Date: 12/8/2022
Location: Blanca Hamri’s home/café
Attendees: Blanca Hamri (interviewee), Ana Collins (interviewer), Robert Yarra (interviewer)
Blanca: I liked him a lot. And, of course, the fact that he got this thing organized which is, I mean, I never would’ve thought it. I am really… very embarrassed, but I just found this photograph. It’s without a frame.
Robert: Oh, that’s beautiful.
Blanca: Show it to your friend, to Ana.
Ana: Mmm…yes! How very lovely!
Blanca: That’s me in my prime.
Ana: Yeah? Is that here in Tangier?
Blanca: No, that was in New York.
Ana: Oh, wow.
Robert: It’s beautiful.
Ana: Yeah, it’s very chic [smiles] and naughty; you look very naughty there.
Blanca: I was there. I had a naughty look; I have to say that, yes. Well, I was very amused by everything. It was a wonderful time with music and jazz and I’m very, ah… I mean for me, music is the secret ingredient in everything because it penetrates a part of you and it is a particular sound. Like when I first heard the rhaitas of Jajouka which are very special— there’s only four left of the original musicians, one of whom, Lessem Musaria, is the guardian of the house in Jajouka. He’s in his seventies and I remember him as a dancing boy because that’s how the rhythms were taught. You had to be a dancing boy in order to play the drum which, people who’d play the drum… That’s real coffee by the way.
Ana: Mmm, lovely!
Blanca: If you drink coffee, do you drink coffee?
Ana: I do.
Blanca: Do you want tea?
Robert: I usually drink tea.
Blanca: Ah, OK. [Blanca asks for tea in Darija.] What was I saying?
Robert: You were talking about music…
Blanca: Ah, the music…the sound, it’s a particular sound. It’s very similar to bagpipes. As a child, I always… The first time I heard bagpipes, I thought, “God, how wonderful it would be to have a personal bagpiper who played for you– breakfast, dinner, and to sleep,” [laughs] because it’s that sound that hits you in a very special way.
Ana: Mmm.
Blanca: And the rhaitas, when they are played, they [musicians] know what they’re doing. They learn the rhythms by being dancing boys. Some become drummers– who are not master musicians. They’re not considered– a drummer is not a master musician; only the rhaita player is. It’s very special… and I remember some of them who are alive now, who were dancing boys learning the rhythms, because they would do the ritual of Boujeloud… That’s a sketch of Hamri of Boujeloud.
Ana: Ah. The one–
Blanca: Dressed in goat skin and…
Ana: It’s a bit like Pan!
Blanca: It’s Pan! Yes. Boujeloud: “Father of Skins;” “jeluod” is “skin,” and every certain time of the year in Jajouka, they would play like it was a festival of Aisha Kandisha who was… Well, the legend goes that a farmer was wandering in the hills and he came upon a cave and he laid down in rest. He heard the most beautiful sound he had ever heard and he fell asleep. When he woke up, there was a strange creature holding a hollow piece of bamboo, playing this music —a terrifying-looking creature, half man-half goat. He used to go there all the time and begged him [Pan] to teach him how to play the flute. The creature said, “I will teach you, but you mustn’t tell anybody where you heard this or play it.” Well, he made a flute. Attar took it into town and played it for the people, which he shouldn’t have done. When the creature heard about it, he became furious, dancing out of his cave and started whipping people. Attar told the creature he would bring him a wife, which he never did. And the creature became furious, used to come out now and then and carry on, wreck the village. So, they had dancing boys pretending they were the people. Then they found a woman, slightly off to one side, named Aisha Kandisha who used to hide in disguise. She had a blue face—this is the legend—and she would come out and dance for Boujeloud. Sometimes they used dancing boys to manifest Aisha Kandisha.
Robert: Hmm.
Blanca: Because women would never dance in front of men at that time.
Robert: Hmm.
Blanca: It’s all fables and stories and wonderful.
Ana: Rich folklore.
Blanca: Yes, you become a child again and hear these wonderful [stories]. Things that people have inside themselves. They don’t believe it; they’re– you know—whatever they are, but it’s there floating. I always hear it’s floating in the hills. It’s in me, so I am marching around with it. [laughs]
Ana: Yeah.
