Morocco

Records for the performers on the Music of Morocco recordings as noted by Paul Bowles in the field notes.

Music of Morocco: Performers

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black-and-white print

Performance of the Guidmioua Tribe

El Ferqa dial Guedra 

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<p style="margin-top:4.32pt;margin-bottom:0pt;margin-left:0in;margin-right:
0in;text-indent:0in;text-align:left;direction:ltr;unicode-bidi:embed;
mso-line-break-override:none;word-break:normal;punctuation-wrap:hanging">“The Music of this group was made
exclusively by means of voices accompanied by one drum. (See sheet 8B.) The two
numbers on this reel were presented as something clearly in the nature of a
prelude to the dance music which was to follow.”





 Source:&nbsp; Bowles, Paul F.&nbsp; "Goulimine." in&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="http://archnet.org/publications/10102">Folk, Popular, and Art Music of Morocco</a>. The Paul Bowles Moroccan Music Collection. Washington, DC: American Folklife Center, Library of Congress, 1959-1962.&nbsp;

7B.2 Rhna dial Malik

Hamadi Ben Boyout

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"To get to Goulimine it was
necessary a secure
a special
military permit issued 'in Agadir; the town was bombed in 1958 by Spanish
forces stationed
in Ifni.
It lies at&nbsp; the edge of the desert, south of
the Anti Atlas, near the southern tip of the enclave of
Ifni. In some respects
the Goulimine recording
session was a
thing
apart from the others. It took
place in a
private home,
the residence
of one Bechara, who
acted both as hostess and as impresario. Certain of the
girls (there
were seven
taking
part)
lived in the
house; the
others had to ' be sent for. Fortunately I had
been warned
beforehand to
record at night, as only then would the proper emotional state be
attained by performers. 








The entire spectacle, both visual and auditory,
is something quite apart from all the rest of Moroccan folk manifestations. The
costumes,
music and dance are those of Mauritania, and have been preserved more or less intact over an
indeterminate period of time. The music has no immediately discoverable relationship to the rest of Moroccan
music, either of Berber or Arabic origin; on the other hand, it can
readily be linked with the songs of both Ethiopia and the coastal regions of East Africa
where Swahili is the language. The dance, in contradistinction to the music,
is
subtly voluptuous
and of great refinement, yet wholly without an element
of personal expression. My feeling is that it was originally of hieratic character;
it still gives the watcher the sensation that he is witnessing a fragment of an
extremely antique culture. The guedra is
danced on the knees; the dancer never rises. Variety is attained through a host
of expressive gestures made with the fingers, hands, arms, shoulders and torso.
Up to within the
past five years the dance was performed with uncovered breasts; now the
authorities prohibit this, although I was assured that in the
nearby desert it was still done in the traditional manner. The original texts of the songs, like most of the rest of the folk
texts in Morocco, have been discarded under official duress, and political
texts substituted for them. This procedure, while an excellent form of unpaid
political advertising, conceivably could interfere with the musical
performance, particularly through lack of interest in the new subject-matter.
To circumvent such a possibility it is sometimes wise to distribute kif to
the performers. When the drug has taken over, as it were, the music becomes of far greater
importance than the words to the singer, and a portion at least of the natural
enthusiasm can be recovered. This session is a case in point. (There was no
government official present, and in this respect too, the session was unusual.)"





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Source: Bowles, Paul F.&nbsp; "Goulimine." in&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="http://archnet.org/publications/10102">Folk, Popular, and Art Music of Morocco</a>. The Paul Bowles Moroccan Music Collection. Washington, DC: American Folklife Center, Library of Congress, 1959-1962.&nbsp;

