Brian Jones Presents the Pipes of Pan at Joujouka
Encyclopedia
Brian Jones Presents the Pipes of Pan at Joujouka was an album produced by Brian Jones
of the Rolling Stones
. The album was a recording of the Moroccan group the Master Musicians of Joujouka, in performance on 29 July 1968 in the village of Jajouka
in Morocco
and released on Rolling Stones Records
, and distributed by Atco
in 1971. Jones called the tracks "a specially chosen representation" of music played in the village during the annual week-long Rites of Pan Festival. It was significant for presenting the Moroccan group to a global audience, drawing other musicians to Jajouka, including Ornette Coleman
.
The album was reissued in 1995. The executive producers were Philip Glass, Kurt Munkasci, and Rory Johnston, with notes by Bachir Attar
, Paul Bowles
, William S. Burroughs
, Stephen Davis, Jones, Brion Gysin
, and David Silver. This deluxe album included additional graphics, more extensive notes by David Silver and Burroughs, and a second CD, produced by Cliff Mark, with two “full-length remixes.”
first heard music from the area with American writer Paul Bowles
at a festival in Sidi-Kacem in 1950. Entranced with the music's sound, he later was led to the village to hear the music in person by Moroccan painter Mohamed Hamri
. Gysin, along with Hamri, brought Brian Jones to hear the village music in 1968.
The album's music included songs meant for the village's "most important religious holiday festival, Aid el Kbir". The festival's ritual of dressing a young boy dressed as "Bou Jeloud, the Goat God" wearing the "skin of a freshly slaughtered goat", involved the child's running to "spread panic through the darkened village" as the musicians played with abandon. Gysin connected the ritual, performed to protect the village's health in the coming year, to the fertility festival of Lupercalia
and the "ancient Roman rites of Pan"; he referred to the Bou Jeloud dancer as "Pan" and "the Father of Skins". This name stuck, leading to the reference to Pan in the album's title.
Jones, recording engineer George Chkiantz, and Gysin travelled to the village in 1968, accompanied by Hamri and Jones's girlfriend Suki Potier to record the musicians using a portable Uher recorder. Jones worked on the two-track recordings in London, adding stereo phasing, echo, and other effects. Jones edited the full-band selection to 14 minutes by "cross-phasing fragments of a work that runs to some ninety minutes in uncut form".
The album included three types of music: repetitive vocal chants "similar to those employed throughout Islam", flute and drum music featuring "several distinct melodic motifs and improvisations over a drone" played by two flutists and several drummers, and the full village orchestra's drum and horn music played to accompany the "frenzied dance of Bou Jeloud, a Moroccan Pan".
The New York Times
reviewer Robert Palmer reported that the call-and-response horn motifs are "handed down from generation to generation". Palmer, noting the "drumming rhythms are definitely African", paraphrased Gysin as connecting the musical origins to Spain, "from the Moorish courts of Cordova and Seville".
The cover illustration on the 1971 album was originally a painting by Mohamed Hamri depicting the master musicians with Brian Jones in the center. Jones edited the album and prepared the art work together with designer, Al Vandenburg. He put one of Hamri's son’s paintings on the inside cover. Jones finished producing the LP several months before his death in 1969.
Jones' ex-girlfriend Anita Pallenberg
said that Jones had wanted to incorporate the Jajouka sound into the music of the Rolling Stones. In the Jean-Luc Godard
movie Sympathy for the Devil
, Rolling Stones drummer Charlie Watts
is seen playing a Jajouka drum during a rehearsal.
's Musidor by Point Music. A new 1990s photo of Bachir Attar, by his wife and manager American photographer Cherie Nutting, replaced Hamri's original painting of Brian Jones and the Master Musicians of Joujouka which Jones had chosen as his cover. It also included in a side bar a photo of the late Jones by Michael Cooper as well as further contemporary photos of and a "Bou Jeloud" dancer by Nutting. The CD's album title changed to "Brian Jones Presents The Pipes of Pan At Jajouka" to tie in with The Master Musicians of Jajouka led by Bachir Attar. The name Master Musicians of Jajouka was used on the Master Musicians of Joujouka's second album due to contact conflicts. While the original vinyl album consisted of "two untitled, unbroken LP sides", the reissue separated the songs into six tracks with titles. The reissue cut the Master Musicians of Joujouka out of their rights and resulted in international protests organized by Frank Rynne and Joe Ambrose at concerts by Bachir Attar in London, New York and San Francisco as well as Philip Glass concerts in London and elsewhere. Brion Gysin's original sleeve-notes were altered to remove all reference to the central role that Hamri played in introducing him to the music of the village.