Blanca: But it’s very fascinating to me that people learn music by dancing to the rhythm and the changes are taught just with the eyes.
Robert: Hmm….Incredible!
Blanca: Yeah. You’ve been to Jajouka?
Robert: I haven’t; have you been? [referring to Ana]
Ana: Yes, I have. When we came to Tangier, we got in contact with Cherie Nutting and Bachir Attar to interview them about Ira and they were quite negative in their response.
Blanca: They were negative, yes?
Ana: About Ira… [laughs nervously]
Blanca: Why were they negative? I remember being up there and Bachir used to come around…
Ana: Uh-huh.
Blanca: …And listen to the music, but he wasn’t part of the group, I think he wanted to be, and I remember asking Hamri, “Why isn’t he?” And Hamri said he didn’t really like how Bachir played, his playing. Hamri said he was not– His father…
Ana: Was a master…
Blanca: …Was a master– fabulous– but he was a magic man. [quietly] The father was full of magic, a fabulous musician, a devout Muslim, all of that; but this other part of him was very strong! A wonderful player but Hamri never considered Bachir to have made the cut, as far as he was concerned, and that’s really… Paul Bowles, who was a naughty boy, introduced Cherie to Bachir.
Ana and Robert [simultaneously]: Uh-huh.
Blanca: Because Paul was like the fly on the wall, moving pieces just to see [Ana laughs] for information to help his writing. I think that’s where it came from.
Ana: Yeah.
Blanca: But he was a curious man to create situations and he created that situation, which was a shame, because Cherie went crazy.
Ana: Mmm!
Blanca: And Bachir was crazy.
Ana: Crazy with love or? I mean he was wild? Passionate?
Blanca: Well, they had a passion, yes, obviously, but I am only interested in the music part. The other part is not my business.
Ana: No, of course.
Blanca: You know what I mean?
Ana: But the craziness…
Blanca: There’s no excuse. [raises tone] You’re madly in love and behave like a shit; that’s not-an excuse-to me! If you know your man is a shit, that’s something else. You know it, but you don’t pretend that it’s something good when it’s not.
Ana: Hmm.
Blanca: But that was all so unnecessary and she got really… is she still alive?
Ana: Yes.
Blanca: Is she? I hope she’s well.
Ana: Yes, she said she was coming back to Tangier next month. Bachir is at [unintelligible] now, but she said they wouldn’t have anything good to say about Ira. So it’s probably better not to bother. [laughs] You know, she spoke quite venomously about Ira’s Irish friends.
Blanca: Who was that?
Ana: I guess that’s Frank Rynne and Joe Ambrose, perhaps.
Robert: I think they had another group of musicians that she felt that were taking on– I’m not quite sure– fame. When there was Bachir’s group, who were the real musicians, she thought that Ira caused that schism.
Blanca: He didn’t cause that schism, and they were not the real musicians. They were younger than the other musicians. Anyway, it turned into something quite nasty and Paul was very instrumental in fanning the flames.
Ana: Puppet master!
Blanca: He was the puppet master, and it was for his information, for himself, as a writer. He liked to fiddle and diddle with people.
Ana: His research.
Blanca: And do his research, yes. I mean it’s a shame. She was a dedicated and devoted woman to the music and to her—the man she was with. The whole thing became a schism in the village, which was very unpleasant and unnecessary. I always felt that way.
Robert: Yeah, I was rather shocked by the vehemence of her response to my survey on Ira, because– I mean Ira’s done bad things, as we all have, but..
Blanca: Oh, we’ve all done bad things.
Robert: Exactly.
Blanca: I mean I’d shudder sometimes when I… You know, the first forty years of my life I just… [laughs] I’ve spent the next forty, fifty years of my life redeeming myself [Blanca and Robert laugh] You know, we’ve all stumbled along and done things, said things, set things in motion we were sorry we did. All of us have that. I don’t know of any saints marching around.
Ana: Mm-hmm.
