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8A- The Michigan Daily - Monday, October 23, 1995


Jajouka's great tradition carries onward

By Stephanie Glickman
Daily Arts Writer
The Master Musicians ofiajouka's audi-
ence members clapped their hands to the
beat ofseveral differentdrummers Saturday
night when the Moroccan ensemble brought
their 4000 year old soundto a nearly packed
Rackham auditorium. "You are lucky to
hear this music," Bachir Attar, leader ofthe
group, announced to an agreeing crowd.
Emerging from the Djebalafoothills of
the Rif Mountains in northern Morocco,
the familial group comes from the aristo-
cratic clan, Ah Sherif, translated "The
Saintly." None of the music is written
down; rather it's passed from father to
son. As a manifestation of the spirit and
energy of older generations, Jajouka's
musicdraws onthepastto build aneternal
sound for the future, for peace and for its
people. The realization of Jajouka's 24-
year dream to tour America and its enthu-
siastic reception in Ann Arbor attests to
the music's universality.
With only a brief welcome from Attar,
the music succeeded in speaking for it-
self. It was inconsequential that no piece
titles were announced or descriptions
given. Explanations would have been
superfluous. Through their instruments
alone, the Master Musicians poured out
their messages for listeners to absorb
individually. Whether it's the hills of
Morocco or the towns of Michigan, the
place of performance is insignificant, for
the mesmerizing sounds of Jajouka in-
toxicate any surrounding.

L tvi;:
Master
Musicians of
Jajouka
Rackham Auditorium
October 21
In traditional dress, representing sev-
eral generations, the Jajouka men were
completely absorbedintheirperformance.
The enchanting sounds emerged, sub-
dued at first, as the 12 musicians, calm in
countenance and pensive in spirit, per-
formed from seated positions on a car-
peted stage. Thepolyrhythmicnatureofthe
music revealed itself immediately as the
percussive tarijas and tirbougas contended
with the rhythms of the ghaitas (horns).
Opposing each other, yet working offof
one another, the rhythms created a music
rich with instrumental dialogues and contra-
dictions, making it impossible to find a
single beat to follow. The rhythmic com-
plexities of the music prevented a uniform
clapping along, rathereveryonepickedouta
favorite beat to immerse himself in.
As with any ecstatic outpouring, the
energy accumulated as the power ofeach
piece inspired the strength ofthe next one,
culminating in a fast-paced traditional
festival song, complete with a wildly
stepping, fur-clad dancer shaking
branches in afrenetic rush. Tempos quick-

ened, instruments played louder and the
musicians broke into glorious smiles. Two
older musicians, proudly danced around
thestage's circumference,holdinguptheir
arms and shaking their hips. Not a single
inhibition existed on stage. The shyness
was all in the audience where only a lone
person stood up to move along with
Jajouka.
The grooving heads and bouncing
shoulders of the seat-bound group at-
tested to the absorption of the crowd.
Influenced by the concert's energy, the
audience's initial cordial applause inten-
sified after each number and transformed
into a wild standing ovation at the
performance's end.
Mid-concert, Jajouka shared some new
compositions, which Attar described as
"sounds of the Mountains of Jajouka."
Attar's heavy plucking of the Gimbri, a
violin played upright and the passionate
singing of the ensemble created a sus-
tained intensity which crescendoed to an
abrupt ending - the climax of an emo-
tional release.This pattern of compound-
ing energy into a sudden closure charac
terized all seven of Jajouka's musidal
numbers.
Kept alive through family ties and an
unrecorded tradition, Jajouka represents
a history older than anything we can
imagine. Their obvious dedication toahd
love for their music and the beginning of
being able to share their sound with the
rest of the world will perpetuate this'x--
tensive past into an even longer future.

G. Love has sure got some special sauce up his sleeve.
. oveS ecisauce lacked spice

By David Cook
Daily Arts Writer
G. Love and Special Sauce, veterans
of this summer's H.O.R.D.E. tour and
now making the rounds in support of
their newest release, "Coast to Coast
Motel," made a stop Saturday night at
the Majestic Theater in Detroit. Did
they care about putting on a good show?
It didn't look like it. Did they make an
effort to please the crowd? Not very
often. And while their laid-back set
made the audience almost apathetic at
times, a good time was had by all in the
end.
Part of what made the show so slow
moving, believe it or not, was their
second album. "Motel" deals much more
with the blues and shuffle-feels than
their debut ever did, making for a very
interesting and solid recording. But it's
what made their second album so good
that in turn made the show so boring. It
would have helped ifthe group engaged
the crowd a little, or took some of the
bluesy songs somewhere other than
where they started, but it didn't happen.
Roughly two-thirds of the night con-
sisted of the group setting up a slow-
tempo groove and never changing it,
with G. Love aimlessly strumming at
his guitar or dobro, not paying attention
to differences in dynamics or intensity.
However, when they pulled out some
of their material from their first album,

G. Love and
Special Sauce
The Majestic Theater
October 21

the crowd immediately leapt to its feet.
Indeed, the highlights of the show were
definitely "Baby's Got Sauce," "Cold
Beverages" and "Shooting Hoops," all
from their first release. These songs
were just plain funkier, and they were
the ones that got the people movinig,
something that the blues numbers didn't
do. Along for the ride was Spe-
cial Sauce, consisting of bass player
Jimmy Prescott and drummer Jeffrey
Clemens. The two of them are solid
players, complementing G. Love's dis-
tinctive style well, while staying out of
the way. I fthey have a shortcoming, it's
that they never really let loose, always
choosing to play a supportive role. The
trio setting leaves a great deal of room
for individual expression and interpre-
tation, but it seemed that G. Love was
the only one willing to take chances.
The show could have been so much
more exciting if the group as a whole
would have gone farther out in their
playing or song arranging than they did.