A Brion Gysin
illustration decorated an essay by Paul Bowles in the liner notes. The CD's executive producers were Philip Glass
, Kurt Munkacsi, and Rory Johnston. Brian Jones was credited as producer.
The multi-page booklet also included reminiscences and edited essays about the original band written by Brion Gysin, (who died in 1986 and therefore was not consulted), David Silver, Stephen Davis
, William S. Burroughs
, Brian Jones
, and Bachir Attar
.
A "Joujouka" group, mentored by Hamri from the 1950s until his death in 2000, continued releasing records on Sub Rosa Records, using their original name, Master Musicians of Joujouka as used on the 1971 release and Mohamed Hamri's Tales of Joujouka
. And the group The Master Musicians of Jajouka led by Bachir Attar continues to record music and now issues CDs on their own label Jajouka Records, in addition to performing on regular tours and recording music for film scores.
In 1995 Frank Rynne
and "art-terrorist" and writer Joe Ambrose using Mohamed Hamri launched an international campaign demanding their interest in their recording with Brian Jones be recognised and that the re-release be withdrawn from sale until their concerns were addressed. The group led by the second youngest son of Hadj Abdesalam Attar still perform under the name Master Musicians of Jajouka led by Bachir Attar, recording the song "Continental Drift" in Tangier with the Rolling Stones on the Steel Wheels album in 1989. Led by Attar's son and successor, as band leader Bachir Attar, also released soundtrack recordings under the Jajouka name and album recordings under the name Master Musicians of Jajouka Featuring Bachir Attar in the 1990s and 2000s. According to Bachir Attar the Master Musicians of that early group were led by tribal chief Hadj Abdesalam Attar. Rikki Stein who managed the Master Musicians of Joujouka/ Master Musicians of Jajouka noted that in 1971 the leaders of the musicians were Mohamed Attar, known as Berdouz, who led the drummers and Mallim Fedal who led the pipers. This throws doubt on the claim that Hadj Abdelsalm Attar was leader, tribal or otherwise, in the late 1960s or early 1970s. However, Rikki Stein has since pointed out that there were regular elections held amongst the musicians and their supporters, who were also permitted to vote. In the late sixties and early seventies Hadj Abdelsalam Attar was, effectively, the 'Rais' (President) of the Al Sarif Folklore Association created collectively by the musicians of Jajouka, and was widely recognised as being Jajouka's greatest musician. Subsequently, though, in the early seventies elections were held and Maalim Fedal was elected Rais and continued to retain that title, certainly until the European tour organised by Rikki Stein in 1980.
Brian Jones
Lewis Brian Hopkins Jones , known as Brian Jones, was an English musician and a founding member of the Rolling Stones....
of the Rolling Stones
The Rolling Stones
The Rolling Stones are an English rock band, formed in London in April 1962 by Brian Jones , Ian Stewart , Mick Jagger , and Keith Richards . Bassist Bill Wyman and drummer Charlie Watts completed the early line-up...
. The album was a recording of the Moroccan group the Master Musicians of Joujouka, in performance on 29 July 1968 in the village of Jajouka
Jajouka
Jajouka, Joujouka or Zahjoukah is a village in the Ahl-Srif mountains in the southern Rif, Morocco. The mountains are named after the Ahl-Srif tribe who populate the region.-The musical heritage:...
in Morocco
Morocco
Morocco , officially the Kingdom of Morocco , is a country located in North Africa. It has a population of more than 32 million and an area of 710,850 km², and also primarily administers the disputed region of the Western Sahara...
and released on Rolling Stones Records
Rolling Stones Records
Rolling Stones Records is the record label formed by The Rolling Stones members Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Mick Taylor, Charlie Watts and Bill Wyman in 1970, after their recording contract with Decca Records expired. They were first distributed in the United States by Atlantic Records subsidiary...
, and distributed by Atco
Atco
-In Canada:*ATCO, an engineering company**ATCO Electric, a subsidiary of the above company-In the United States:*Atco, Georgia, a community in Bartow County*Atco, New Jersey, a community in Camden County...
in 1971. Jones called the tracks "a specially chosen representation" of music played in the village during the annual week-long Rites of Pan Festival. It was significant for presenting the Moroccan group to a global audience, drawing other musicians to Jajouka, including Ornette Coleman
Ornette Coleman
Ornette Coleman is an American saxophonist, violinist, trumpeter and composer. He was one of the major innovators of the free jazz movement of the 1960s....