Robert: And what do you recall of Ira?
Blanca: I liked him. He was an interesting guy. He liked the music. He wasn’t a harmful person. I never felt that about him. He wasn’t vehemently against anything. He was happily for whatever he was for. As I say, he was instrumental in getting that published. He was the one who contacted Capra Press in California.
Robert: Hmm. I always knew him as very generous with his time and effort for his friends.
Blanca: Yes. Nothing like that, and Cherie got… God, I don’t know what’s going on with her.
Ana: And he also loved the rich folklore of Morocco. You know, the Jilala, the gnaoua.
Blanca: Well, I liked them too!
Ana: Yeah.
Blanca: I mean they’re all very fascinating. The music of Morocco is so varied! There was a wonderful woman here. She was a princess, I think, Moroccan. She used to…
Ana: Princess Lalla Fatima ?
Blanca: Princess Lalla Fatima Zohra. One of the great ladies of Morocco. She used to drive her own car. She used to go shopping, used to bump into her shouting at somebody in the market. She was a great supporter of the music. She used to have these evenings in her beautiful house with different groups, the best! Yeah, Lalla Fatima Zohra.
Robert: What brought you to Tangier?
Blanca: [chuckles] I had been in New York. My life’s stuck in New York. I don’t remember why…I didn’t like it. I went out to California and lived in San Francisco, which I liked, but the weather was terrible. Then I moved to Marin County, where they have a rainbow over the tunnel. You go from San Fran–You’ve ever been out there?
Robert: I worked in San Francisco.
Blanca: Oh, well you know, going through the tunnel…and then I couldn’t stand it anymore because everyone was blond.
Robert: Was blond?
Blanca: Blond!
[Blanca and Robert laugh]
Ana: That’s a funny thing.
Blanca: That sounds ridiculous, but between the blond beards and the blond blandness of everything, I couldn’t handle it. So, I went traveling with a friend of mine down to Tijuana. We went across Mexico and I hated it. I didn’t like it because I liked the mood of the street. You can go anywhere with a letter of introduction… You’re visiting a house, not a country. I always liked the streets– streets that I want to know– and I didn’t like anything else. I went to Athens with this friend of mine and I hated it. We hated Mexico, except where the Indians are in Northern Mexico. I forget the name. Anyway, I liked that part.
Ana: Chihuahua.
Blanca: Yes, but the other part I didn’t like. We went to Athens, which of course was fabulous with the statues and the Parthenon, but it was during the time of the colonels.
Ana: Mmm. The fascists!
Blanca: So you sat on Syntagma Square and tanks would be going by. My friend was going to Hawaii to go bodysurfing. I mean [chuckles] this was the state we were in. I had a blond afro. I looked a little bit crazy, knickers and… [gasps] That was the time, you know?
Robert: Yeah.
Blanca: And we decided to stop in Tangier to visit an ex-neighbor of mine who used to live near me in New York City. I was here three days and I met Hamri.
Ana: Ah.
Blanca: I was on my way home. Finish and start all over again in New York City. I used to hang paintings in galleries. I also worked for this very famous shop called “Vision Unlimited” where I had a nice time, ran everything, did the window. And fell in love with the country then Hamri showed up [laughs]. I am sitting in a café and I had seen him the day before. He came up to the car where my friend was parked by the red light. They were chit-chatting— I don’t know what-– and when we drove away, I said to her, “Who’s that? He’s very interesting. You didn’t introduce me! Why?” “Oh,” she said, “He is a nightmare, keep away!”
Ana: Hm-hmm.
Blanca: I said, “Why is he a nightmare?” “He’s got a Czechoslovakian girlfriend. She’s nine feet…” I don’t know what. Really waving the red flag in front of the bull. Anyway, the next day he saw me at the Café de Paris and he said, “Helloooo. Hellooo [She imitates deep foreign accent] I sawrrr-you yesterrrr-day [Blanca and Robert laugh] hmm-mmmh! I’d like to take you to lunch!” “Oh”, I said, “Ok.” He said, “I peeek you [up] tomorrrrrow at eleven o’clock!” And I thought, “Gosh, that’s early, but maybe it’s out of town.” Anyway, he came and I got in a panel car with him. I didn’t know that no one ever drove with Hamri because he never looked at the road [Robert and Ana laugh]. He drove like this [gestures madly].
