Encounter of two musical traditions in Mexico 1998
"I'm playing yesterday's music and nobody pays any attention to it any more," lamented Juan Reynoso, the virtuoso violinist from Guerrero's Tierra Caliente, just a few days before President Zedillo handed him a gold medallion signifying Mexico's highest honor, the National Arts and Sciences Award. While the sones and gustos Reynoso performs so eloquently do stem from centuries-old traditions and have been overlooked by modern media, the music's ability to please listeners seems not to have lessened at all, as evidenced by the overwhelming response it has elicited at events in Mexico City and the Pacific Northwest of the United States.
Such responses have one American fan betting the music and culture of the region are indeed still viable and will continue to flourish if given wider exposure. Ever since Lindajoy Fenley, an American editor living in Mexico City, first heard the fiddle of Juan Reynoso, she's endeavored to keep his music alive with the ultimate aim of invigorating a regional culture she feels is too important to be left behind.
The latest chapter in Fenley's ongoing effort is a double event she's organizing for February, featuring traditional music from both sides of the border. A concert at Mexico City's Old College of San Ildefonso on Feb. 25 will feature performances by Reynoso, acclaimed blues artist Del Rey and the duo Jones and Leva, interpreters of the Appalachian tradition. The same artists will appear Feb. 27 and 28 at a two-day festival in Ciudad Altamirano, the center of the Tierra Caliente, along with groups from that region.
The event, entitled " Encounter of Two Musical Traditions '99," will also give visitors a chance to learn more about the culture of the region through dance workshops and the recreation of a traditional calentana wedding where Reynoso will perform. Organized tours to outlying villages will provide a glimpse of traditional crafts like hatmaking and gold jewelry work.
Aside from its entertainment and educational value, the meeting has more serious aims, chief among them to keep the culture alive. Juan Reynoso fears he may be one of the last practitioners of a musical tradition. Says Fenley, "It's a difficult music to play, and it doesn't pay well, so that's why young people don't get involved." Though Reynoso is accompanied on guitar by his son Neyo, who acknowledges that his father plays "the good music," Neyo makes his living playing cumbias and baladas at local dances.
The purpose of the event, then, is to get the region's residents to reevaluate their local musical tradition--to recognize its inherent greatness. And the best way to accomplish this, Fenley believes, is for it to be heard far and wide.
Fiddler on the move
When Fenley first heard the music of Juan Reynoso on a cassette she found in downtown Mexico City, she was enchanted. Determined to meet the violinist who has been called the "Paganini of the Tierra Caliente," she went to Ciudad Altamirano, situated about five hours from both Mexico City and Acapulco. "They received us at their home and we spent the whole afternoon abusing the hospitality of don Juan and (his wife) doña Esperanza," she recalls. "Don Juan played beautiful pieces and we chatted about how he fell in love with the music of the region when he was still a boy."
Born during the early days of the Revolution in Ancón de Santo Domingo, a small village in Guerrero, Reynoso first picked up a violin at the age of seven. Under the tutelage of regional poet/composer Isaías Salmerón, the young Reynoso learned to play sones and gustos, the local dance music for weddings and other social occasions. He soon distinguished himself by his extraordinary interpretation of these folk melodies, playing with an intensity and improvisational skill that set him apart and earned him the "Paganini" moniker. As times changed, the popularity of Reynoso's music faded and he was forced to supplement his income by laboring as a security guard and other odd jobs.
After years of performing in obscurity, Reynoso is finally receiving long-overdue attention. A Corasón CD documenting his work between 1972 and 1993 has been distributed widely. And in 1997, he received the prestigious National Arts and Sciences Award for his cultural contribution.
Eduardo Llerenas, co-founder of the Corasón label, which mines the wealth of Mexican and Caribbean traditional music, recalls discovering Reynoso in the '70s. "We'd heard a lot of other music from all over the Tierra Caliente region, from Tlatehuala, Aracelia, Huetamo and the other villages of the area. We were particularly impressed by don Juan for his virtuosity. We were very interested in such a great regional interpreter of this Mexican music, which impelled us to return on other occasions to record." In compiling his "Anthology of the Mexican Son," a three-CD overview of the style as it is performed in different regions, Llerenas included five selections by Reynoso--no other artist in the series had more than two. "This demonstrates a gratitude, an extraordinary affection for Reynoso's work," says the musical explorer.
