Healing music from Morocco

The Splendid Master Gnawa Musicians of Morocco
Verve through Polygram
Reviewed by Jenny Long This album, recorded in the La Mamounia Hotel in Marrakesh, explores the musical aspect of the Gnawa brotherhood of Islam, and the Gnawa's links with their African ancestors' music and spiritual beliefs. The Gnawa originally came as slaves from sub-Saharan Africa and west Sudan. After conversion to Islam, they looked to the marabout (holy man) Sidi Bilal, an Ethiopian slave reputed to have been the first muezzin (caller to prayer). Members of the Gnawa confraternity, as the number of participating mu'alems (master musicians) of different cities reflects, are spread throughout Morocco but are concentrated in Marrakesh. They hold healing ceremonies, often involving animal sacrifices, to relate to the spirits inhabiting a person or place, and to extol god and the spirits of the saints. Colours and particular notes, played on the guinbre, a three-stringed lute made of goat gut, are used to treat people — from the psychologically disturbed to those suffering from scorpion sting. The singing and guinbre are accompanied by castanet-like instruments — garagab — which beat out a trance-inducing rhythm, and by clapping. This recording drew together nine musicians, some very old, from Moroccan cities to each sing their own song. According to Randy Weston, the African-American jazz musician who jointly initiated the project with Tangier mu'alem Abdellah Al-Gourd, the songs are about particular saints and the history of Bambara, the ancient Gnawa civilisation. Another mu'alem involved, Ahmad Boussou, ascribed Weston's musical connection to the common African roots of both Gnawa and African-American music: "The exodus of black people during the age of slavery transported Gnawa ritual to both America and the North African Maghreb".