Robert: Oh, God!
Blanca: I don’t know why he never had an accident; it was like there was a pocket of protection around him [laughs]. We go to Asilah; we go to Larache; we go to Cast. ”Where is this?” [I was] thinking, “Where is this place for lunch?” [Ana laughs] And by that time we stopped at the Hotel Hesperides, this ancient Greek name, I was really in daze. Then we go up and up this bouldered road [and] everyone comes down saying, “Hamriiiii! Hamriiii!” And that was it.
Robert: Hmm.
Ana: He took you to Jajouka.
Blanca: He said, “I have a festival tomorrrrrow and have to go back.” And a lot of folks were there. Bowles was there. Sanche de Gramont, who changed his name to Ted Morgan, whose a big writer.
Robert: Yeah.
Blanca: You heard of him.
Robert: Yeah.
Blanca: Well, he’s really Sanche de Gramont. He changed his name, why I don’t know.
Robert: He’s very big with the Beats.
Blanca: Very interesting guy. Nancy– he had a wife named Nancy. He was a wife-beater. Excuse me if I say it, but if it’s true, one says it.
Ana: Oooh.
Blanca: Mmmmm [Blanca laughs mischievously. Robert laughs too] OK, I did it! I’m sorry, I’m not poy-fect [strong N.Y. accent]. “Nobody is perfect” as they say in that movie.
Ana: Hmm.
Blanca: Yeah, so, that was it.
Ana: And you stayed here and taught for many years in the American school, was it?
Blanca: Well, I had my miraculously wonderful child in my forties, which shocked me, and Hamri, who was a painter and gave away his paintings. I used to buy his paintings to keep them and he would sell them. You had to go to Spain, yeah, it was hard to get materials.
Robert: Were Hamri and Ira close?
Blanca: Yes! I mean Ira was very friendly with Hamri. He respected him and liked him and saw him for what he was worth: flamboyant, full of energy, very talented. I mean, Hamri was a very good painter.
Robert: Yeah.
Blanca: When he did this he said, “Nobody can figure out how I did that.” He used to sleep and live with his paintings. He would be talking, I would be talking, I would be reading, and he’d get up and do something with his painting. He always had his paintings in his bedroom. You know, they were like his children, and then when I was pregnant with Zanah, I mean he was wonderful. He was really wonderful. I knew nothing about birth and babies.
Ana: Mm-hmm.
Blanca: I’m the youngest in my house– the only girl. I have four older brothers, who were very good brothers, you know, and I had it in me with men. It’s a brotherly feeling that I have. I am a sister, a younger sister, but that’s how it is with me and men. They are protective and I am appreciative. I try to behave well, for my brothers. C’est moi, chérie.
Ana: Uh-huh.
Robert: You grew up in New York?
Blanca: Yeah.
Robert: I grew up on the Lower East Side.
Blanca: I grew up in Coney Island.
Robert: Oh, Coney Island. It’s changed but they still have the freak show and they still have… it’s got a special flavor, Coney Island.
Blanca: Coney Island. Stillwell Avenue.
Robert: Yeah.
Blanca: Last stop on the train.
Robert: Yeah.
Ana: If you’d like to smoke, this one’s for you for later.
Blanca: God bless you and I keep you.
Ana: Mm-hmm
Robert: I’ll light it up for you.
Ana: Yes, do you have an ashtray, there?
Blanca: Yes, I do. Are you guys going to smoke?
Ana: Yes, we would.
Robert: Or if you’d like to hold it for yourself…
Ana: Yes, there’s another for later.
Blanca: Okay.
Robert: You could smoke it if you want and…
Ana: I can roll another.
Blanca: I would love it, please! I don’t have anything and it’s like I’m nuts at night!
Robert: [chuckles] I know the feeling.
