(Tangier) “Set an example of what we should be”. The legendary American pianist Herbie Hancock, visiting Morocco to celebrate jazz, sees in this music of which he is an icon, a link capable of promoting “unity” and “diversity”.
In Tangier, designated host city for International Jazz Day 2024 by UNESCO, he gave a concert on Tuesday evening bringing together other big names in contemporary jazz, also Americans, bassist Marcus Miller and singer Dee Dee Bridgewater, who captivated the room as a duo.
“When you play in a group, the experiences of several people are expressed and put together. This collective experience, this kind of unity, is an integral part of the identity of jazz,” said Herbie Hancock in an interview with AFP.
“When people come to listen to the music, they can feel the joy that emanates from us. This experience that the musicians share, the public feels it too, that’s why they come to fill the rooms, because they want to feel this experience,” adds the artist to the 14 Grammy Awards.
“It means we can set an example of what we should be, where we should be, and the music tells that story,” he continues.
UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador Herbie Hancock initiated International Jazz Day, launched in 2011.
For the 84-year-old artist, creator of the legendary album Head huntersjazz “works in a way that allows people to recognize and promote diversity.”
On the stage of the Palace of Arts and Culture in Tangier were also present artists from Chile, Cameroon, Brazil and Japan, but also the master of gnaoua, Abdellah El Gourd, who launched the concert.
“A magical influence”
This musical genre mixing sacred and profane, very popular in Morocco, punctuated with invocations and dances which can go as far as trance and initially carried by descendants of slaves, at least since the 16th century.e century, was listed as UNESCO intangible heritage in 2019.
Randy Weston’s visit, between 1967 and 1972, to Tangier, a port city that saw the jazz elite parade in the last century, marked both the history of the city and of this music.
A historical figure in jazz, friend and collaborator of Abdallah El Gourd, Weston (died in 2018) succeeded in creating avant-garde cultural bridges between jazz and gnaoua.
“He brought back (to the United States) what he had been able to help develop here in Tangier and other cities in Morocco. Everyone appreciated the flavor of this atmosphere, of the people here,” says Mr. Hancock, who himself discovered Gnoua music during a previous visit to Morocco in 2015.
The rhythm of the qraqebs (a kind of castanets) “has a magical influence on your being,” he describes.
Nearly ten years later, the effect is still the same. In Tangier, the first city on the African continent to host International Jazz Day, the pianist was able to attend a musical session with the mâalem (master) El Gourd.
“It was so deep that I had tears in my eyes,” confides the author of the hit Rockitreleased in 1983.
Soon a next creative project inspired by Gnaoua music? ” We never know ! », replies the pianist.