MICK JAGGER IN TANGER! - CONCIERGERIE MODERNE

Mick Jagger's eternal returns to Tangier are part of a long history, in which the city's last living myth has left his mark.

"You know who I just saw at the Petit Socco? Mick Jagger!". It was July 14, 2012. The Arab telephone goes into overdrive and feeds the news with new details: "He's accompanied by his bodyguard and a tall, gorgeous girl". "And now he's at his pal Majid's!". "Tonight, he's going to sleep at the old mountain with an English friend". Tangier-la-rieuse is a treasure trove for the three days of this surprise visit, because beyond the volatile people thrill, Mick Jagger is part of the city's intangible treasure. And here he is, haunting the place without warning, awakening some very special memories...

The Stones have left their mark here since the late 60s, thanks in particular to two exceptional women who were their initiators in Morocco. Marianne Faithfull and Anita Pallenberg. Companions of Mick Jagger and Brian Jones at the time, they were the brilliant muses of a cultural universe in turmoil. In London, they opened up the Stones to a whole aesthetic world, populated by artists and creative characters whose freedom of body and mind was absolute. It was they who introduced the Stones to Tangier. It was at this time that Mick met Christopher Gibs, the great London antique dealer who lived in Tangier's Old Mountain district, and where Mick Jagger still had his regular haunts. Landing in Tangier just after celebrating his stage jubilee in London, the rock star revives a recurring Tangier saga, which began in the hippie era, when East and West, with no ulterior motives, mixed their music in the same dreams...

ANITA PALLENBERG WITH BRIAN JONES &AMP; KEITH RICHARDS, IN TANGER, 1967

BRIAN JONES, SUICIDAL HIPPIE

In the mid-60s, Brian Jones was the original leader of the fledgling Rolling Stones. A gifted kid and nomadic guitarist, he was friends with Canadian writer Brion Gysin, who had dropped everything in the 50s to open Les 1001 une nuits, a bar-restaurant in the Kasbah that he would later rename Le Détroit. Gysin introduced Brian Jones to the Sufi spirituality of jajouka music, which had also fascinated writers Paul Bowles and William Burrough. Brian Jones is literally spellbound. He multiplied his mystical journeys to Jajouka, a village lost in the mountains 150 km from Tangier, inhabited by men who are all musicians. They perpetuate trance music and rituals from the depths of time, probably from the mythology of the Roman Empire. For Brian, it's a real fairy tale! Under the stars, he improvises with the "jajouka" and also takes them to Tangier in Detroit, where he has a regular habit.

The "enchanted parenthesis " of the 70s , which profoundly transformed the West, was also a fabulous time for Tangier. Moroccans who lived through the era emphasize this. For Majid, the antique dealer in the medina where the Stones liked to drop in: "Tangier was quite simply 'the place' after Amsterdam; on $1 a day, you lived like a king; the perfume of freedom was very strong. Tangier was a city that, unlike the rest of Morocco, never slept! Zoco chicó and the whole beach were open all night for partying. You could drink and fuck to your heart's content, at the Scotch-bar or anywhere else, and there were even some very classy gay clubs. Really, I think it was the greatest era Tangier has ever seen." Khadija also speaks of it with sparkle in her eyes : "Tangier was incredible! It was Mon-te Car-lo! " she says, detaching the syllables. "And women here were freer than elsewhere, thanks to Princess Fatima Zohra, who set an example by revealing her face.

MAJID (LEFT), L'WREN SCOTT &AMP; CHRISTOPHER GIBS (RIGHT) SURROUNDING MICK JAGGER (2012)

It's a time of hippies, of esoteric research, of boundless excess, of parties till the end of the night. Brian Jones, the junkie, is also attracted here by the freedom with which drugs circulate. He becomes friends with Ahmed Hnefza, one of Tangier's legendary characters. Ahmed ran an antiques bazaar on the site of the Saveurs Poisson restaurant, a stone's throw from the Hôtel Minzah. Sweetly nicknamed " the Prince of hash " - not to say the king of dealers - he's brilliant in every sense of the word. Fascinating, he always wears a gold belt and smokes his kif in a precious stone pipe. But every morning, Ahmed goes to the Grand Socco with a basket full of money, which he gives to the poor. Redistribution à la tangéroise... Brian Jones also comes across another figure, the American Barbara Hutton, who shines in her very last years. The heiress still throws a few sumptuous parties in her house in the medina, near Place Amrah, but the hippies rather remake the world in the house across the street... at Café Baba, where ever-changing bands of cosmopolitan luminaries throng. It's here - between two magical and rather fragrant volutes - that Brian Jones believes himself to be in Paradise. In fact, he's not very far from it. Too much alcohol and drugs. His condition deteriorated, and the acid he took aggravated his asthma. In the summer of 1967, during a memorable tour, the Stones, fed up, abandoned him in Morocco. There's a scene at the Hotel Minzah where, after a heated argument with his partner, who gets a black eye, Brian brings back three prostitutes. This is too much for Anita, who leaves him and runs off with Keith Richards. Brian, consumed by his demons, walks away from the Stones. The following summer, in July 1968, the guitarist produced The Pipes of Pan of Jajouka with his mountain friends. This historic record would reveal the Jajouka to the world. Brian also introduced them to his friend Gysin in Detroit. One more year, in July 1969, and he was found dead in his swimming pool, shortly after having definitively broken with the Stones. Brian Jones, wasted genius. The rock legend, the man who loved Tangier, disappeared at the age of 27.

