Majid Bekkas – Magic Spirit Quartet [ACT Records]

Our album of the week comes from Moroccan multi-instrumentalist Majid Bekkas’ “Magic Spirit Quartet” to be released on ACT Records on the 31st of January, 2020.

Trance, ritual, mysticism and psychedelia describe the ideology behind Gnawa music, and Majid Bekkas, one of the most dazzling exponents of modern Gnawa, combines this music with other genres. With his latest release Magic Spirit Quartet, he has built a bridge to connect North Africa and Scandinavia, aligning the ancestral with the ambient. It is an inspired move which seems to catch the very spirit of 21st century jazz.

The origins of Gnawa have never been fully explained. It is believed that slaves from Mali, Niger or Ghana were trafficked to the former empire of Morocco, where they preserved their culture, taking part in night-long rituals called lila, ceremonies during which diseases were healed. Over the past two centuries, this music, with its powerful singing, the rattling of the giant castanets and the incapable groove of the guembi bass lute, has become inseparably linked to Moroccan culture. An important development in the past few decades has been how jazz musicians such as Randy Weston or dub master Bill Laswell have discovered the potency of Gnawa music and brought it to Western ears in new and interesting ways.

Majid Bekkas stands out in our time as one of the most exciting stars of Gnawa. Although he was born and still lives in Sale, across the river from the Moroccan capital Rabat, his origins are further South, in Zagora in the Moroccan Sahara. Back in the mid-1970s he set up a group inspired by the pioneering Moroccan rock band Nass El Ghiwane and also took up the guembri. Since then he has overcome all cultural barriers using this totemic and large box-lute, but has also made a major impact both with the oud and with his voice. Album releases such as “Out Of The Desert” with Joachim Kuhn (2009), and collaborations with Archie Shepp, Pharoah Sanders and Klaus Doldinger are just the tip of Bekkas’ musical iceberg.

With Magic Spirit Quartet, Bekkas has teamed up with three artists with Nordic roots whose sound spectrums reflect their truly international outlook. Trumpeter Goran Kajfes, born in Stockholm of Croatian parents, is equally at home in jazz futurism and minimalism as well as in the Middle East and Africa. He is the leader of the Subtropic Arkestra, a role in which he has previously brought Bekkas in as a guest. Also participating in this group is keyboardist Jesper Nordenstrom, who has made his mark in every facet of the Swedish scene. The ensemble is underpinned by Danish drummer Stefan Pasborg. He works in many different contexts: together with f.ex. Ibrahim Electric, Carsten Dahl Trinity, and also in a duo with the kora virtuoso Dawda Jobarteh from Gambia.

Tracklist:

1. Aicha
2. Hassania
3. Bania
4. Chahia Taiba
5. Mrhaba
6. Annabi
7. MSQ

Credits:

Majid Bekkas / vocals, guembri, oud & electric guitar
Goran Kajfeš / trumpet, electric trumpet & percussion
Jesper Nordenström / piano, organ, synthesizers & spinet piano
Stefan Pasborg / drums, percussion & tuned gongs

Cover art by Sonia Delaunay: Tango Magic City,