8A Track 2 Guennou Ouahib Bouir

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<p style="margin-top:4.32pt;margin-bottom:0pt;margin-left:0in;margin-right:
0in;text-indent:0in;text-align:left;direction:ltr;unicode-bidi:embed;
mso-line-break-override:none;word-break:normal;punctuation-wrap:hanging">“This is a group of singer-dancers directed by a woman known as Bechara. In number 1 the vocal solo is by 'Mahjouba'"<p style="margin-top:4.32pt;margin-bottom:0pt;margin-left:0in;margin-right:
0in;text-indent:0in;text-align:left;direction:ltr;unicode-bidi:embed;
mso-line-break-override:none;word-break:normal;punctuation-wrap:hanging"> 








"To get to Goulimine it was
necessary a secure
a special
military permit issued 'in Agadir; the town was bombed in 1958 by Spanish
forces stationed
in Ifni.
It lies at&nbsp; the edge of the desert, south of
the Anti Atlas, near the southern tip of the enclave of
Ifni. In some respects
the Goulimine recording
session was a
thing
apart from the others. It took
place in a
private home,
the residence
of one Bechara, who
acted both as hostess and as impresario. Certain of the
girls (there
were seven
taking
part)
lived in the
house; the
others had to ' be sent for. Fortunately I had
been warned
beforehand to
record at night, as only then would the proper emotional state be
attained by performers. 








The entire spectacle, both visual and auditory,
is something quite apart from all the rest of Moroccan folk manifestations. The
costumes,
music and dance are those of Mauritania, and have been preserved more or less intact over an
indeterminate period of time. The music has no immediately discoverable relationship to the rest of Moroccan
music, either of Berber or Arabic origin; on the other hand, it can
readily be linked with the songs of both Ethiopia and the coastal regions of East Africa
where Swahili is the language. The dance, in contradistinction to the music,
is
subtly voluptuous
and of great refinement, yet wholly without an element
of personal expression. My feeling is that it was originally of hieratic character;
it still gives the watcher the sensation that he is witnessing a fragment of an
extremely antique culture. The guedra is
danced on the knees; the dancer never rises. Variety is attained through a host
of expressive gestures made with the fingers, hands, arms, shoulders and torso.
Up to within the
past five years the dance was performed with uncovered breasts; now the
authorities prohibit this, although I was assured that in the
nearby desert it was still done in the traditional manner. The original texts of the songs, like most of the rest of the folk
texts in Morocco, have been discarded under official duress, and political
texts substituted for them. This procedure, while an excellent form of unpaid
political advertising, conceivably could interfere with the musical
performance, particularly through lack of interest in the new subject-matter.
To circumvent such a possibility it is sometimes wise to distribute kif to
the performers. When the drug has taken over, as it were, the music becomes of far greater
importance than the words to the singer, and a portion at least of the natural
enthusiasm can be recovered. This session is a case in point. (There was no
government official present, and in this respect too, the session was unusual.)"





<p style="margin-top:4.32pt;margin-bottom:0pt;margin-left:0in;margin-right:
0in;text-indent:0in;text-align:left;direction:ltr;unicode-bidi:embed;
mso-line-break-override:none;word-break:normal;punctuation-wrap:hanging"> 









Source:&nbsp; Bowles, Paul F.&nbsp; "Goulimine." in&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="http://archnet.org/publications/10102">Folk, Popular, and Art Music of Morocco</a>. The Paul Bowles Moroccan Music Collection. Washington, DC: American Folklife Center, Library of Congress, 1959-1962.&nbsp;

