Randy Weston
The Search for Abdellah Pt. Trois (What is Jazz?)
Before the other Fulbrighters arrived, Andrew, Kendra, and I were led into a cramped room, where we greeted by gap-toothed smiles and an ever-thickening purple haze of smoke. After exchanging Moroccan pleasantries, we squeezed in next to our hosts. The gentlemen reclining to my left was a Master of the qarqaba (a metal variation on the castanet that evolved from the shackles that bound the Gnawa centuries ago), and to my right sat Andrew, who, moments earlier, had an electric guitar thrust into his lap and was instructed to play along with a Hendrix solo crackling out of a 10 watt speaker. “But, I don’t have an amp!” he cried. Pipes in hand, Abdellah & Co. meditated on this most existential of musical dilemmas.
They reflected for several minutes, and then a few more.
“Well, I guess it is that time” Abdellah concluded. So, naturally, we pulled out three long couch cushions and assembled our ranks in the salon. Trying in vain to tune his guitar, Andrew asked Abdellah to play an E. “I don’t know notes,” the Bearded One replied. “I know sounds and the colors they represent.” He then motioned towards the musical color chart on the back wall and added, “I see music differently than an arrangement of A, B, C, D. We have over 200 color combinations in the north, but if you travel down south, you’ll see they have 120 or so.” I recognized that this was a research question opportunity! But, before I could ask Abdellah whether any of the 200+ colors in Tangier migrated down from Europe as well, he rested a thumb on his hajhouj (also known as the guembri, a 3 stringed skin-covered bass plucked lute with a body carved from a log and covered on the playing side with camel), and everyone fell silent.
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The Search for Abdellah Pt. Deux
9/20/2009- We spent almost all day looking for M’Alem Abdellah El-Gourd’s Dar Gnawa, which, believe it or not, turned out to be right next door to our hostel! Personal Legend! The universe conspiring! Need I say more? When he opened the bronze door to his home we inquired as to weather he was the “bearded one”, to which he shot back: “I know who I am, but who are you?” Already I felt like I was in the presence of a Yoda-like master. Tangier is my Dagobah.
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Fulbright Jam at Café Detroit & The Search for Abdellah
9/20/2009 – The following morning (still Ramadan on account of a shy moon), the Fulbright crew put on a live concert for a thrilled audience of exactly 2 Spanish tourists. The venue? Café Detroit in the Kasbah. How it happened? I’m not sure, but like all great adventures it started by stopping to ask a man wearing a Fez for directions. We were looking for a Gnawa Master known as Abdellah El-Gourd, also known as Abdellah “the bearded one” by the locals. (You’ll never believe how we found him in the end). Anyhow, we were invited in, and after a quick demo in 6/4 time, Kendra Salois and Catherine “Second Wind” Skroch (both newly inducted members of Moroccappela) took us on a mint-tea induced musical journey.
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