Blanca: I’m busy chit-chatting anyway. Whatever you can do for me, darling, is highly…
Ana: Yes, it’s better
Blanca: …Respectfully, gratefully accepted.
Robert: Well, we went to Coney Island where the–
Ana: Oh! Coney Island was a wonderful place to grow up. I have to say my brothers protected me. I could walk anywhere, five in the morning, by myself. No one ever bothered me, they all knew my brothers, they knew me.
Robert: Do you remember Shatzkins knishes?
Blanca: Well of course, you know that they were removed. The city of New York stopped allowing people to buy them, for they were so greasy, but the best knish in the world. Around the corner from Nathan’s.
Robert: Yeah, Shatzkins was always where we would go, and of course Nathan’s, but Shatzkins…
Blanca: Shatzkins knishes were the best!
Robert: Yes!
Blanca: It was a wonderful corner. They had a great custard. You could get ice cream– you know– custard? There was also a man who sold corn and Shatzkins was down the road.
Robert: Yeah.
Blanca: I mean, if you really want to goad yourself with fried food, but a Shatzkins knish my dear…
Robert: It was special, yeah. Coney Island was a great place to go, because it was a fascinating place in the winter.
Ana: Hmm.
Blanca: When piles of snow would be on top of the mute rides. You know, the Cyclone? One of the all-time fabulous wooden rollercoasters.
Robert: Yeah.
Blanca: “Last car, last seat.” That was the one that–
Robert [laughs]
Blanca: –flipped as you went down.
Robert: Did you go too, on the, ah…
Blanca: Parachute Jump?
Robert: Parachute Jump.
Blanca: I used to go all the time on the Parachute Jump. Well, the view was fabulous. I was little, but when it hit the top, it would let loose and for one second you were floating. That was the feeling! You were suspended. It was like being on a plane when you cut all the engines and you are just floating, but more so because nothing was moving. It was something I did all the time. I love the color of it… is that your hair?
Ana: Ah, I mean, it is somewhat artificially enhanced [laughs].
Blanca: What is it, henna?
Ana: Yes. I mean I got little bit of henna to make it more fiery, but it’s nice for autumn [smiles].
Blanca: That happened to me once.
Ana: Mm-hmm.
Blanca: It was an ex-girlfriend of Hamri who arranged to get me ruined in there. When I came out my hair was…bright! I cried for two days.
Robert: It was a revenge?
Blanca: Revenge. She figured that one out, can you believe it?
Ana: Can I get you a coffee?
Blanca: Yes please, and there’s milk, yes?
Ana: Yes.
Robert: Did you know Ira in New York?
Blanca: No, I didn’t.
Robert: At that time, he was moving around. He left New York in ‘61 or ‘60, I think, and took a freighter to Tangier and then he went to Paris. We met in San Francisco.
Blanca: He was a very nice man. I liked him a lot– Ira. As I said, he was the one who did this for me.
Ana: Made the connections.
Blanca: He made the connection and sent it in with a cover letter. He did the whole nine yards— pushed it– everything. Yeah. That was very kind of him/
Robert: Yeah.
Blanca: And then, of course because of COVID, people weren’t coming here— English-speaking people— so I was speaking in Arabic all the time.
Ana: Ah!
Blanca: Thank God I learned Arabic. I mean, my Arabic is very 1,2,3, but I can defend myself.
Ana: It’s functional.
Blanca: I can get instructions. I can act out and explain. I can compliment and I can defend myself.
Robert: I see that. [Both he and Blanca laugh].
Blanca: And then I can’t remember the English word for room, for pomegranate.
Ana: Aha.
Blanca. Now, you are doing a book on Ira or a program?
Robert: A book. About eight years ago, this guy— Jordan Zinovich— sat down with Ira for four months and went through his writings and he put out a lot of prose. Because Ira’s a photographer and a poet but…
Blanca: Yes.
Robert: I had never read his prose— or very little of it— and when I read it, it was just going around in the Internet, I read it and thought, “This is incredible.” I had started a non-profit foundation—the Golda Foundation—and we published one book on this artist— Vali Myers— who was a friend of mine and Ira’s. Then I thought, “I have to publish this!” So I am doing a joint venture with Lithic Press.
