Tribe Ahl Serif: Master Musicians of Jajouka 1971 location recording by Arnold Stahl

thefsb

thefsb

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I haven't posted here for a while but I figured y'all might be into this one. A relatively rare 2xLP that has arguably the most important and interesting recording of the Master Musicians of Jajouka. The famous music writer Stephen Davis explains

There are many recordings, made from 1968 to 2010, of ensembles calling themselves The Master Musicians [“Malimin"] of Jajouka. For me, only three stand out. First, Brian Jones Presents the Pipes of Pan at Joujouka (Rolling Stones Records, 1971). Second, The Master Musicians of Jajouka (Adelphi Records, 1975), recorded by Joel Rubiner, mostly in 1972, just before Ornette Coleman’s recording session in the village. Third (and perhaps most important) is Tribe Ahl Serif: Master Musicians of Jajouka (Musical Heritage Society, circa 1976). This is a two-record set made by Arnold Stahl around 1971, when a Danish film crew was working in the village. The second record in this set consists of about 25 minutes of the Boujeloudiya, or music for the goat god Bou Jeloud, which formerly danced in the village during the Aid el Kebir festival. The recording quality is excellent, and it features the large formation – 20 rhaitas and about 15 drummers – that Brian Jones recorded, and that I later chronicled beginning in 1973.
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I bought a copy via Discogs and made a digital transfer so we can all listen to this long out-of-print 2xLP. I also made hi-res images and OCRed the sleeve notes for you. Available on Substack and Youtube

TRIBE AHL SERIF: MASTER MUSICIANS OF JAJOUKA

 
I only learned about this album while researching for a podcast ep about the best movie soundtrack album ever: Naked Lunch by Howard Shore featuring Ornette Coleman, who, of course, went to Jajouka and recorded with the Master Musicians a couple of years after Arnold Stahl made the recordings on this album.

gasgiants.substack.com

Naked Lunch - The Soundtrack

There are podcasts about the novel, there are podcasts about the 1991 film; now there's a podcast that looks at these two things from the perspective of the soundtrack to the movie.
gasgiants.substack.com gasgiants.substack.com

I agree that Apocalypse Across the Sky is good but Stephen Davis doesn't rate it very high: "It is true that Apocalypse sounds great, but the quality of the music is only … ok. The band that recorded this music in Jajouka was cobbled together by Bashir Attar, with a couple of his brothers, and – I was told – some outside wedding musicians from Ksar el Kebir, the nearest big town. Bashir did it for the money, which was good."
 
djdavedk said:
Can this be downloaded in FLAC format?
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If you are asking about the Tribe Ahl Serif album I posted (not the Brian Jones LP) then I haven't produced any FLAC output. The file on Substack is mp3, 44100 Hz, stereo, fltp, 254 kb/s LAME3.99r. You can try getting it from the URL below.

https://cdn.substack.com/public/audio/da795319-0cc7-402b-b655-06b5dcd9ca37.mpga?post_id=48706057

I'll take a look to see what it takes to make FLAC. The raw data is in Reaper.
 
thefsb said:
Is it different from the recording available in digital now? (I know the cover art changed. I like the original very much.)
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The track list looks different from the recent CD
www.discogs.com

The Master Musicians Of Joujouka - Brian Jones Presents The Pipes Of Pan At Joujouka

View credits, reviews, tracks and shop for the 1971 Vinyl release of "Brian Jones Presents The Pipes Of Pan At Joujouka" on Discogs.
www.discogs.com www.discogs.com

It probably mirrors this one:
www.discogs.com

The Master Musicians Of Joujouka - Brian Jones Presents The Pipes Of Pan At Joujouka

View credits, reviews, tracks and shop for the CD release of "Brian Jones Presents The Pipes Of Pan At Joujouka" on Discogs.
www.discogs.com www.discogs.com
 
djdavedk said:
The track list looks different from the recent CD
www.discogs.com

The Master Musicians Of Joujouka - Brian Jones Presents The Pipes Of Pan At Joujouka

View credits, reviews, tracks and shop for the 1971 Vinyl release of "Brian Jones Presents The Pipes Of Pan At Joujouka" on Discogs.
www.discogs.com www.discogs.com

It probably mirrors this one:
www.discogs.com

The Master Musicians Of Joujouka - Brian Jones Presents The Pipes Of Pan At Joujouka

View credits, reviews, tracks and shop for the CD release of "Brian Jones Presents The Pipes Of Pan At Joujouka" on Discogs.
www.discogs.com www.discogs.com
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The version in Amazon Music is is the 1995 reissue which Bob Shingleton describes thus:

After a period out of the catalogue Brian Jones Presents the Pipes of Pan at Joujouka was reissued in 1995 under license to Point Music, a label which was a joint venture between Philip Glass, Michael Riesman and Philips Classics. This re-release, which is now only available as an MP3 download, changed the title of the album to Brian Jones Presents the Pipes of Pan at Jajouka. The retitled and repackaged disc created considerable controversy; because some of the original musicians were denied royalties from the reissued disc and Brion Gysin’s original sleeve note was edited to remove references to Mohamed Hamri, who is generally credited with playing an important role in bringing Brian Jones to Jajouka. In addition Hamri's artwork for the original sleeve seen as the second graphic in this post was replaced by the design seen below.
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1647010672763.png

I suspect these are all from the same stereo master but with changes to the track indexing.
 
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