Additional limited number of 10 tickets released for Master Musicians of Joujouka Festival 3-5 June

Master Musicians of Joujouka perform at the festival in their village – returning this summer. Photo by Syd Howells

More tickets released for the festival in Morocco this summer following postponement of previous sold out edition scheduled for 2020 due to the global pandemic.

The Master Musicians of Joujouka have announced that a very limited number of 10 additional places will be available for the festival in their village in Morocco this summer.

The extra spaces are available from the sold out 2020 edition of the festival that was postponed due to the global Covid-19 pandemic from those sadly now unable to attend the rescheduled dates.

The news follows the recent announcement that the Master Musicians of Joujouka will host their first festival in the village in three years after a two-year break due to international travel restrictions around the pandemic.

The dates for this year’s festival are Friday, 3rd to Sunday, 5th June and the event is limited to just 50 spaces.

Tickets are 460 euro and include collection (3rd June) and drop off (by midday on Monday, 6th June) from and to the nearest city, Ksar El Kebir, and accommodation and meals throughout the festival.

Flights to Morocco are currently available – check listings for rates. Ksar El Kebir is accessible by train from all major cities in the country.

Use the link below to pay a deposit of 120 euro for of full ticket price you can select the number of places you require.

Master Musicians of Joujouka festival 2022

Everyone with tickets who planned to attend the 5-7 June 2020 festival has been contacted regarding the postponed event. If you need advice contact joujouka@gmail.com

Since 2008 an annual festival has been held in Joujouka in memory of the visit of Brian Jones. The last festival before the Covid-19 pandemic was A Requiem for Brian Jones in 2019.

Read Suzanne Gerber’s report from the 2015 edition of the festival published in Rolling Stone: Inside the Oldest, Most Exclusive Dance Party in the World

One year on since the release of Live in Paris – selected press clippings compiled

Listen to the epic double LP set ahead of this summer’s festival in Joujouka.

When the Master Musicians of Joujouka released Live in Paris one year ago the album provided much needed healing sounds during the height of the global Covid-19 pandemic.

At the time of the album’s release in April 2021 the Master Musicians had spent much of the previous year in lockdown and had been unable to work since March 2020.

The album recorded live at Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris was released by Unlistenable Records and available as a double vinyl gatefold set, limited edition cassette and download.

Live in Paris was released 50 years since their first LP Brian Jones presents the Pipes of Pan at Joujouka was released on Rolling Stones Records.

Read selected feedback compiled from press clippings for the record at the following links:

“These performances feel like a mythic transmission from antiquity… If you haven’t yet been able to attend the Master Musicians’ annual festival at home in Joujouka, this is the next best thing.”

Daniel Spicer review published in Songlines, November 2021 edition

 

“The Master Musicians of Joujouka are the greatest live band on the planet… They play for hours and the musicians and often the audience enter into some kind of ecstatic trance. It’s music that heals the soul… This is the closest you can get to experiencing them live yourself.”

Bob Baker Fish reports for Cyclic Defrost

 

“This pristine recording is the first to showcase the music with the appropriate fidelity. Within its intensity, Joujouka music is filled with nuance. Live in Paris captures the deep overtones of the drums, the gentle breathiness of the wooden lira flute, and the intergalactic wail of the double-reed ghiata pipes. Listeners can hear this music in all of its sonic and spiritual heft, roughly approximating the sound of a performance in the village.”

“It all has to do with baraka”

Brian Bowe reports for Aquarium Drunkard

 

“This album features the original Joujouka group and was recorded at a 2016 concert that was part of a Beat Generation exhibit at the Centre Pompidou in Paris. It begins with five relatively concise pieces running between four and nine minutes each, but concludes with a massive 44 minute performance of “Boujeloud”, a ritualistic suite performed in tribute to the god known elsewhere as Pan.

“Lead vocalist Abdeslam Boukhzar and backing vocalist Mustapha El Attar have died since this performance, which only adds to the feeling that one is hearing something not only ancient, but somehow imperilled. But when the music is surging and roaring around you, it’s hard to feel anything but thrilled and alive; somewhat surprising, given its desert origins, it can feel like being swirled around in the ocean.”

Phil Freeman in The Wire, July 2021 edition

 

“I’m confident in saying that nothing has kicked out the jams quite as emphatically as “Live in Paris,” which captures a 2016 concert at the Centre Georges Pompidou, held as part of an exhibition dedicated to the Beat Generation.