8A Track 1-Limbia Limbia

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"Hamadi ben Boyout was obviously not of the same racial antecedents as all but one of the girls; he was a Negro, while they were of Arab and Arabo-Be rber extraction. Souqaina; whose drumming can be heard on Reel 7B, turned out to be better as a dancer than as a drummer.&nbsp; The woman named Mahjouba (these names the women use are not necessarily their true names; as "artistes" they have the right to pseudonyms) ) was the racial exception; she too was of Negro extraction. Her sung duet with ben Boyout in number 1 on this reel is proof that they shared the same vocal tradition. Unhappily she refused to remove the voluminous veils which covered her mouth and most of her face, so that it was difficult to catch her singing, and she did not like the idea of having the microphone held in front of her. The drum used by ben Boyout was unique in my experienqe. Shaped like a cooking pot, it measured about thirty inches in diameter and stood a foot high, with brilliantly colored designs painted on the membrane. Its volume was excessive for indoor use, and for this reason in the recordings its sound somewhat covers the voices and hand-clapping. I think this defect could have been obviated partially, had we been able to have the performers out-of-doors, but this did not appear to be possible. And it might have been just as overpowering outside as it was in." Source: Bowles, Paul F.&nbsp; "Goulimine." in&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="http://archnet.org/publications/10102">Folk, Popular, and Art Music of Morocco</a>. The Paul Bowles Moroccan Music Collection. Washington, DC: American Folklife Center, Library of Congress, 1959-1962.&nbsp;

8B Track 3 Rax dial Guedra

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8B Track 2 Rax dial Et Tbel

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8B Track 1 Ounalou Biha Rajao.

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<p style="margin-top:4.32pt;margin-bottom:0pt;margin-left:0in;margin-right:
0in;text-indent:0in;text-align:left;direction:ltr;unicode-bidi:embed;
mso-line-break-override:none;word-break:normal;punctuation-wrap:hanging">“The Music of this group was made
exclusively by means of voices accompanied by one drum. (See sheet 8B.) The two
numbers on this reel were presented as something clearly in the nature of a
prelude to the dance music which was to follow.”





 Source:&nbsp; Bowles, Paul F.&nbsp; "Goulimine." in&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="http://archnet.org/publications/10102">Folk, Popular, and Art Music of Morocco</a>. The Paul Bowles Moroccan Music Collection. Washington, DC: American Folklife Center, Library of Congress, 1959-1962.&nbsp;

7B.1 El Mehdi dial Nebbi

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<div><div>"Bechara, the owner of the house where we were recording, and impresaria of the dance group, was obviously a woman of considerable wealth, having performed before the King of Belgium in Brussels, as well as in Paris. She was not particularly interested in the fact that the music of her girls was to be placed in the Archives of the Library of Congress, although she translated my statements to that effect faithfully, from Moghrebi into the regional dialect. What interested Bechara was ' the time, since she hoped to increase the amount .of compensation due her, and indeed managed to, at the close of the session. "Bechara, the owner of the house where we were recording, 'and impresaria of the dance group, was obviously a woman of considerable wealth, having performed before the King of Belgium in Brussels, as well as in Paris. She was not particularly interested in the fact that the music of her girls was to be placed in the Archives of the Library of Congress, although she translated my statements to that effect faithfully, from Moghrebi into the regional dialect. What interested Bechara was ' the time, since she hoped to increase the amount .of compensation due her, and indeed managed to, at the close of the session. While I was recording this last piece, she was busy figuring out the maximum additional sum she could demand, since it was already one o'clock in the morning and the girls were feeling the kif they were smoking. She was also making discreet inquiries as to the likelihood of our spending the night in the house with the girls, and was not pleased to hear that we had. to get back to our rooms over the general store in order to get up early the following morning. I was then warned by our Moroccan assistant· that we should have to stop recording immediately if we did not want to pay. an extra 15,000 francs."&nbsp;</div> Source:&nbsp; Bowles, Paul F.&nbsp; "Goulimine." in&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="http://archnet.org/publications/10102">Folk, Popular, and Art Music of Morocco</a>. The Paul Bowles Moroccan Music Collection. Washington, DC: American Folklife Center, Library of Congress, 1959-1962.&nbsp; The video include additional images of a folklore festival at the&nbsp;<a href="http://archnet.org/sites/4743/" target="_blank">Badi'&nbsp;Palace</a>&nbsp;in&nbsp;<a href="http://archnet.org/sites/14772" target="_blank">Marrakech</a>, photographed by&nbsp;<a href="https://archnet.org/authorities/2960">Josephine Powel</a>l and used courtesy of the Fine Arts Library, Harvard University. &nbsp;</div>

