"Getting musicians in Tafraout was complicated. The acting governmental chief took us several miles down the valley one morning to meet a certain caid who would send out a moqqadem to each village, commanding the men to appear the following night at the military bordj. We settled the details, and everything went as scheduled, save that the musicians arrived slowly in groups with hundreds of townspeople trailing after them, and this held us up for a while. The electricity is always cut off a little before midnight, which meant that each moment we lost at the outset was lost completely.
"The first piece, 'Ahmeilou', involved thirteen men, five of whom played benadir, and one a gannega. (Gannega is a local term for tbel.) As the evening progressed, more men joined the performers' ranks.
The list of titles for side 9B is as follows:
It was an extremely hot night; everything and everyone was suffused with heat: the singers’ and drummers’ faces ran with sweat, and the drums, after being heated, remained taut, giving their sound a dry, precise quality which the same instruments do not have under ordinary circumstances."
