standard have sealed their stamp of approval with a full 5 star review! See, http://tinyurl.com/l6klz4

Also, have a read of this for descriptions of Hoppy's underground photgraphs: http://www.notesfromtheunderground.co.uk/hoppy.html



http://www.ideageneration.co.uk/generationgallery.php



From http://www.monkey-picks.blogspot.com/

Thursday, July 16, 2009

The Devil on 45 Issue 4 Out Now with report on Brian Jones 40th Anniversary in Joujouka/Jajouka


The Cave of Boujeloud , Joujouka, 29 July 2009 photo Marc English





Boy with harmonica Cave of Boujeloud by Marc English taken at Brian Jones 40th Anniversary Festival in Joujouka

The fanzine The Devil on 45 edited by Ed on 45 is out now. Ed journeyed to Morocco last year to attend the Brian Jones 40th Anniversary Festival in Joujouka with photos by Marc English. This is a true zine and deserves your support. Issue three was a special on the Delta Blues. Thanks Ed.
The long awaited Fourth Issue of ‘The Devil On 45’ Zine hit’s the streets on the 10th of July 09. The Devil On 45 focuses on the more unusual side of music/music culture. From the strange to the controversial to the outright banned, The Devil On 45 pays homage to the wonderful and weird world of music and art. This issue is 76 pages, A4, photocopied and not one single advertisement.!

In This Issue:

The Master Musicians Of Joujouka - Your humble editor’s Journey to Joujouka, Morocco to hear the Master Musicians play the music of Boujaloud.

Heavy Metal In Baghdad - An Interview with Eddy Moretti - Co-creator of Vice Magazine and director of Heavy Metal In Baghdad - The Story of Iraq’s only metal band Acrassicauda.

An Interview with Marie Korpe and Ole Reitov from Freemuse.Org, An organisation dedicated to supporting freedom of speech for Musicians worldwide.

In League With Satan - The Malaysian Black Metal Ban - An in-depth article focussing on the suppression and outright ban on Black Metal in Malaysia, featuring interviews with banned musicians.

An Interview with InPlainSite.Org - An Christian organisation dedicated to eradicating all forms of ‘satanic rock music’ including Christian Rock itself!

Brotherhoods Of Breath - Moroccan Sufi Trance Today by Joe Ambrose (author of Chelsea Hotel Manhatten, Gimme Danger: The Iggy Pop Story and Moshpit Culture)

An Outer Space Music Fantasy - Welcome To Meeksville - A look into the strange life and tragic death of the legendary Joe Meek, engineer and producer.

For Those About To Pop, We Salute You! Part Two: The Diasopric Gem Clusters by Boz Mugabe - Part Two of this looks into pop gems from the Surfaris through to Sandie Shaw and Public Image Ltd.

Turn On, Tune In, Drop Dead - Some Hallucination Induced Thoughts on Albert Hofman, LSD, Psychedelia and Hypocritical Society.

The Devil’s Music - Rock n’ Roll’s Romance With The Occult - From Robert Johnson, to Jimmy Page to Genesis P-Orridge, musician’s liaisons with the prince of darkness.

The West Memphis Three - Injustice in Arkansas, background to the case and more information on how you can help.

The Spook Of The Thirteenth Lock - An insightful interview with the future of Irish rock/folk

An Economic (and Economical) History Of The MP3
*** Plus almost 20 pages of Original art/cartoons etc.

76 A4 Pages,
Copies can be obtained by post Standby for further information on stockists, distro’s and direct sales.
www.myspace.com/thedevilon45
Email: thedevilon45@yahoo.ie
Post: Don45/ PO Box 10967/ Rutland Place/ Dublin 1

Monday, July 13, 2009

Naked Lunch at 50 Plaque unveiling at the Beat Hotel part 3 video and morel



Paris was the first stage of a series of events and happenings to mark the 50th Anniversary of the publication of William Burrough's novel Naked Lunch by Olympia Press. Jean Jacques Lebel and the proprietress of the Hotel Vieux Paris formerly the Beat Hotel unveil the Plaque commemorating William Burroughs, Brion Gysin, Sinclair Beiles, Allen Ginsberg, Peter Orlovsky and Ian Sommerville. Ian developed the Dreamachine with Brion Gysin. The Beat Hotel was the birthplace of Brion Gysin's Cut Up Method of writing adopted by William Burroughs to terrorise fiction from the morass that descended on it after James Joyce.

The event was a rare opportunity for old friends to gather and new friends to form acquaintances in the spirit of and in homage to the artists, thinkers and practitioners who inhabited the hotel which lodged the seminal thinkers who have inspired the the 60s counter-culture, punk rock, the Internet age and so much more during the 1950s and until 1963 when the hotel ws changed forever.

