Ouled Bambara: Portraits of Gnawa

Caitlin McNally, who produced this CD/DVD package, writes: ‘In early 2005, I headed to Marrakech, Morocco with a camera, a head full of conversations about Gnawa music, and not much else’. Well at least she’s honest, because from the DVD it looks like she’s barely used a camera before, and certainly doesn’t know how to make a documentary. If you’re going to include an accompanying DVD, surely it needs to tell you something about the context of the music and the musicians? What we have here is three snippets of interview and three performances, not very well shot and poorly recorded in Marrakech. The only way it supplements the CD is to show what these three musicians look like in action.

The CD, however, is far better. The disc’s title Ouled Bambara translates as children of Bambara, and refers to the Gnawa’s origins in sub–Saharan Africa. It features Brahim Belkani, Hassan Zougari and Mohamed Hamada (the three musicians on the DVD) plus Abdelkbir Marchane and Ahmed Baqbou. They are all respected maalem (Gnawa masters) and players of the sonorous plucked gimbri. The bluesy, soulful music is taken from the traditional lila repertoire of all–night ceremonies and includes songs in praise of Allah and the Prophet and then trance songs dedicated to various djinns or spirits – a Gnawa speciality. The gimbri playing is strong and sinewy and it’s accompanied by fantastic handclapping and often by the sound of the sersara (metallic shaker), which is preferable to the clacking metal krakesh that make so many Gnawa recordings almost unlistenable. There are good notes about the music too. The best recent recording of traditional Gnawa repertoire is Accords Croises’ Gnawa Home Songs (2007), but those wanting to dig deeper will undoubtedly enjoy this.