BRIAHIM JONES JOUJOUKA VERY STONED....

In the run up to the 40th anniversary celebrations of Rolling Stone Brian Jones recording The Master Musicians of Joujouka, I spoke with Frank Rynne and Ahmed Attar briefly about the planned Festival in Joujouka marking the occasion. All details and booking information are on The Brink, the website of The Master Musicians of Joujouka, hesterGlock and many other places.

What does this anniversary mean to the village of Joujouka?
Ahmed Attar : I was a twelve year old learning drumming with my father and the Mallims. Brian Jones was very good. My father played rhiata with and for him and I danced and played my drum. He came with Hamri and Brion Gysin. He had long hair and he rubbed my head. He brought a lot to Joujouka. Besef Baraka. We will mark the 40th Anniversary of his village here in Joukouka to honour Brian Jones and to let people come to Joujouka and see what it is like here for themselves. It is good to feel the Baraka of Sidi Ahmed Scheich. Joujouka is his country. He is the Cultivator with Lions and Healer of Crazy Minds.
Frank : Brian Jones went more than once to Joujouka. Hamri told me that he had brought Jones there a least three times. Brian also heard Joujouka musicians when he used to visit the second 1001 Nights in Aisliah in 1967. When he finished the recording he obsessed about getting it mixed and released. He was obsessed with the Master Musicians of Joujouka and really tried to help them out of their poverty.

Tell me some more about what the guests can expect?
Frank : The guests will stay with families in the village. They will be treated to a day and night in the company of the Master Musicians of Joujouka in their home village. Hearing them play ceremonially in the open air on the top of a little hill is absolutely unique. In the afternoon the musicians will play the Sufi healing music of their patron saint and guests may visit his 8th century sanctury in the village. Sheep will be sacrificed and perhaps a white goat like on the night Jones was there. All food will be sourced locally and there will be full board including a feast. There will be ample vegatarian options. All the food will be traditional Joujouka recipes. The musicians will then play until they decide to stop. The Master Musicians of Joujouka will perform the Boujeloud Rite or the Rites of Pan into the night.

Will this enable the musicians to raise their profile and play some shows in europe perhaps?
Frank : The musicians would like to play to outside guests in this way to show them their homes and hospitality so that they can see how things really are in Joujouka. By doing a festival everything can be done properly and to their satisfaction so that everyone feels the great positive energy of the village, its people and music. It is important to preserve the music for them to reach an audience.They are looking forward to playing outside Morocco in the fall. The Master Musicians also think it is a good thing to hold a festival which helps the community directly. These festivals with foreign guests are rare in Joujouka. One that is still talked about is the time when Ornette Coleman arrived in the middle of winter and it rained for weeks back in January 1973. Something like 70 tripped out jazzsters up there for three weeks in the mud trying to record Ornette and Joujouka. There was a roaring trade in Wellington's .

How does the village of Joujouka keep the historic recording with Brian Jones and Bryon Gysin all those years ago within their shared culture and his/herstory?
Frank : The musicians and the villagers are bound to Brian Jones. The song Hamri wrote in his honour "Briahim Jones Joujouka Very Stoned" has become a standard played at every wedding, feast, concert and session. Many of the musicians either saw or met Jones. They know that Hamri brought many people to his village to hear the Master Musicians of Joujouka going right back to the early fifties before that he took them to Tangier to earn a living playing. Bowles was the first Beat related visitor but he hated it. Brion Gysin took the musicians to his heart and him to theirs. William Burroughs is remembered very fondly but Brian Jones spent his last years working for them, trying to get the record perfect. I think he replicated the sound he heard in his ears, in his head when they blasted insanely loud rhiatas and pounded the drums in the open air in the Ahl Srif. About ten years ago I was asked by a very old musician who was near death, "Where is Brian Jones?" I told him he was dead. He shook his head sadly and said "It's a shame. Brian Jones was good"

To book tickets go here.

The Master Musicians of Joujouka album Joujouka Black Eyes is the soundtrack for the Brion Gysin Dream Machine on show as part of the exhibition entitled; Cut-Outs and Cut-Ups : Hans Christian Andersen and William Seward Burroughs The Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin until June 29th. More details are here.