As a result, the audience only caught
glimpses of what G. Love and Special
Sauce are capable of achieving.
One very entertaining part of the show
was just watching G. Love be G. Love.
His mealymouthed lyrical style goes
great with his angular guitarwork; both
are distinctive and almost humorous.
The real entertainment begins when he
adds words into songs or starts to play
to the crowd. For instance: During a
short improvised rap break in "Cold
Beverages," G. Love said, about noth-
ing in particular, "I like it in the day / I
like it in the night / I seen that shit when
I'm ridin' my bike." Or in "Baby's Got
Sauce," where he took another im-
promptu story-telling session, this one
about how much he can't put up with
what his woman does to him. He re-
lates: "She told me to meet her at quar-
ter to eight / You know I was there at
7:30 / and I was CLEAN."
At least one fan was heard to be
wondering aloud "What the hell's he
saying?"
It's this kind of planned/unplanned
style that has won G. Love and Special
Sauce their fan base, but there wasn't
enough of it Saturday night to make for
a great show. It wasn't necessarily a
disappointment, but neither was it any-
thing to write home about. The group's
set was too much what could have been
and not enough of what was.

RECORDS
Continued from Page 5A
Bif Naked
Bif Naked
Her Royal Majesty's Records
Like Courtney Love but with tattoos,
Bif Naked is pissed off. Militant, lesbian,
and mad, BifNaked starts with abang and
ends with a whimper.
Opening with "Everything," she opens
with Hole-ish rage. Bad-assed and angst
ridden, she manages to be interesting for
amoment. But on closer listen, her fervor
melts to artificial sweetener with lyrics
like "I wish/ I was a sno-cone/ lick me/
lick me/ have I set the tone?" Billy Idol
sneer and all, she dedicates the album to
her cat "Muffy" and kicks it again.
But worse, she raps. Midway through
the album, a dance beat replaces guitar,
and Bif Naked makes the transition from
annoying to intolerable. On "Succulent,"
she breaks it down: "Ifyou're nice to me/
maybe I'll double you / on my BMX."
And later, performs, a la Henry Rollins,
spoken word poetry. "The Gross Gross
Man" is ahigh schoolpoetry project gone
awry. Like something scratched across
your desk by some bored girl in your
Algebra class, it moves with unending
pretension, until it ends with "Being we
women sucks/ Fuck you."
When an album tries feebly to embrace
too many sounds and line them with the
same tiring lyrics, it comes off as ex-
tremely immature, losing the label of
introspective and becoming unable to
successfully master any one sound at all.
Bif Naked is guilty of this, as she jumps
from one genre to another in the space of
just a few songs.

But moreover, her lyrics are awful, and
for some reason she takes certain care to
showcase them. "You make me such a
juicy girl," she sings, "My pigtails stand
straight on end/ Baby there's no need to
pretend/ Won't you kiss my pink teddy
bear/ I'll try not to cry/When you spank
me in the chair."
This is dreck. Don't listen, don't buy,
hold tight to those Suzanne Vega albums
and stay in your home.
-Josh Biggs
Roberto Alagna
Roberto Alagna
EMI Classics
If a picture is worth a thousand words,
the picture on this CD cover does a lot of
explaining. A youngish, good-looking
man smiles out at the potential customer.
"You know you want to buy my record-
ing,"he seems to say. "Find out if I'm as
romantic on CD as I am in this picture."
Thejacket reads "Roberto Alagna, tenor."
Funny thing. Today's most famous ten-

i

ors are at least as old as our parents. Though
their voices, or at least their reputations,
remain unequaled, it gets harder and harder
to imagine these superstars as the young,
dashing heroes ofoperatic fantasy.After all,
they're getting old. The sixtieth birthday of
the big man, Pavarotti, has come and gone.
Didn't this summer's huge Three Tenors
extravaganza feel like a retirement party?
Roberto Alagna just may be the terror
to carry the torch. It's too soon to tell and
there have been few takers for the lime-
light. Yet Alagna has the voice, and a
Cinderella background, to please the in-
curable romantics opera tends to breed:
Alagna was discovered singing for tips in
a Paris pizzeria. Last year, his young wife
died of a brain tumor, and now he has
fallen madly in love with the ravishing
soprano of Covent Garden.
Alagna's story, and singing, drips with
emotion. His new, self-named CD, with
Richard Armstrong and the London Phil-
harmonic, iseverythingyou'd expect from
a big-name record label actively promot-
ing a young artist. It's good. It's even
great. A reviewer could wax poetic for
paragraphs about his polished voice and
passionate singing. Yet the recording is
also a blatant crowd pleaser, featuring
favorites from Rigoletto, Carmen, La
Boheme and Romeo and Juliet.
It's nice to listen to pieces you know and
love, but it's also disturbing to see Alagna
snatching up the hearts of his predecessors'
fans so easily. Be this compliment or criti-
cism, he has no competitors.
This is the time to be earning a reputa-
tion, not sailing on the gains and reputa-
tions ofothers who camebefore. Alagna's
career and voice show great promise.
Whether he'll be the Fourth Tenor re-
mains to be seen.
Emily Lambert


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