TWENTY YEARS ON: THE COMEBACK

In 1989, just 20 years after the death of Brian Jones, Tangier once again witnessed a minor miracle. The Rolling Stones would perform the mythical rock-jajouka fusion immortalized on Continental Drift. But Tangier has changed. It's no longer Paradise. In fact, the city is on a " very bad trip ". In 20 years, gold has turned to lead. Abandoned politically, deserted by those who had made its fortune and who are concerned about the dangerous and dangerous political instability, Tangier has become the city to avoid.

The Rolling Stones would get over it, and the tiny Kasbah would once again go down in rock history. As in all good stories, it all starts with a dream, the one Bachir Attar had one day. The son of leader Jajouka, who had recorded with Brian Jones, had become a leader in his own right. One day, he wakes up and tells his partner: "I dreamt I was playing with the Rolling Stones and wearing a green jellabah". His wife forces fate. Like throwing a bottle into the sea, she made a phone call to Jagger's secretariat. And it worked: "Hello, it's Mick"...she soon heard him on the phone. "Mick?" " Yes, Mick Jagger! The Rolling Stones were up for the adventure, which came at just the right time to pay tribute to Brian Jones - 20 years after his death. And to reunite Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, a couple on the rocks!

JAGGER PLAYING WITH JAJOUKA MUSICIANS

This time, things weren't happening at Le Détroit. Instead, a few yards away in the Kasbah, in another part of the Moulay Ismail Palace, in the home of Abslam and Khadija Akaaboun. This refined, music-loving couple had known Bachir Attar since childhood. So it was in their home that the meeting took place.

For this recording, the Rolling Stones have skilfully rewoven the threads, playing with the ghosts of the past. Khadija remembers this musical eight clos, this bohemian atmosphere in this dream setting, with "the Rolling Stones, incredible, Keith Richards, so simple, a bit our mentality, you sit down you laugh and Mick Jagger, the bourgeoisie, the class!"

KHADIJA &AMP; MICK DANCE BETWEEN TAKES

ROCK AROUND THE KASBAH

Is it any wonder that the tiny Kasbah served as the backdrop for these Arab-Western nuptials, these unlikely encounters, this free-spirited, interloped society where money was free to roam, and where people were fascinated by their differences, coming together in pleasure? The rock spirit could not but love this sloping village, criss-crossed by alleyways that spill down to the harbour a population eternally haunted by its own attachment to the labyrinth. As we all know, the mazes are frequented by monsters, some of them sacred, and every time the handsome Mick makes a comeback in these parts, we wonder. Sentimental nostalgia for a bygone era? A romantic break? Or scouting for new adventures? Whatever the case, the Kasbah, with all its musical and emotional past, remains a fatal magnet...

TEXT: PHILIPPE CHASLOT

(article originally published in Urbain magazine)

LISTEN

CONTINENTAL DRIFT

Continental Drift was recorded in Tangier's Kasbah in 1989. This rock-jajouka fusion track was produced by the Rolling Stones and the Master musicians of Jajouka. It's part of the Steel Wheels album, seen as "a real renaissance for the band, who rediscover their inspiration and desire to play together ". Indeed, it was to make this record that Keith Richard and Mick Jagger reconciled that year, after several years of detestable relations. The operation was a success, and marked a new beginning for the Stones... just 20 years after the death of Brian Jones. It was to commemorate this tragic anniversary that the Stones returned to Tangier. The highly successful Continental Drift remains a fine tribute to Brian Jones, who was the first of the Stones to flirt in the Kasbah with the riffs of his guitar and the sounds of Northern Morocco.