“Short of catching the group live, this is trance music in its purest form―sounds to lose yourself in, surrender to― and my only criticism of the vinyl edition is that you have to turn the damn thing over halfway through.”

Read the report by James Hadfield in full translated in Japanese and English at Ele-King

 

“Everyone was on their feet in the hall and by the end we had about 50 to 60 people on the stage. And the only two bands who have ever done that to the Pompidou were Suicide in the late 1970s and the Masters in 2016!”

Live In Paris producer and Master Musicians of Joujouka manager Frank Rynne talks to Harry Sword for The Quietus

 

“There are no side effects to this musical medicine – just a kind of bliss that makes the body and soul function at their highest potential.”

Mark Kidel for The Arts Desk

 

Live in Paris ad featured in The Wire

Frank Rynne, Master Musicians of Joujouka manager and the record’s producer, said: “Having worked with the Masters for nearly three decades I was holding off on producing a new LP until I was sure we could overcome the difficulties in recording this music where the group go from unearthly quiet tranquillity to being the loudest folk band on the planet. Live in Paris has achieved that. It is the first Joujouka album that has both perfect low-end drums and the delicate high end of the lead rhiata. It’s the best Joujouka album so far. This has been a testing time with the group’s live performances and the planned collaborative tour of Japan with The Orb postponed due to Covid-19. It’s time for this music.”

Ahmed El Attar, leader of The Master Musicians of Joujouka, said: “This is the best we have ever sounded on a recording. After a year of Covid lockdowns we are delighted to offer this healing music and pray it will help some people.”

Live in Paris is available now from all good record shops. Listen on Bandcamp

This summer the Master Musicians of Joujouka welcome guests to their village home in Morocco for the first time since 2019. The dates are scheduled for 3-5th June. For more information and booking visit here

Brian Jones at 80 – Remembered in Joujouka

Remembering The Rolling Stones guitarist who would have turned 80 today.

Picture of the scene at the close of the A Requiem for Brian Jones festival held in Joujouka, June 2019 – Brian Jones is said to have sat on the rock overlooking the Rif Mountains while listening to the Master Musicians of Joujouka during his visit to the village

On 28th February, The Master Musicians of Joujouka remember The Rolling Stones founder member and lead guitarist Brian Jones who would have turned 80 today.

In Summer 1968 Jones visited Tangier and travelled to Joujouka where he recorded the Master Musicians of Joujouka – released on the LP Brian Jones Presents The Pipes Of Pan At Joujouka.

Since 2008 to commemorate the 40th anniversary of Brian Jones’ visit to the village the Master Musicians of Joujouka staged an annual festival in his honour – the most recent was A Requiem for Brian Jones in 2019.

Last year marked 50 years since the release of the Brian Jones Presents The Pipes Of Pan At Joujouka album.

The original LP, and first available recordings of the Master Musicians of Joujouka, was the first release on Rolling Stones Records on 8th October 1971 – with cover artwork featuring a painting of Jones placed in the centre of a group of Master Musicians by Mohamed Hamri.

Talking about the recordings, Jones said: “What exists here is a specially chosen representation of the type of music which is played and chanted during the festival. The pieces and therefore the climaxes are necessarily shortened and when one considers that many of these chants continue for hours and hours, one will realize this necessity.

“Anyway we hope to have captured the spirit and magic of Joujouka.”

Many of the current group had fathers and relatives involved on the record. Group leader Ahmed El Attar was aged 10 when Jones visited Joujouka and played the role of a dancer at the time of the recordings.

The music presented on Brian Jones Presents The Pipes Of Pan At Joujouka is still played by the current group of Master Musicians Of Joujouka playing in the village to this day.

Versions of some of the tracks can be heard on the recently released Live in Paris LP on Unlistenable Records – including ‘Brian Jones Zahjouka Very Stoned’ written by Mohamed Hamri in his memory.

Listen to ‘Brian Jones Zahjouka Very Stoned’ from Live in Paris

More news soon

Read more about Brian Jones and the Master Musicians of Joujouka:

Remembering Brian – Brian Jones still revered in Joujouka

Brian Jones Presents The Pipes Of Pan At Joujouka album released 50 years ago today

Brian Jones in Morocco & in the studio published in Ugly Things

Top