Jajouka is a small village built on a hill in northern Morocco. 300 people live there. There's no running water -- and electricity was only recently introduced. The village's main claim to fame is the local music band. It's called the "Master Musicians of Jajouka." The group has been around for hundreds of years -- achieving notoriety well beyond its home village. But this Moroccan institution almost stopped playing in recent years. It's current leader is trying to keep the band going. Ursula Lindsey visited the village of Jajouka and sent us this report.
The Master Musicians of Jajouka play traditional Moroccan instruments. One is the ghaita. That's an oboe that produces a shrill, electrifying sound.
Jajouka musicians also play flutes, drums, and a three-stringed lute called a guembri.
Musicians of Jajouka have been playing for centuries. There used to be as many as fifty musicians in the group. The whole village would gather to hear them play as part of a healing and fertility ritual.
Today, only ten musicians are left. Their leader is Bachir Attar. He lived and worked for years in Paris and New York. Now he's back in Morocco. Attar comes off as a Western rock star with his wild and curly hair, his Converse sneakers and his lazy drawl. But Bachir's heart has always been here, in Jajouka. Bashir sits on the porch of his house. His fellow musicians have just killed a goat that they'll eat later. Guests are served endless cups of sugary tea.
Jajouka used to play for the sultans of Morocco. Then in the 1950's, they became the house band in a nightclub in Tangiers. That's where they were "discovered" by members of the Beat Generation, such as writer Paul Bowles and painter Brian Gysin. Soon, counterculture icons like Timothy Leary and William Burroughs were heading to Jajouka.
Bachir wasn't yet five years old when one of the original members of the Rolling Stones hiked up the dirt path to the village.
Bachir: "The first musician who comes here is Brian Jones, then he died. He comes in '68, then he goes. He was fired from the Stones, or something. I was a child at that time. I remember him with his long hair and shaking his head with the music. He was excited, like very, very happy."
Jones died a month after he visited Jajouka. But the Rolling Stones posthumously released his album, "Brian Jones Presents the Pipes of Pan at Jajouka."
Jajouka reunited with the Rolling Stones in 1989. The band played on the song "Continental Drift."
Bachir and Jajouka have collaborated with other Western musicians, including jazz saxophonist Ornette Coleman. At his home in Jajouka, Bashir points to some photos of his famous friends.
Bachir: "This is with Steven Tyler. This one with Mick Jagger in Tangiers. This is with Timothy Leary."
But almost no one in Morocco knows about Jajouka. Their CD's are impossible to find here, and the band's future is uncertain. Children in the village would rather emigrate or go to college than be poorly paid professional musicians. Bachir says his current middle-aged group is probably Jajouka's "last generation" of musicians.
Bachir: "Life has changed. Forty years ago and now is not the same. Because now the kids they grow up, they go to school. When they grow up little bit, they want to grow up to be teachers, to have cars. When they grow up they see it's difficult for them. Not like me, I wasn't look for a job."
These days, Bachir's job is to keep the spirit of Jajouka alive. As the sun sets, Bachir's guests and musicians start to jam. At first everyone's happy to tap on glasses and table-tops. Eventually proper instruments appear.
Hours later, the moon is high in the sky. The musicians break for a late night meal of roast meat. Then, they resume their music making. The pipes of Jajouka will go on till dawn.
For the World, I'm Ursula Lindsey, in Jajouka, Morocco.
