MOROCCAN rOLL: "Gnawa Blues"

s u d a n i

...The tribal links between Gnawa music and the blues of the New World are becoming so obvious, and communications so simplified, that it now seems ordained for the most adventurous of Otto John’s X-rated generation of musicians to be the lucky ones to build on the discoveries of the last 50 years, and really explore the affinities between these two great rivers of music.

Right now the prime examplar of this trend is recent cd called sudania (Deep Dish 104), a collaboration between saxophonist Patrick Brennan and a Gnawa musician called Najib Sudani. Brennan walked into Sudani’s Essaouira music shop one day in 1999, jammed for awhile, and realized he had to get this energy on DAT. He brought in drummer Nirankar Khalsa, a couple of Sudani’s brethren sat in on metal clackers, they set up mikes in a quiet village nearby, and someone pressed the “record” button. The result is a loose, experimental fusion of Gnawa bedrock overlaid with Brennan’s Pharoahian alto sax, and Khalsa’s impromptu r&b vocals. Sudania isn’t a great album, but it is a brave one. It has the cozy vibe of a digital home movie, was expertly recorded, and probably will inspire others to follow Gnawa music to its spiritually rich wellspring. Sudania is also worth checking out for its primo display of Gnawa rhythms, which never fail to generate their typically timeless, totally mystic, and eternally patent moral authority.

Stephen Davis, The Beat, Vol. 20 #4, 2001, p. 57