9A El Malik Allah i Nidji

The Badi' Palace is located in the north-east of the kasba of Marrakesh. It was constructed between 1578 and 1594 to serve as the diplomatic palace of Sa'did <a href="https://www.archnet.org/authorities/2615" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Sharif Ahmad al-Mansur</a> (reg. 1578-1603). The name of the palace derives from "al-Badi," one of the ninety-nine names of God given in the Qu'ran, which means "the incomparable." While the palace was widely acknowledged in its time as a spectacular architectural achievement, it was plundered for its rich decorative materials only a century after its construction. As Jonathan Bloom notes it is only part of<blockquote>The Moroccan royal city occupied a rectangle of some 44 hectares (about 100 acres) surrounded by rammed earth walls. Much of the area is now occupied by one of the palaces and gardens of the present king of Morocco. In the 16th-century the interior was divided into several distinct parts: <a href="https://www.archnet.org/sites/2847" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Bab Agnaw</a>, which had built by the <a href="https://www.archnet.org/collections/2353" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Almohads</a> in the late 12th-century, served as the principal entrance to the palace compound.1</blockquote> The palace is approximately 130 meters wide along its north-south axis and 245 meters long along its east-west axis. The longitudinal axis of the palace is rotated sixteen degrees clockwise from the north-south meridian such that the palace aligns with the major street grid of the surrounding neighborhood. The majority of the interior of the palace is occupied by a vast central courtyard that measures 110 meters to a side. Enclosed pavilions surround and define this courtyard, with corner towers and prominent pavilions in the centers of the east and west elevations. The courtyard is divided in thirds along its north-south axis. Occupying the central third of the courtyard is a large pool measuring twenty meters wide and ninety-five meters long. This pool is flanked by eight-meter-wide footpaths, then gardens to the north and south. There are two gardens on each side of the pool, separated by an eleven-meter-wide footpath. Each garden is thirty-two meters wide and forty-two meters long. Along the outer edges of the gardens are five-meter-wide footpaths that border the enclosed pavilions of the palace. The west end of the gardens and pool is bordered by a ten-meter-wide path, and the east end is edged by a five-meter wide path. The central pool was constructed entirely above the ground in order to provide irrigation to the neighboring gardens. As this design elevated the level of the courtyard, the palace pavilions had to be supported by brick arches to raise them to the level of the pool and gardens. For this reason the main reception rooms of the palace sit one story above the street level. Moroccan architecture during the rule of the <a href="https://www.archnet.org/collections/2379" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Sa'did Sharifs</a> was heavily influenced by Andalusian decorative traditions, and the Badi' Palace is an example of the artistic dialogue between the Islamic cultures in Spain and North Africa. The Badi' Palace borrows from the Alhambra Palace in Grenada in both its ornamentation and overall layout. The plan of the gardens, central pool, and surrounding pavilions is similar to that of <a href="https://www.archnet.org/sites/2548" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Court of the Lions</a> at the <a href="https://www.archnet.org/sites/2547" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Alhambra</a>, but on a much larger scale. The decoration of the Badi' Palace was notably ornate, consistent with the tendency of the Sa'did Sharifs to commission opulent architectural works as a physical manifestation their wealth and power. The Badi' Palace was decorated so ostentatiously that many contemporary writers remarked that the luxuriousness of the building merited its descriptor "the incomparable." The pathways in the courtyard were paved with multi-colored zellij, or enameled terracotta tiles, in fine geometric patterns. The pavilions surrounding the courtyard were