Biography
Drawn from the Attar clan of music makers near Morocco’s Rif mountains, Joujouka is a small hilltop village growing figs and olives which boasts unexpected musical treasures. The members of the deeply religious enclave specialise in the lira, a seven hole flute constructed from cane, and rhaita, a reeded horn, much like the oboe, played via a cyclic breathing or ‘zkir’ technique which produces unbroken lines of sound. They are eight quite elderly practitioners (or m’allem, which translates as master), and only blood relatives of the Attar clan are allowed entry in to their circle. Instead of working the fields as their neighbours do, they are paid by surrounding hamlets to play during Friday prayers. These performances are stated by custom to bring a deity’s pleasure and a panacea for sickness and poor crops. They are currently led by hereditary spokesman Bachir (son of 60s/70s leader Hadj Abdaslam Ahmed Al-Attar), though they do not...
Read the Full Biography of The Master Musicians Of Joujouka
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