Master Musicians of Joujouka
Official website of the legendary Sufi brotherhood Master Musicians of Joujouka from Joujouka/Jajouka, Morocco.
William Burroughs
It was in the Beat Hotel that Gysin came up with the Cut-Up Method with which Burroughs revolutionised the modern novel. William Burroughs described The Master Musicians of Joujouka as a “four thousand-year old rock’n’roll band”. He admitted that what he termed “the panic music of Joujouka” influenced his writing.
As well as citing their sound in his novels, Burroughs used pieces of Joujouka music in the experimental sound “Cut-Ups” that he, Gysin, and their young protégés, filmmaker Anthony Balch and inventor Ian Somerville, made in the early 1960s. These sound experiments were the aural equivalent of Burroughs’ writing and connected the musicians of Joujouka with the avant-garde art scene of the early 1960s.