roofed with green terracotta tiles, a common roofing material for the period, and the red clay walls were clad in brick and Carrera marbles. Other rich materials used in the decoration of the palace include onyx, gold-leaf, ivory, and precious woods. The 'Alawi Sultan <a href="https://www.archnet.org/authorities/2721" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Moulay Ismail</a> (reg. 1672-1727) had the palace stripped of the majority of its ornamentation in 1696 in order to reuse the expensive materials to build his palace in the new capital city of <a href="https://www.archnet.org/authorities/3828" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Meknès</a>. Simply extracting the decoration from the structure of the palace took ten years to complete. Today the bare structure of the palace and gardens remain, as well as glimpses of the fine zellij that formerly adorned many surfaces of the building. Notes:<ol><li>yalebooks. 2020. “A 16th-Century Portuguese Plan of the Badi’ Palace - Yale University Press.” Yale University Press London Blog. October 15, 2020. https://yalebooksblog.co.uk/2020/10/15/a-16th-century-portuguese-plan-of-the-badi-palace/. Archived at: <a href="https://perma.cc/HV3P-B2MM" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://perma.cc/HV3P-B2MM</a>.</li></ol> Sources: Barrucand, Marianne. "The Case of the Sadi Qasaba of Marrakech." Environmental Design: Journal of the Islamic Environmental Design Research Centre 1-2: 1989.18-27. Blair, Sheila S. and Jonathan M. Bloom. 1995. The Art and Architecture of Islam 1250-1800. New Haven: Yale University Press, 123. Bloom, Jonathan M. 2020. Architecture of the Islamic West. North Africa and the Iberian Peninsula, 700–1800. Yale University Press. Bosworth, Clifford Edumund. 1996. The New Islamic Dynasties. New York: Columbia University Press, 41-42. Deverdun, Gaston. 1959-66. Marrakech, des origines à 1912. Repr., Casablanca: Editions Frontispice, 2004, 384-401, 437, 469, 471-474. Dickie, James. 1968. "The Hispano-Arab Garden: Its Philosophy and Function." Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London 31 (2): 237-248. Grube, Ernst J., James Dickie, Oleg Grabar, Eleanor Sims, Ronald Lewcock, Dalu Jones, and Guy T. Petherbridge, ed. George Michell. 1978. Architecture of the Islamic World. Repr., London: Thames and Hudson, 1996, 218. Hillenbrand, Robert. 1999. Islamic Architecture. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 271-272. Métalsi, Mohamed, Cécile Tréal, and Jean-Michel Ruiz. 2000. The Imperial Cities of Morocco. Paris: Terrail, 106-109. Pickens, Samuel, Francoise Peuriot and Philippe Ploquin. 1995. Maroc: Les Cites Imperiales. Paris: ACR Edition, 132-133. Robinson, Cynthia. 1997. "Seeing Paradise: Metaphor and Vision in taifa Palace Architecture." Gesta 36 (2: Visual Culture of Medieval Iberia): 145-155. "Architecture" The Grove Encyclopedia of Islamic Art and Architecture. Ed. Jonathan M. Bloom and Sheila S. Blair. © Oxford University Press 2010. The Grove Encyclopedia of Islamic Art and Architecture: (e-reference edition). Oxford University Press. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). 8 February 2010 <a href=" http://www.oxford-islamicart.com/entry?entry=t276.e89" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"> http://www.oxford-islamicart.com/entry?entry=t276.e89</a>. "Marrakesh" The Grove Encyclopedia of Islamic Art and Architecture. Ed. Jonathan M. Bloom and Sheila S. Blair. © Oxford University Press 2010. The Grove Encyclopedia of Islamic Art and Architecture: (e-reference edition). Oxford University Press. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). 8 February 2010 <a href=" http://www.oxford-islamicart.com/entry?entry=t276.e568" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"> http://www.oxford-islamicart.com/entry?entry=t276.e568</a>. Museum With No Frontiers, s.v. "Badi Palace" (by Kamal Lakhdar, ed. Margot Cortez). © Museum With No Frontiers 2004-2010. <a href=" http://www.discoverislamicart.org/database_item.php?id=monument;ISL;ma;Mon01;13;en" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"> http://www.discoverislamicart.org/database_item.php?id=monument;ISL;ma;Mon01;13;en</a>. [Accessed 8 February 2010]

Badi' Palace

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