.
The album was reissued in 1995. The executive producers were Philip Glass, Kurt Munkasci, and Rory Johnston, with notes by Bachir Attar
Bachir Attar
Bachir Attar is the leader of Master Musicians of Jajouka led by Bachir Attar. He is the son of Hadj Abdesalam Attar who led the group Master Musicians of Jajouka at the time of their groundbreaking album produced by Brian Jones.- Attar as the leader of The Master Musicians of Jajouka :Bachir...
, Paul Bowles
Paul Bowles
Paul Frederic Bowles was an American expatriate composer, author, and translator.Following a cultured middle-class upbringing in New York City, during which he displayed a talent for music and writing, Bowles pursued his education at the University of Virginia before making various trips to Paris...
, William S. Burroughs
William S. Burroughs
William Seward Burroughs II was an American novelist, poet, essayist and spoken word performer. A primary figure of the Beat Generation and a major postmodernist author, he is considered to be "one of the most politically trenchant, culturally influential, and innovative artists of the 20th...
, Stephen Davis, Jones, Brion Gysin
Brion Gysin
Brion Gysin was a painter, writer, sound poet, and performance artist born in Taplow, Buckinghamshire.He is best known for his discovery of the cut-up technique, used by his friend, the novelist William S. Burroughs...
, and David Silver. This deluxe album included additional graphics, more extensive notes by David Silver and Burroughs, and a second CD, produced by Cliff Mark, with two “full-length remixes.”
Background
Painter/novelist Brion GysinBrion Gysin
Brion Gysin was a painter, writer, sound poet, and performance artist born in Taplow, Buckinghamshire.He is best known for his discovery of the cut-up technique, used by his friend, the novelist William S. Burroughs...
first heard music from the area with American writer Paul Bowles
Paul Bowles
Paul Frederic Bowles was an American expatriate composer, author, and translator.Following a cultured middle-class upbringing in New York City, during which he displayed a talent for music and writing, Bowles pursued his education at the University of Virginia before making various trips to Paris...
at a festival in Sidi-Kacem in 1950. Entranced with the music's sound, he later was led to the village to hear the music in person by Moroccan painter Mohamed Hamri
Mohamed Hamri
Mohamed Hamri , commonly known as Hamri, was a self-described Painter of Morocco. He was a Moroccan painter and author and one of the few Moroccans to participate in the Tangier Beat scene....
. Gysin, along with Hamri, brought Brian Jones to hear the village music in 1968.
The album's music included songs meant for the village's "most important religious holiday festival, Aid el Kbir". The festival's ritual of dressing a young boy dressed as "Bou Jeloud, the Goat God" wearing the "skin of a freshly slaughtered goat", involved the child's running to "spread panic through the darkened village" as the musicians played with abandon. Gysin connected the ritual, performed to protect the village's health in the coming year, to the fertility festival of Lupercalia
Lupercalia
Lupercalia was a very ancient, possibly pre-Roman pastoral festival, observed on February 13 through 15 to avert evil spirits and purify the city, releasing health and fertility...
and the "ancient Roman rites of Pan"; he referred to the Bou Jeloud dancer as "Pan" and "the Father of Skins". This name stuck, leading to the reference to Pan in the album's title.
Jones, recording engineer George Chkiantz, and Gysin travelled to the village in 1968, accompanied by Hamri and Jones's girlfriend Suki Potier to record the musicians using a portable Uher recorder. Jones worked on the two-track recordings in London, adding stereo phasing, echo, and other effects. Jones edited the full-band selection to 14 minutes by "cross-phasing fragments of a work that runs to some ninety minutes in uncut form".
The album included three types of music: repetitive vocal chants "similar to those employed throughout Islam", flute and drum music featuring "several distinct melodic motifs and improvisations over a drone" played by two flutists and several drummers, and the full village orchestra's drum and horn music played to accompany the "frenzied dance of Bou Jeloud, a Moroccan Pan".
The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
reviewer Robert Palmer reported that the call-and-response horn motifs are "handed down from generation to generation". Palmer, noting the "drumming rhythms are definitely African", paraphrased Gysin as connecting the musical origins to Spain, "from the Moorish courts of Cordova and Seville".
