The Master Musicians of Jajouka @ Kennedy Center
The Master Musicians of Jajouka with Bachir Attar. Photo by Cherie Nutting, from group website.
The Master Musicians of Jajouka were “discovered” by Beat-generation writer Brion Gysin, and later visited by Brian Jones and Timothy Leary on their lysergically-inclined wanderings around Morocco in the 1960s. Leary famously remarked that he had "found" a “four thousand year old rock and roll band” in the foothills of the Rif Mountains below Tangier. While the group's history remains contentious and questions about their roots still linger (Philip Schuyler's article "Joujouka/Jajouka/Zahjouka" gives the most comprehensive account) and while they’re hardly rock and roll, Leary’s sense of time lapse was appropriately and unsurprisingly apt: when the Master Musicians lock into a groove, minutes quickly turn to hours and hours to minutes.
This was certainly the case last night at the Kennedy Center’s Eisenhower Theater, where Bachir Attar and the Master Musicians played to a full house as part of the ongoing Arabesque Festival. The band cycled through about 9 songs in about 90 minutes, but some bled into others and parts of each could’ve fit seamlessly just about anywhere in the set. The band is comprised of four drummers (most playing the tbel) and four or five players on the oboe-like ghaita, with occasional work from Attar on the lotar, similar to a lute. These ghaitas opened the show with a thick, nasally drone and stayed there for several minutes. Eventually one carved out a lead part, floating in and out of the blaring wall of ghaita, and suddenly it was easy to see how Leary and Co. could get from this to “Tomorrow Never Knows” in just a few short moves.
The set’s different selections undoubtedly ran together for some of the crowd -- probably the portion that got up and walked out in the middle of songs -- and each required a little patience. But in terms of acoustics, the Eisenhower Theater is a great space for this kind of music. Four (occasionally six) different but intertwined drum parts come through loud and clear and, as you try to follow one drummer in particular, you find that the unified pounding that keeps gathering momentum is the product of very different parts. There are times when it doesn't seem like they're even playing the same song, but the trance-like state relies on the band working those disparate strands into a unified thread.
This was vividly on display during "55" (Hamza oua Hamzine), the group's oldest tune, played early in the set. With the double-sided drummers banging out a steady march, Attar led the group's other half in a series of hypnotic ghaita wails that built steadily but never hit a crescendo. There were moments, too, that would've been right at home on the latest Animal Collective record, and others that came off like a Moroccan talkin' blues, albeit at near warp speed. The latter closed out the show with the group on its feet and each member taking a turn out front soloing and cajoling the crowd with a variety of handclaps and hip shakes. If the song (or the hip shakes) didn't quite take off like it should have, it could've been because the audience never quite let go enough to join in the fun or even keep a steady beat while clapping along. Shame, too -- the Master Musicians may be around for another 4000 years, but they don't play in your backyard too often.