Moroccan guys in the 70s who wanted to big up traditional music in a mainstream kind of way. Much of the music on this tape is gnawa in spirit, which really just means it’s sublime, occasionally trance-inducing magic. The shadowy drum machine is killing me and therefore makes Jil Jilala’s effort pretty major in my book.
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I love these guys.
A related post http://crudcrud.blogspot.com/2009/12/morocco-iii.html
Many thanks, especially for this one.
I bought a single (i.e. vinyl 45) of Jil Jilala sometime in the early seventies having heard it in some army camp in the desert. It still gets played!
The group sang an anti-King Hassan song at one point and were jailed, but the public made such a fuss that everyone had to kiss and make up.
Good to see their name on the Internet!
For Jil Jilala lovers. I posted a nice cassette few month ago (7/02/09) @ http://aduna.free.fr/aduna.blog/blog.htm
Thanks for this one.
thank you
nice blog.
I don’t think there were any 707’s in the 70’s though…
Sez wikipedia:
“Contrary to Nass El Ghiwane, who were primarily influenced by the Gnawa music, Jil Jilala took their inspiration from other form of traditional Moroccan music like the Malhun, sung in a classical and old form of Moroccan Arabic, or the spiritual music of Jilala, a traditional sufi brotherhood. The goal of these groups was the rejuvenation of traditional Moroccan music.”
I saw them live 2 years ago. They are great!