The cover illustration on the 1971 album was originally a painting by Mohamed Hamri depicting the master musicians with Brian Jones in the center. Jones edited the album and prepared the art work together with designer, Al Vandenburg. He put one of Hamri's son’s paintings on the inside cover. Jones finished producing the LP several months before his death in 1969.
Jones' ex-girlfriend Anita Pallenberg
Anita Pallenberg
Anita Pallenberg is an Italian-born actress, model, and fashion designer. She was the romantic partner of Rolling Stones multi-instrumentalist and guitarist Brian Jones and later the partner of the guitarist of the same band Keith Richards, from 1967 to 1979, by whom she has two surviving...
said that Jones had wanted to incorporate the Jajouka sound into the music of the Rolling Stones. In the Jean-Luc Godard
Jean-Luc Godard
Jean-Luc Godard is a French-Swiss film director, screenwriter and film critic. He is often identified with the 1960s French film movement, French Nouvelle Vague, or "New Wave"....
movie Sympathy for the Devil
Sympathy for the Devil (film)
Sympathy for the Devil is a 1968 film shot mostly in color by director Jean-Luc Godard.- Plot summary :...
, Rolling Stones drummer Charlie Watts
Charlie Watts
Charles Robert "Charlie" Watts is an English drummer, best known as a member of The Rolling Stones. He is also the leader of a jazz band, a record producer, commercial artist, and horse breeder.-Early life:...
is seen playing a Jajouka drum during a rehearsal.
1995 Re-release
In 1995, a CD reissue of the album was issued. It was licensed from Allen KleinAllen Klein
Allen Klein was an American businessman, talent agent and record label executive. His clients included The Beatles and The Rolling Stones.- The accountant :...
's Musidor by Point Music. A new 1990s photo of Bachir Attar, by his wife and manager American photographer Cherie Nutting, replaced Hamri's original painting of Brian Jones and the Master Musicians of Joujouka which Jones had chosen as his cover. It also included in a side bar a photo of the late Jones by Michael Cooper as well as further contemporary photos of and a "Bou Jeloud" dancer by Nutting. The CD's album title changed to "Brian Jones Presents The Pipes of Pan At Jajouka" to tie in with The Master Musicians of Jajouka led by Bachir Attar. The name Master Musicians of Jajouka was used on the Master Musicians of Joujouka's second album due to contact conflicts. While the original vinyl album consisted of "two untitled, unbroken LP sides", the reissue separated the songs into six tracks with titles. The reissue cut the Master Musicians of Joujouka out of their rights and resulted in international protests organized by Frank Rynne and Joe Ambrose at concerts by Bachir Attar in London, New York and San Francisco as well as Philip Glass concerts in London and elsewhere. Brion Gysin's original sleeve-notes were altered to remove all reference to the central role that Hamri played in introducing him to the music of the village.
A Brion Gysin
Brion Gysin
Brion Gysin was a painter, writer, sound poet, and performance artist born in Taplow, Buckinghamshire.He is best known for his discovery of the cut-up technique, used by his friend, the novelist William S. Burroughs...
illustration decorated an essay by Paul Bowles in the liner notes. The CD's executive producers were Philip Glass
Philip Glass
Philip Glass is an American composer. He is considered to be one of the most influential composers of the late 20th century and is widely acknowledged as a composer who has brought art music to the public .His music is often described as minimalist, along with...
, Kurt Munkacsi, and Rory Johnston. Brian Jones was credited as producer.
The multi-page booklet also included reminiscences and edited essays about the original band written by Brion Gysin, (who died in 1986 and therefore was not consulted), David Silver, Stephen Davis
Stephen Davis (music journalist)
Stephen Davis is an American music journalist and historian.Davis was born in New York City and attended Boston University. He began his career writing for the Boston Phoenix in 1970...
, William S. Burroughs
William S. Burroughs
William Seward Burroughs II was an American novelist, poet, essayist and spoken word performer. A primary figure of the Beat Generation and a major postmodernist author, he is considered to be "one of the most politically trenchant, culturally influential, and innovative artists of the 20th...
, Brian Jones
Brian Jones
Lewis Brian Hopkins Jones , known as Brian Jones, was an English musician and a founding member of the Rolling Stones....
, and Bachir Attar
Bachir Attar
Bachir Attar is the leader of Master Musicians of Jajouka led by Bachir Attar. He is the son of Hadj Abdesalam Attar who led the group Master Musicians of Jajouka at the time of their groundbreaking album produced by Brian Jones.- Attar as the leader of The Master Musicians of Jajouka :Bachir...