In 1996, Fenley brought Reynoso to the American Fiddle Tunes Festival, an annual gathering that takes place in Port Townsend on Washington's Olympic Peninsula. Reynoso was extraordinarily well-received. The violinist in turn was deeply impressed by the gathering, attended by hundreds of musicians from all over North America. "Anywhere you throw a lasso, you catch a musician," he said during the event where he taught classes, played for a dance and performed in a showcase concert along with Balfa Toujours, a group led by Christine Balfa, the daughter of the late Cajun fiddle giant Dewey Balfa.
Captivated by Reynoso's performance, Christine introduced herself and invited the fiddler to a Cajun dinner. Juan's son Neyo in turn invited Balfa and her group over for Mexican food. It was at this get-together where Fenley broached the idea of doing a joint concert in Mexico, and in January '97 both groups performed at Mexico City's Poliforum Siqueiros. The first "Encounter of Two Traditions," as the event was labeled, proved to be a revelation to the Mexican audience, not only for the previously unknown richness of the Cajun music, but even more for the homegrown sounds produced by Reynoso.
"Balfa Toujours started the concert with a program of traditional Cajun music that was meant to be a thorough overview of the style," recalls Christine Balfa. "We were overwhelmed by the response. After our final song, we received a standing ovation and were called back for an encore. As positive as this response was to our group, however, it was next to nothing compared to the response given the Conjunto de Juan Reynoso. After hearing and appreciating our tradition, the audience was filled with uncontainable pride upon hearing don Juan and experiencing the realization that this incredible music was their own. They seemed to erupt from their seats with appreciation for the music that was born of the same soil as themselves."
Christine hopes this recognition--of the cultural value that exists within Mexico's own borders--will save the tradition from being swept away by the "tidal wave" of the mass media and spark a renaissance in native traditions. "There are many places where local culture has already become only a memory in the minds of the older people," she says, echoing Reynoso's fears. "It is due to the resilience of the people of Tierra Caliente that they do not find themselves in this unfortunate group at present. They still have resilient musicians and other artists who could inspire a cultural revival if given the opportunity."
Balfa's optimism is clearly a reflection of her own culture's experience and her father Dewey's successful efforts to revive it. Dewey Balfa, also a violin maestro, was instrumental in bringing Cajun music to a worldwide audience. In 1974, after a decade of playing at musical forums outside of Louisiana, he helped establish the Acadie Festival in Lafayette, Louisiana, thus giving new life to a culture that had virtually gone underground, and validating it in the eyes of its people.
Lindajoy Fenley agrees that such self-validation can help kindle a similar revival in calentana traditions. "As people in Tierra Caliente see that what they have is beautiful in their own ears, and in the ears of people in other places, they'll love it more and they'll take care of it more and it'll revive," she predicts.
Cross-border spirit
A further aim of the festival is to open cultural doors between North American neighbors. NAFTA has been widely praised for knocking down trade barriers between the two nations, but in other important ways Mexico and the United States remain largely unknown to each other. Mexicans' image of their northern neighbor is largely informed by Hollywood blockbusters and rock 'n' roll, while Americans see their southern partner exclusively as a producer of tortillas and mariachis. "(The festival) will certainly increase understanding between the people of Mexico and the people of the United States, both of whom, unfortunately, often fall back on stereotypes in their view of one another because it is the only information they have," says Christine Balfa.
Those who visit Ciudad Altamirano can also see Yolotekuani, who brilliantly perform the music and colorful dances of Guerrero's Tixtla region, as well as a number of local musicians and a contingent of visiting American fiddlers.
In connection with the festival, USIU's Colonia Roma campus will host a series of conferences from Feb. 22 to 25. Lecture topics will include the influence of Mexico on U.S. musical traditions, the blues, and the music of Chiapas and the Huasteca region, among others.
"My father has always struggled so the musical tradition of Guerrero would not die, trying to preserve the music with the desire that it would last for many more years," the musician's son Neyo asserted during a November 1997 gathering in Coyoacán celebrating Juan Reynoso's receipt of the National Arts and Sciences Award. Due to the efforts of his supporters, Reynoso is reasonably confident now that his homeland's music will live on a little longer as value is attached to the tradition.
But Eduardo Llerenas, of Discos Corasón, urged Mexican cultural authorities to do more by acknowledging the contributions of numerous other lesser-known musicians throughout the Republic, and to praise them in the midst of their careers rather than waiting until they retire or die. Said Llerenas, "How wonderful it is that on a certain date of a certain year, we can celebrate an artist of this country's great musical culture, who almost everyone says is marvelous. But such a statement goes no further than the time that is taken to say it."