The Master Musicians of Joujouka

The Master Musicians of Joujouka

The Master Musicians of Joujouka are a Sufi trance ensemble from Jajouka in the southern Rif Mountains of Morocco, in the Tanger-Tetouan-Al Hoceima region. Active since 1950, the group is associated with reed, pipe and percussion music built on drones, improvisation and complex rhythms. Their performances are often described as producing a trance state through the force of the flutes, rhythm and repeated patterns.

Origins and early Western attention

The group’s music reaches Western audiences through the Beat generation. Painter and folklorist Mohamed Hamri, whose mother is from the Attar family of the village, brings Brion Gysin to Jajouka. Gysin then introduces William S. Burroughs to the village. Burroughs describes the music as the world’s oldest and refers to the musicians as a “4000-year-old rock and roll band”.

In Tangier, Gysin and Hamri found the 1001 Nights restaurant, and the musicians play there throughout the 1950s to a largely Western audience. When Rolling Stones guitarist Brian Jones visits Morocco in 1968, Gysin and Hamri take him to the village to record the ensemble for Brian Jones Presents The Pipes Of Pan At Joujouka, with cover artwork by Hamri. The album is later reissued on CD as Brian Jones Presents The Pipes Of Pan At Jajouka.

Recording history and line-up

A second LP appears in 1974 under the name The Master Musicians of Jajouka. After the death of Hadj Abdesalam Attar in 1982, leadership passes to his son Bachir Attar, who records with a new generation of musicians under the name The Master Musicians of Jajouka, also credited as The Master Musicians of Jajouka featuring Bachir Attar.

Other members of the original group continue as The Master Musicians of Joujouka, led by Ahmed Attar on the Sub Rosa label. The current line-up listed for this group includes Ahmed Attar, Mohamed El Attar, Mustapha El Attar, Abdeslam Boukhzar, Abdeslam Errtoubi, Muiner Mejdoubi, Radi El Khalil, Abdullah Ziyat, Mohamed Mokhchan and Ahmed El Bouhsini.

Name and identity

Until the 1990s, The Master Musicians of Joujouka is synonymous with The Master Musicians of Jajouka, but it later becomes a separate recording group. Both Joujouka and Jajouka refer to the same village tradition, which remains central to the group’s identity and repertory.