26£

ecorde· uy aul ovles.

t Fez, orocco.
pte ber 5, 1959.
ndaluz l usic of ~ez.

Abdel rim ais, director (and rebab)

Op ning f .he ouba: "El Hgaz el cha qi".

(4 kamenjas, 2 o ds, rebab, darbouka, tar , vocal soloist and chor~s)

h's as a test iecordiP hich ~s not s ppo~ect to be kept,

but given t e fact that Anda11:_{ sic of q:J -Lty is the most d.Licult
of all to find and the most e, 1sive to ~ecord, I dia not erase it
a ·ter a d. se uently bdel rim ais e anded 600 (fin lly re -
duced to 500) to play one noub • The piece here presented cost 50 ,
hie is already a fair lar e sum in ioroccan currency . Andaluz
masic is much in demand for weddings and parties in general , which
explains the relatively la ge ms the d · r· ctors of orcli str s are
ab e to co1 ~. and . Tl-J.e orocc ns are very m ch a· are th t this is t e · r
only tr e art-m sic, and value it accordingly.
The Andaluz m1sical literature consists of eleven noubas , near-
ly all of hich were in existence lon~ before t1e Mo~occans ere
ejected from Spa·n at the end of the Fifteent Century . Tne texts
ere •ritten byte poets in vo ue at various times during the oc-
cupation of Spain, ich laste rou hly seven centuries (from the
Ninth throu h t e f~ ~teenth.) ach ~ as conce·ved of as cor-
esponding to a part·cular bodily humo (ve y much in accordance with
the "'ediaeval uropea·1 'dea of t'he h..imo s.) urtl:J.ermore , each noub
is•c "posed in a mode si·table to a · f rent time of day , and eac
nouba consists of five sections. 7b generic term for one of these
sections is misane . A misane ·s subdivided into an indeterminate
number of parts , each of ~hich is a complete piece; there i a sense
of progre ion and continuity , ho ever, in these separate pieces if
they are perfo med in sequence . ~b tradition is oral and has been
kept intact unt·1 no~ . At the moment there ·s a tendency (a deplor-
able one, in my op.nion) to evitalize" And luz music by introducing
c mpletely extraneous instruments such as the piano , the clarinet
and t 11e saxonhone . The example on this tape , however , is holly trad-
itional. (The electric cu rent fa'led briefly t~ice during theses ion~
27A
Recorded by aul o le~.

At Fez, Morocco.
September 25, 1959.
nualuz lSic of Fez.

Abde krim ais, iirector (and rebab)

Selections from the fouba: "El gaz el charqi".

L Overt; re
2. Openin of ~isane oddam
3. Bi taine Ramdane"
1

4. Conclusion: "To l-ttia"

(4 kamenjas, 2 ouds, ~ebab, da bouka, tar, vocal soloist and chorus)

Abdelkrim Rais recorded these selections ·n a room of the usee

du Batha ·n Fez, only after extensive arran ements made by telephone
with the gover1ment in abat. mhere as an extraordinary atm sphere
of secrecy an i tri~ue connected vith the arrangements for recording
Andaluz music in Fez, something ~hich I had not met in any
form until then. A special adv:sor: had to be sent from the capital
before any recordin s could be made. It ~as he 1ho set the prices,
the hours, the laces and the conditions for reco ding. He also spec-
ified that each time Abdelkrim's n me was mentioned in print, the fol-
lo ing ords nust be added: "through the courtesy of t e Services des
.onuments Hi;:itoriques, des Arts et du Folklore, Conserva to ire de Fes."
The mode in r..rhich the nou 11
:.il H az el charqi" is composed is
one for use at midday. aturally, since it o ld take some ten or ele-
en hours to play through one nouba, only small parts of ny given ~

are erformed at one time; the most which is ever done is a complete
misane. This I heard in Fez in 1931, but it is not the custom nowadays
to perform anything hich goes on for such a lon~ time witnout a bre k.
A an experiment, I played 26B and 27A, perfo e at about an
hour's interval, simaltaneously on t~o different tape-recorders, and
as astonished to find that for long periods they sounded as one. In
certa·n spots the tempo of 27A is slightly faster; otherwise they are
identical in every respect, save of cour e that 26B contains only the
Overture and a part of the o ening of t e misane " oddam'' •
7
cor d y o les
t ez, o occo.
be ; , 5 •
c of t o t e jebala

alem o a d ·ati n mble.

Taqtoqa Jabaliya ( gaz)

guinbris, ~en atchn, d rb ~ a, c orus)

r t t ing not·c a o t t e ten en o for t is

e le vhen ey f "led into t e r c r ing room at the u ee du
B tha was that they were xactly the sam men to horn I used to lis-
ten ·n 1947 and 1948 on 1 r"day nights when tney gave regular concerts
·n a other art of the palac • ~ sho d say that at t1a time the av-
era e age of t e me ber o · the roup as 55; no they r t e. ve
years older, n no ne fac s have be n added. I made o"nt of
ing ·r they d any yon m n bein tr ined as replace en ; the e-
ply ~as in the negative.
This i e sent.ally j bala mu~ic, but jebala usic ~ c a
had long contact ith the civ·1 z"n in luence of the city of Fez.
The people f Fez consider it "country' mus·c, and they are ri nt;
nevertheles no country m . · c has t 1e anorous richness of this
country music arranged for c'ty peo~le!s taste. Comp re the Aaita
j baliya bel Kamenja (no. 1 o 14B , for ·nstance. in com are
particularly the Djavalia £1_ me nja, (no. 1 of 18A), wh"ch is also
a ta to a in or rudimentary form. (rnhe fina sect·on of taato a
~

provides an o o tunity or Drov·sat·o bove an organ point on

each note of the ortr,inal seal .) The f ult I have to find w"th th
this present ta_e ·s that 1e 11 cp cialist" brou ht f ·om
abat cut sno t t e ot rwi lengt y fir t section of the p"ece, for
reasons best no~n to hi self, nd t ereby ruined thee 'libr·um of
the tagtoqa's form. efore t e song has ev n establish d "tself, e
ar~ already into the final sect"on. ~ne sonority, ho ev r, ·s grat·-
fying. I cno of no other music in orocco he e the guinbri i~ treat-
ed with such ser o sness. here are three types used here: the ajouj,
t e f..£ ak ~ , nd t 80 e tchn n re finger c·m als, the
s me th t i fraout ar calle ne.
27B, continued.

ate: The apparent ortho ranhical chaos:(djebaliya 14B; djavaliya, 18A;

djebeliya, 2lB; jabaliya, 27B) is a result of my phonetic transcription
of re ional (and possibly personal) variations on the adjective de-
riving from the word for mountain.