Led by Bachir Attar

Thunder on the mountain, rolling like a drum
Gonna sleep over there, that’s where the music coming from
I don’t need any guide, I already know the way

Bob Dylan – Thunder on the Mountain

At the end of the 1950s, when the Beat Generation embarked on its poetic quest toward the East—a journey that would soon lead it to India, a source of inspiration for George Harrison, the Beatles, Jimi Hendrix’s psychedelic rock, and the Byrds—Tangier became a true melting pot of creativity.

Following the arrival of Paul Bowles and his wife in 1947, Beat Generation pioneers such as Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, William Burroughs, and Peter Orlovsky spent time in the port city, further deepening its aura of dreamlike mysticism. Along the same lines, Brion Gysin—painter, poet, and performer—moved to Tangier in 1950 and co-founded, alongside painter Mohamed Hamri, the café-restaurant 1001 Nights, where the musicians of Jajouka regularly performed before Brian Jones arrived in 1968.

From antiquity to the present day, wind instruments—with their drones and continuous breath—have carried awakening music with strong therapeutic and ecstatic properties. The wind of the spirit—evoked by Rûmî—finds its expression in various instruments: the Indian double flute satâra, reed clarinets with double or triple pipes such as the Egyptian arghul or the Sardinian launeddas, and the high-pitched oboes like the Kurdish zurna, the Tunisian zumar, the Egyptian mizmar, the Indian shehnai, and the North African ghaïta.

The music of the village of Jajouka, nestled at the foot of the Rif Mountains, is produced by this type of oboe and resonates like an ancient, earth-bound trance. It has captivated, among others, the Rolling Stones, Maceo Parker, Ornette Coleman, Talvin Singh, Bill Laswell, and so many more.