Mogador

Majid Bekkas Chant, guembri, guitar, oud
Serge Marne Percussion, drums
Rachid Zeroual Nei
Abdelkader Amlil Guembri, chorus
Hassan Zoutai Qarqabou, chorus
Abdessadek Bounhar Qarqabou, chorus

About

Some moments are magic. Some aspects of humanity are fortunate. Some music sets the heart in time. The music of Majid Bekkas is all that: magic, humane, profound. This record, his second, reflects that. It offers roots and openness, tradition and modernness.

He starts by offering us some beautiful traditional melodies in the broad and powerful style of his master, Ba Houmane, the mââlem* that taught him the essence of gnawa. Majid's voice joins that of his elder and all the gnawi** masters that have been connecting deepest Africa to the mysticism of the Orient.

Music and lay instruments - such as the guembri*** that is so rudimentary yet reveals such extreme beauty in the hands of Majid - create their own space and time. Another trip arrives. The blues. Jazz chords follow. We are in the universal. Roots lead towards the top, where the tree is biggest and the fruits the ripest.

So it's only normal that Majid Bekkas should continue, in this record as in his other recordings and concerts, to dialogue with the most talented musicians from the blues and jazz scenes. This is the case again on this record, as his group of gnawi from Rabat are joined by the pianist Charles Loos, the guitarist Paolo Radoni, trumpet player Flavio Boltro and the percussionist Serge Marne. A dialogue all the richer as Majid has, in addition to his traditional background, a solid musical knowledge and is a multi-instrumentalist (guembri, oud****, molo, guitar). Like the previous one "African Gnaoua Blues", this release consists of 5 traditional and 5 original composition

*Master crafsman
** Tribes that came from West Africa in the 16th century during the conquest of Timbuktu
*** A 3-string bass
****Arabic lute