We are all indebted to the organisers Ian McFayden and Oliver Harris and all those who participated in the conference organised in conjunction with University College London and Keale University which took place at the British Council building at Invalides.
Eddie Words reading 9 Rue Git le Couer by Harold Norse, who passed away in June, in
invocation at the Beat Hotal 1 July 2009. Pic Frank Rynne

For more images and video visit Naked Lunch@50 and don't forget the events in Lawrence, Kansas, New York, and San Francisco and more.
If you are organising an event in your home town please contact nakedlucnh.org and let them know.

For more images and videos of the events please visit the official Naked Lunch@50 site
To keep up to date on William Burroughs events and writings visit realitystudio.org

For the Interzone blogspot and community click here

More on this blog from the Paris Naked Lunch@50 events click Plaque Unveiling at Beat Hotel and for symposium downtime and the Last Words of Hassan Sabbah click here

More photos here soon.

Sunday, July 12, 2009

Mallim Ali Abdelsalm El Attar the oldest musician from Master Musicians of Joujouka/Master Musicians of Jajouka at 100


Mallim Ali Abdeslam El Attar at The Brian Jones 40th Anniversary Festival, Joujouka , Morocco, 29 July 2008.
Photo copyright Jill Furmanovsky/Rockarchive


The oldest musician in Joujouka is Mallim Ali Abdeslam El Attar. Mallim is the name given to a true master of music and Mallim Ali is known as the Master of Joujouka to all. He is the oldest musician from Joujouka and the oldest Attar in the village.

Last year he presided over the Brian Jones 40th Anniversary Festival in Joujouka as he did at this year's festival in June. The reverence shown to him by the Masters is evident when they arrive at the musician's house in Joujouka. His presence is always something to be appreciated as a blessing. He is the spiritual leader of the musicians by virtue of his age, his wisdom and his adherence to the saint, Sidi Ahmed Scheich, whose blessings he attributes his longevity to.

At nearly 100 year of age Mallim Ali has had a hard life. In 1936 he was conscripted by General Franco into the Spanish colonial army and was forced to fight in all the battles in the Spanish Civil War. This was an experience that many his generation of Sufi masters in Joujouka endured. He was retained in Spain until the end of World War II and then returned to his native Morocco without pay or pension.

From 1945 onwards he continued to play with The Master Musicians of Joujouka and was a veteran of Hamri's efforts to support the village by bringing the musicians to play on the trains between Ksar El kebir and Tangier, in the International Zone. This was the Interzone of William Burrough's fiction. In the 1950s he played at Brion Gysin and Hamri's restaurant, the 1001 nights in Tangier. This is where William Burroughs first saw the Master Musicians perform. He recalls his playing for Brian Jones with humorous glee. However a sadness also descends on Mallim Ali when he recalls those days to people. He always insists on naming the great masters who played with him who are now dead.

Last year, award winning rock photographer, Jill Furmanovsky, made a series of portraits of Mallim Ali which were published in the Onelife magazine. Other photographs by Jill of the Brian Jones 40th Anniversary Festival in Joujouka have appeared in The Guardian, Dazed and Confused and Mojo . The festival was celebration by the village of jaoujouka/Joujouka of brian Jones visit to record an LP in 1968. The resulting LP "Brian Jones presents the Pipes of Pan at Joujouka" was the first release on Rolling Stones Records in 1971. A small selection of her images from the Brian Jones Festival are available on The Master Musicians Myspace.

This June I brought copies of the magazine to the village and the day before the festival and on 4 June 2009, I presented Mallim Ali with a copy. In the below slide show you can see Mallim Ali looking at the magazine and I really like the photo I took of him with Jill's photo open on a magazine page with his full page portrait. Michael Pollock and his son Marlon were on the porch and Master Musicians Mohamed Mockshan and Radi El Kahil arrive and greet the Master. It is obvious in the photos the reverence that the Masters have for Mallim Ali. I always bring several tubes of prescription eye ointment for him as he has severe eye pain and discomfort. He always blesses me for this small gesture.
Mallim Ali Abdeslam El Attar and Frank Rynne discuss Brian Jones and the recording of Brian Jones presents the Pipes of Pan at Joujouka, (Rolling Stones records 1971) for Zac Assemakis's film on the Brian Jones 40th Anniversary Festival in Joujouka. 29 July 2008.
Photo copyright Jill Furmanovsky/Rockarchive

The day I left Joujouka in June he called me to one side and asked me where was the money gone from the Brian Jones recording and the other records he played on such as the Master Musicians of Jajouka record that Joel Rubiner put out in 1974 and Ornette Coleman's "Dancing in My Head" .


Sadly the answer is not a mystery as other posts on this blog have revealed. Cherie Nutting , her ex husband Bachir Attar and Joel Rubiner, who runs a successful business in New Mexico selling Moroccan leather, have the answers. Philip Glass's label Point Music reissued the Brian Jones LP in 1995 and no one thought to consult or include Mallim Ali or the other Masters and their families in the remuneration that ensued.






Words and Photos copryright Frank Rynne
Pics of Mallim Ali and Frank Rynne taken by Marlon Pollock