.
A "Joujouka" group, mentored by Hamri from the 1950s until his death in 2000, continued releasing records on Sub Rosa Records, using their original name, Master Musicians of Joujouka as used on the 1971 release and Mohamed Hamri's Tales of Joujouka
Tales of Joujouka
Tales of Joujouka is a book by the Moroccan painter Mohamed Hamri containing eight stories featuring the legends, folkore and Sufi origins myths and rituals of the Master Musicians of Joujouka...
. And the group The Master Musicians of Jajouka led by Bachir Attar continues to record music and now issues CDs on their own label Jajouka Records, in addition to performing on regular tours and recording music for film scores.
In 1995 Frank Rynne
Frank Rynne
Frank Rynne is an Irish-born singer, record producer, art curator, film-maker, writer, and historian. He has played in three bands Those Handsome Devils in 1984, The Baby Snakes and Islamic Diggers . He has produced three CDs of Moroccan folk music by the Master Musicians of Joujouka...
and "art-terrorist" and writer Joe Ambrose using Mohamed Hamri launched an international campaign demanding their interest in their recording with Brian Jones be recognised and that the re-release be withdrawn from sale until their concerns were addressed. The group led by the second youngest son of Hadj Abdesalam Attar still perform under the name Master Musicians of Jajouka led by Bachir Attar, recording the song "Continental Drift" in Tangier with the Rolling Stones on the Steel Wheels album in 1989. Led by Attar's son and successor, as band leader Bachir Attar, also released soundtrack recordings under the Jajouka name and album recordings under the name Master Musicians of Jajouka Featuring Bachir Attar in the 1990s and 2000s. According to Bachir Attar the Master Musicians of that early group were led by tribal chief Hadj Abdesalam Attar. Rikki Stein who managed the Master Musicians of Joujouka/ Master Musicians of Jajouka noted that in 1971 the leaders of the musicians were Mohamed Attar, known as Berdouz, who led the drummers and Mallim Fedal who led the pipers. This throws doubt on the claim that Hadj Abdelsalm Attar was leader, tribal or otherwise, in the late 1960s or early 1970s. However, Rikki Stein has since pointed out that there were regular elections held amongst the musicians and their supporters, who were also permitted to vote. In the late sixties and early seventies Hadj Abdelsalam Attar was, effectively, the 'Rais' (President) of the Al Sarif Folklore Association created collectively by the musicians of Jajouka, and was widely recognised as being Jajouka's greatest musician. Subsequently, though, in the early seventies elections were held and Maalim Fedal was elected Rais and continued to retain that title, certainly until the European tour organised by Rikki Stein in 1980.
Track listing
- "55 ("Hamsa oua Hamsine)" – 0:58
- "War Song/Standing" + "One Half (Kaim Oua Nos") – 2:22
- "Take Me with You Darling, Take Me with You (Dinimaak A Habibi Dinimaak)" – 8:06
- "Your Eyes Are Like a Cup of Tea (Al Yunic Sharbouni Ate)" – 10:35
- "I Am Calling Out (L'Afta)" – 5:55
- "Your Eyes Are Like a Cup of Tea" (reprise with flute) – 18:04
- Titles come from Point Music reissue track listings as original vinyl release package had no titles
Further reading
- Davis, Stephen (2001). Old Gods Almost Dead. Broadway Books, ISBN 0-7679-0312-9, pp 135–137, 172, 195–201, 227, 248–253, 270, 354, 504–505.
- Jennings, Nicholas (October 12, 1995). Liveeye PREVIEW: The Master Musicians of Jajouka". Eye Weekly. (Retrieved February 6, 2007.)
- Palmer, Robert (October 14, 1971). "Jajouka: Up the Mountain". Rolling Stone, p. 43.
- Palmer, Robert (March 23, 1989). "Into the Mystic". Rolling Stone, p. 106.
- Palmer, Robert (December 19, 1971). "Music for a Moroccan Pan". The New York Times.
- Palmer, Robert (June 11, 1992). "Up the Mountain". Rolling Stone, p. 40.
- Wyman, Bill and Coleman, Ray Stone Alone, ISBN 0-670-82894-7 (London, 1990), p. 515
- Rondeau, Daniel "Tanger Et Autres Marocs". ISBN 2-84111-081-8 Ed. Nil January 1997