The cosmos has been graced by a new star - Maallem Mahmoud Guinia - gently shimmering in the distance. The master musician from Morocco passed away August 2, at the age of 64. One of the great voices of our time - the records he did with his family, but also with Pharoah Sanders or Peter Brotzmann, are forever seared into my soul. I don't think appropriate appreciation has been paid to just how influential Maallem Mahmoud Guinia and the Gnawas have been in the course of jazz, rock & modern music, so I urge you to tune in, even if the players listed in the tracklist below may not be familiar to you - the music is profoundly great and definitely worth an hour or so of your time. I for one am happy to have trod this earth while Maallem Mahmoud Guinia was here.
gnawa Noun (plural Gnawas or Gnawa) Any member of an ethnic group and Sufi religious order in Morocco. Origin From Arabic. The name appears to originate from the Saharan Berber dialect word aguinaw (agenaou), meaning black (men), perhaps itself derived from the name of a city significant in the 11th century, in what is now western Mali, called Gana, in Arabic Ghana or Jenna and in Portuguese and later French Guinea or Jenne.
This is one of the many versions you get while looking after a definition for the word "Gnawa" online, yet the precise origin of the word is still unknown, which reflects by default the influence of the various cultures that contributed to the creation of this group. I don't want to spread misinformation about the "Gnawa," nor copy-paste from the thousands of pages and links exploring a world and culture barely known to me or to the West, but I'll cite below some sources of information which I enjoyed reading in the past.
Far from Morocco, the word "Gnawa" appeared to me first in Wels, Austria, when Peter Brotzmann curated the incredible "Long Story Short" edition of the 2011 Music Unlimited Festival, inviting Maallem Mahmoud Guinia's younger brother, Maallem Mokhtar Guinia, to perform together in two different formations with Joe McPhee, Fred Lonberg-Holm, Michael Zerang, Bill Laswell and Hamid Drake. To say the least, I am forever grateful to Mr. Brotzmann for introducing me to this music. Fortunately for everybody who was not attending the Festival that year, the music is well documented on a 5 CD Boxset which is back in stock again at the Trost Label.
"The most important single element of Morocco's folk culture is its music.. the entire history and mythology of the people is clothed in song." Paul Bowles
After arriving home from the festival, I soon found this utterly amazing album from Maallem Mahmoud Guinia himself, from a performance he did at the same Festival 15 years before, with Peter Brotzmann & Hamid Drake, entitled "The Wels Concert," available via Catalytic-Sound. My first thought while playing it was "oh wow, more music of the highest calibre" and in fact, the more I listened to this album, the better and mind-bogglingly great it sounded to my ears. This was the start of an amazing journey for me. I hope you enjoy and if you feel like getting in touch, I'd be delighted to hear from you!
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Words & Mixtape by Kukyukuwai (Riccarda Kato // Kato Bookbird)
References (for further reading):
- Marcus Boon: Global Ear: Marrakech
- Moroccan Tape Stash
- Joshua Abrams: Represencing
- Gnawa: The Sound of Theory
- The Diaspora Aesthetics of the Moroccan Gnawa
- Traveling Spirit Masters
- Long Story Short curated by Peter Brötzmann
- Mos Def in Morocco
- Gnawa, Moroccan Blues: A Historical Background
Cover: "Hair ornaments of the Ziz Valley, Morocco". Photographer Unknown. Source.