1. Vintage photograph of a maalem and his little gnawa apprentices.

    Vintage photograph of a maalem and his little gnawa apprentices.

  4. Lila with Maalem Mustapha Bakbou - Mimouna.

  5. Lila with Maalem Mustapha Bakbou - Bangoro/Youbadi/Barma Lela Souta Nabi. The best of the best.

  6. Maalem El Makhzoumi Abdelatif - Hiriza. I love it. =)

  7. Maalem Mustapha - Moulay Brahim/Moulay Abdelah Belhsayen.

  8. Maalem Mustapha - Haya Jate Lala Aicha. 

  10. geneve-alger:

    Archie Shepp Quartet with Dar Gnawa - Dawn of Freedom

    Recorded with the Dar Gnawa of Tanger during a tour of France by the Archie Shepp quartet in 2003
    Archie Shepp, great musician of the free-jazz, and the group of Dar Gnawa, native of Tangier. In June, 2000, to the festival of Essaouira in Morocco, took place a first meeting between the saxophonist Archie Shepp and the group of musicians gnawa of the maâlem (master) Abdellah El-Gourd. The success of this experience which involved free-jazz and musics of trance with complex rhythms, aroused the desire of the other concerts in Paris. The group Dar Gnawa is composed of seven musicians and dancers. It plays the music of the mystic colleagues gnawa of Morocco which immortalizes the tradition of the ancient slaves native of Black Africa. Gnawa animates ceremonies, lilas, which are therapeutic rites steered by a master-musician, the maâlem, singer soloist and player of guembri, whom answer the choir, the castanets of metal and the percussions of members of the band.

    Archie Shepp
    sax

    Wayne Dockery
    bass Abdou El Gourd
    (Dar Gnawa) vocals, percussion Maalem Abdellah El Gourd
    (Dar Gnawa) vocals, percussion Abdelkader El Khlyfy
    (Dar Gnawa) vocals, percussion Tom Mc Clung
    piano Steve Mc Craven
    drums Khalid Rahhali
    (Dar Gnawa) vocals, percussion Noureddine Touati
    (Dar Gnawa) vocals, percussion
    from “Kindred Spirits Vol. 1”
    Label:Archie Ball

  11. newflags:

    Hassan Hakmoun - “Iarmame” (w/Don Cherry and Adam Rudolph)

  12. Da boys.

    Da boys.

About me

The ancestral memory (turath) of the displaced and enslaved people that were brought to Morocco is preserved mainly in their songs and dances.
For the Gnawa, the spirit world is inhabited by ancestral spirits who, among other spiritual creatures, can be used for either good or evil purposes. The gnawa have modernized their style. With these recent developments and their appeal to tourists, the Moroccan government in 1997 established The Gnawa and World Music Festival in Essaouira. This blog will be a representation of this musical style, the gnawa themselves, and a little bit of Morocco itself.

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