Old-Style Mariachi Music Cascades out of Gritty Strip Mall to Infuse New Generations - Joel Selvin, Chronicle Senior Pop Music Critic Thursday, October 5, 2006
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Old-style mariachi music cascades out of gritty strip mall to infuse new generations - Joel Selvin, Chronicle Senior Pop Music Critic Thursday, October 5, 2006 In a small strip mall in the East Bay near the end of San Pablo Avenue, Los Cenzontles Mexican Arts Center sits between a run-down coin laundry and a Smart & Final discount store, a few blocks from the Richmond/San Pablo city line. Nearby are some of the toughest neighborhoods in California, 24/7 drug dealing on every corner, death and violence at hand every day. More than 200 students traipse through the remodeled liquor store each week to take music lessons in this hardscrabble part of town, blowing gently on the glowing ember of their culture that Los Cenzontles director Eugene Rodriguez is keeping alive. "We are playing the old-style mariachi music," he says, "something very few people have any value for." Rodriguez and the people at Los Cenzontles are working hard to preserve traditional Mexican music, teaching their grandparents' songs and dances to a new generation. In the trophy case in the center's light, airy main room are a photo of first lady Laura Bush giving Los Cenzontles an award, some of the 15 CDs the center has recorded with its touring company and photos of Los Lobos and Linda Ronstadt meeting with the students. Leather chairs and a couch that one student's parents dropped off on their way to the dump make a little living room at the end of the recital hall, lovingly built by more parents, many who work in the building trades. Los Tigres del Norte, Norteño music superstars from San Jose, donated an old lighting rig. A recording studio is set up in a small room in the corner, where hand-built traditional instruments hang on the walls. "I am not a fan of overtly political music," Rodriguez says. "But everything you do can be a political act. Creating something grand with people nobody has any expectations of is a political act. All our children have potential. We all have our own song to sing. And that's radicalism, right here in our own strip mall." For Rodriguez, 44, who has given his community back something of itself, it has been a journey of self-discovery. Raised in a middle-class home in Glendale, Rodriguez says he doesn't even speak Spanish well and first discovered traditional Mexican music on Los Lobos records. He went looking for himself in the antiquated traditional music. "I went back to Latin music to reconstruct a feeling of wholeness," he says. A third-generation immigrant, Rodriguez earned a master's degree in classical guitar at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, but after the death of his month-old infant, he decided he needed something more. "I realized being a classical guitarist alone onstage didn't do it for me," he says, "practicing a lot, performing a little. And I wanted to do something with kids." With a grant from the California Arts Council, he started Los Cenzontles -- Spanish for mockingbirds -- as a youth group in 1989. In 1994, he moved into temporary quarters in the San Pablo Civic Center, lugging equipment in and out every day. More than 175 children signed up the first week. The same year, Rodriguez produced the Grammy-winning children's album by Los Lobos, "Papa's Dream," using Latin music great Lalo Guerrero as the grandfather and members of Los Cenzontles as the background choir. When 15-year-old Cecilia Rios was raped and murdered that same year in a nearby schoolyard, Los Cenzontles revived the tradition of the corridos to express the grief of the Cenzontles, many of whom knew Rios. Writing the songs was an effort to channel some of the anger and sadness into more socially acceptable modes than graffiti or gang retaliation. The topical ballads that were the fundamental currency of Mexican folk music are almost entirely now a thing of the past, even in Mexico. The work reached the ears of Chris Strachwitz, the folklorist whose Arhoolie Records is down San Pablo Avenue in El Cerrito. Strachwitz may be best known for his recordings with African American folk musicians such as Lightnin' Hopkins, Mance Lipscomb, Mississippi Fred McDowell and Clifton Chenier, but he has been the leading researcher and record producer in the traditional Mexican folk music field in this country for more than 20 years. He released the first two albums by the group. Rodriguez's search for authentic Mexican music led him to rural southern Veracruz, where he met folk group Mono Blanco in 1989 (he recently edited Mono Blanco tapes that Strachwitz made in 1989 for an Arhoolie CD, "Soneros Jarochos"). These illiterate, itinerant musicians showed Rodriguez the sound his soul needed. "I listened to all styles of Latin music," says