Areas of Unrest

11 July 2004 - Ras El Hanout

There is a Moroccan spice mixture called "ras el hanout," which translates to "top of the shop." It's sort of the Moroccan equivalent of curry powder or garam masala and can contain as many as fifty ingredients. It's one of those nicely complex mixes, which shifts subtly in character with each bite of the food prepared with it.

I mention this because I went to see Pierre Bensusan perform at Jammin' Java Thursday night and it struck me that his guitar playing is the musical equivalent of ras el hanout. There's the scent of rose petals, the bite of peppers, the gentle heat of cumin, perhaps the aphrodisiac effect of Spanish fly. He did play "Agadiramadan," which is a piece I've previously thought captures the complete essence of what I imagine North Africa to be like. And one of his new pieces, "Intuite," inspired by the Iraqui oud player, Munir Bachir, was another incredible desert invocation. His technique there was particularly unusual, with a mixture of plucking strings at the frets and pounding on the strings. Not being a guitarist, I'm sure there's all sorts of things that I miss, but I've never seen anyone play quite the way he does. He's clearly intimately wrapped up with his playing, which isn't always easy to watch, as it feels almost voyeuristic. At any rate, it was one hell of a show, well worth the exhaustion the next day.

So I've been thinking a bit about how I listen to music. There's some music that can be just background for me, what Satie (many of whose compositions fall into this category) called "musical wallpaper." There's other music that is very kinesthetic, that I can't sit still during. Cajun music does that to me, as does a lot of Brazilian music. I can't just listen to it. I have to get up and dance around the room. There's a different category for songs, which I listen to in an entirely different way, whether or not I'm actually paying attention to the words. I also know I'm not capturing all the ways I listen to music and I can't quite sort out why things fall into the categories they do.

I'm also completely puzzled over why certain music does and doesn't resonate with different people. I'm a child of 1970's Long Island, so I should be worshipping at the feet of Billy Joel, not a slightly obscure French guitarist. It makes sense that my Bronx-raised mother would love Broadway show tunes, but why did my Eastern European father listen to Scottish pipe and drum bands?

Finally, I was completely astonished to learn that two of my colleagues cannot read music. It's a basic skill that I just assumed everybody has. The decline of arts education in the public schools only means more and more of this, I suppose. Sigh.