Blanca: Is this mine?
Ana: Yes, give her some sugar if she likes.
Robert: And that’s where we’re standing now. The book should come out next year, I hope, and when it comes out, I will send you a copy.
Blanca: Please!
Robert: Yes. It’ll be photographs, prose, poems, and interviews. Ira interviewing others and people interviewing Ira.
Blanca: And sign it!
Robert: OK, for sure!
Blanca: Please.
Robert: No, of course!
Blanca: Well, I am sorry to hear Cherie Nutting is still chewing yesterday’s mashed potatoes.
Ana: Mmm.
Blanca: She should just relax and be enjoying life Safi [in Darija]… forget it.
Ana: Mmm.
Blanca: I mean they did a lot, the two of them. She did too, you know? They’re not… As they used to say in Coney Island “They’re not chocolate, but they are a little pâte foie”[laughs] So, to be virulent it’s just childish.
Ana: Mmm. As you said, my innocent understanding… I always had this quiet sense that the two different… Who were the true Master Musicians of Jajouka? I attended performances from Hamri the older Master Musicians in the village, and I also know Bachir and Cherie. I’ve seen them around Tangier, and yes, it’s a very fierce division and it’s unnecessarily unpleasant.
Blanca: Very unpleasant, yes. The whole thing was unpleasant.
Robert: Well, I am going to take your side because it was kind of shocking how strongly she felt against Ira as the great enemy.
Blanca: He wasn’t an enemy, was one of the sweetest guys I’ve met and knew. He was very bright, a writer, a poet. I mean, who is she? Who is she? Nothing!
Ana: She did say that she admired his photography, you know. She’s like, “Although he was a very good photographer!”
Blanca: And that’s nothing? Photography– one of the most fabulous…
Ana: Well, she’s a photographer too, you know?
Blanca: Is she a good photographer?
Ana: Ah, I mean, you know…
Blanca: Oh, excuse me. I remember now. She did a photograph, now I don’t remember who it was, with smoke coming out of the mouth.
Ana: Uh-huh.
Blanca: It was a copy of a very famous photographer.
Ana: Uh-huh.
Blanca: It was a complete copy, and I really lost respect for her because she took… It happened because when you go long enough you get references, baby, and yeah, it was a copy of another photographer who did this. It wasn’t [like], “I am doing this copy.” She did it like it was hers!
Robert: Hmm.
Blanca: As my mother used to say when she left something out of a recipe and mine came out awful [laughs], “You either have it, or you don’t” [Robert and Blanca laugh]. Never could get a recipe out of it. I’m a bit like that too…for my pâté, yes, but I try to give it to someone, I can’t. You have to stand with me and watch me make it because I don’t know it’s a quarter of a pound or [laughs] two shakes or whatever. Yeah. But I don’t cook anymore… I am happy I can stand on my own two feet [laughs].
Ana: You’re doing well.
Blanca: I am doing well, I mean I must say, I’m very happy about the state of my brain, and it’s because I’ve always been a great reader, and I have been influenced by Joni Mitchell and Bob Dylan.
Ana: Ah-huh.
Robert: Those are two great ones.
Blanca: So, what else can I say? [laughs]
Robert: Likewise!
Blanca: OK [laughs]
Ana: That’s beautiful [gestures], and having painted the album cover.
Robert: Ah, yeah!
Blanca: Yes.
Robert: And it’s incredible.
Blanca: Someone sent that to me; I forgot who it was. Anyway, I can’t read it, but someone…
Ana: [reads] “Adrian Rue, recorded it in June 2012?”
Blanca: Ten years ago.
Ana: Yeah, yeah.
Blanca: With the cover, Hamri.
Ana: Mmm, it was about that long ago that I attended a performance there.
Blanca: Where? In Jajouka?
Ana: Yes, and it was organized by Frank. It was sort of springtime.
Blanca: Who? Frank Rynne?
Ana: Yes, Frank Rynne organized it.
Blanca: [laughs] He’s been trying to get on my good… He said something to me…
[END OF RECORDING]