Moroccan Gnawa comes to Manhattan with 'Saha Gnawa'

A mix of tradition and Afrofuturism, acoustic and electronic, east and west fumigating in a cauldron of rhythms, chants, solo explorations and full ensemble blow-outs, Saha Gnawa (on New York's Pique-Nique label) draws on the example of Essaouira’s annual Festival Gnaoua, which brings together jazz masters and Gnawa maalems on stage.

Here, Maalem Hassan Ben Jaafer from Fes, Amino Belyamani from Casablanca and Ahmed Jeriouda from Sale join forces with drummer Daniel Freedman and a host of other musicians on guitars, sax, keys and synths, raising contemporary electronic sound across the traditional roots of the music.

It opens with the group call-and-response of “Soudani Manayou”, a tribute to the Sahel ancestors who brought this music to Morocco, and featuring Wilco guitarist Nels Cline, while the drums, qraqebs (castanets) and ghimbri (bass) eddy back and forth like tides, glossy, building to cathartic crisis and conclusion, leading us straight into “Baba Mumoun”, a song that evokes one of the Gnawa cosmos’s protective spirits, just as the following, beefier “Bacha Hamou” evokes the Red Spirit. Not that such corporeal essences necessarily reach across from Essaouira to Manhattan, but one can hope. Cline plugs in to the Red Spirit via distorted flows of electric guitar across waves of feedback and the trance rhythms of qraqebs and ghimbri building with mounting urgency and momentum.

Not all fusions are equal, though. On “Aicha” (part of the late, great Mahmoud Gania’s repertoire), a sheen of synths and squeaky electric guitar prove to be less potent travelling companions, but there’s much to like here, the forcefulness of the Gnawa holding forth and extending bridges across to the Manhattan side of the equation. Traditional Gnawa, in its native setting – a Zawiya – extends for great stretches of time, and while Sahel Gnawa comes in a more condensed form, it succeeds in introducing novel elements into a magical form of music that can make things happen, as well as a social music that binds people together under a groove.

• More New Music reviews on theartsdesk

Tim Cumming's website