Rodriguez, "but none of it satisfied me deeply until I heard the roots of Mexican music in Veracruz." The son jarocho tradition of Veracruz almost disappeared from the face of the earth before Mono Blanco leader Gilberto Gutierrez fostered something of a son revival, the ripples of which could be heard in the Spanish-language rock of Café Tacuba or Molotov, who have sought out Mono Blanco for recordings and performances. When he returned home, Rodriguez understood his mission in an even more personal sense. "I was training the musicians I wanted to play with," he says. Then in 1998, the program found a home in the Dias Plaza strip mall, thanks to the most rare of species, a generous landlord. Working in Los Cenzontles' office is Lucina Rodriguez, 27, who has been part of the group since she was 12 years old, and Hugo Arroyo, 27, who decided he wanted to learn how to play guitar at age 8 after he saw the movie "La Bamba." Both play, sing and dance in Los Cenzontles' touring company, which does 40 to 50 dates a year around the country. They also both teach classes at the school. "The people in this neighborhood don't have much faith in institutions," says Eugene Rodriguez, "and they don't have much faith in after-school programs. But they think differently when they see us staffed by people who grew up in the neighborhood." Although the city has given him some support in the past, Rodriguez is operating his center without one dime of tax money -- "They'd rather run their own after-school program," he says -- and one Richmond councilman, Jim Roberts, even recently asked to be removed from Los Cenzontles' e-mail list. The center raises funds through grants and donations, but also with its own revenue from CD and DVD sales, touring and even the modest class fees. Rodriguez has also made two documentary films to help tell his story. "Pasajero," which chronicles a 2003 trip to rural Mexico by Los Cenzontles, has been syndicated on PBS stations last month. "Fandango" follows the lives of the Mexican musicians. A third film is in the works. Los Lobos called the school to find banda musicians for the group's recent West Coast tour. "We dusted off the sousaphone," says Rodriguez, who joined a handful of his staff and students on seven shows with the band, which were filmed for a DVD to be released later this year. Los Lobos also told Rodriguez that they would play a benefit at the center sometime in the future. Rodriguez says he wants to avoid using the word "preserve" about the fragile music and dance traditions they teach at Los Cenzontles. But the curriculum concentrates on raw, direct roots music, far removed from the hip-hop world most of the young people at the school know elsewhere. Some of the students go home and use what they learned at Los Cenzontles in death metal or electronica. What Rodriguez really wants to do is advance the culture, which is the only way to truly keep it alive. "People treat folklore like it's something quaint," he says, "take it out every Cinco de Mayo and then put it back on the shelf with the good china. I want to show that it's still strong, that it's surviving for a reason." Los Cenzontles appear in workshops and concert at 3 p.m. Saturday for Mariachi Day at Children’s Discovery Museum, 180 Woz Way, San Jose, part of the 15th annual San Jose International Mariachi Festival and Conference. Tickets: $7 ($6 for children). Call (408) 298- 5437 or www.cdm.org. E-mail Joel Selvin at [email protected]. Page E - 1 URL: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/10/05/DDGFQLHMT81.DTL ©2006 San Francisco Chronicle SF Gate: Multimedia (image) Photo Gallery Ads by Google Full Story Old-style mariachi music cascades out of gritty strip mall to infuse new generations Eugene Rodriguez and the music ensemble Los Cenzontles rehearse in San Pablo. They'll perform Help Needy Children Saturday at San Jose's Children's Discovery Museum. Chronicle photo by Paul Chinn Kid's Food and Child Health Kits help kids & honor someone you love www.MercyCorps. org/Mercy Kits Let Me Show You The Proof Achieve Home Based Business Success You Get Instant Access To 10 Facts www.Wealth- Freedom-And-B eyond.com Christ Chose Poverty Follow Him in Franciscan simplicity Poor Clare Nuns, Santa Barbara, CA www. poorclaressantabarba ra.org Bridge of Hope National End and prevent homelessness for single mothers and their children. www. bridgeofhopeinc.org Feed the Hungry We provide free high quality meals. Offered to poor, elderly & disabled www.meirpanim.org http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/object/article?f=/c/a/2006/10/05/DDGFQLHMT81.DTL&o=0&type=printable (1 of 2)12/20/2006 4:16:05 AM SF Gate: Multimedia (image) Photo Gallery Ads by Google Full Story Old-style mariachi music cascades out of gritty strip mall to infuse new generations Fabiola Trujillo (left) and Lucina Rodriguez dance to the music of Eugene Rodriguez and Los Cenzontles.