As we say in Mexico, “lo prometido es deuda.” Here’s a post about the origins of Radio Jarocho and a little bit of history of how we’ve gotten to where we are today. As many of you know, we have been pioneers in the celebration of the fandango and of son jarocho in general in the East Coast. Therefore, it is with great pleasure that we present to you the birth of this great movement in New York.
It was all the way back in 2001 when the first members of Radio Jarocho met and played Mexican folk music together. Gabriel Guzmán was teaching a guitar class in Queens in which Carlos Cuestas was a student and where he learned to play La Guacamaya, El Canelo and La Bamba. This is interesting because Carlos is considered to be the newest member of our group (he officially joined in 2010), when in reality he was already part of it, without knowing it, ten years ago! Soon after those classes, however, Carlos left for his native Bogotá, Colombia, and we lost track of him for some time. Gabriel continued to play son jarocho throughout the city, using “normal” guitars first and then, in 2003, with the first jaranas to have arrived in New York. This was a truly important moment for son jarocho in the United States and especially in the East Coast, where there had not been soneros until then.
During the next couple of years, Gabriel met Juan Carlos, nicknamed “MiChavo,” and performed in important events like La Feria del Sol on 14th St. and the Brooklyn Public Library. The first fandangos in New York took place in the now closed Carlitos’ Café in East Harlem, with Gabriel as the main organizer, and with new members Juan Lucero, Cecilia Ortega and MiChavo. Talk about an important year for Radio Jarocho! By then, they had already named themselves Semilla and played son jarocho and son huasteco.
Indeed, there were fandangos in New York then, but Semilla had no tarima, the central element of a celebration of this nature. Therefore, the arrival of José Servín to the city was a pivotal event all of us. José, a professional dancer of folklor and great connoisseur of traditional Mexican music, particularly of son tixtleco, brought the first tarima to Semilla, which led to the first real fandango in the East Coast. Every month, Semilla and friends would get together at Carlitos’ Café to play, dance and celebrate. By then, they were also playing sones de tarima from Tixtla, Guerrero. Semilla had become a truly versatile band. With the new line-up, Semilla played in Terraza Café for the first time in September of 2005, making this year the fifth anniversary of the arrival of traditional son jarocho and fandango in Queens!
Semilla very quickly became known for being the only group in NY that played traditional music from Mexico (not counting mariachi and ballet folklórico, which are not really considered “traditional”). It was in this context that Julia met Gabriel at a posada in the Museum of the City of New York. Julia had been dancing for a few years in Mexico City and, having moved to NY to go to graduate school, she looked for people who shared her interest in son jarocho. In Semilla she found what she was looking for. She accompanied Gabriel, Juan Carlos and José for the first time at a 5 de mayo celebration in Manhattan. Julia gave the first son jarocho zapateado workshop together with José at the Caribbean Cultural Center, and Gabriel invited Julia to be a formal member of the band very soon after.
It was after playing in some pretty important venues and festivals, like La Casita at Lincoln Center, Central Park, NY1 and Telemundo that we realized that the name “Semilla” didn’t really cut it for us anymore. The name was pretty common among folk bands all through Latin America and didn’t really reflect our reality, which is that we are urban soneros that have very little contact with the countryside or any rural environment where seeds (or semillas) would grow. Therefore, we decided to change the name of the band. After heated debate where we came up with some good options and some really awful ones, Gabriel had an epiphany and Radio Jarocho was born. But the name was not the only thing that changed. By then, we had decided to dedicate all our efforts to son jarocho, so we stopped playing son huateco and son de tarima. We are sure it was a wise decision and hope you all share that view!
The new name has proved to be the perfect choice, because things for us have only gone up and up since then. First, we recorded our first album in 2008, then, we rearranged the band’s lineup and became the smaller, but more cohesive, band of four that we are today. We joined paths with Carlos Cuestas again and made him our leonero, adding his incredible talent to our project. Not only do we continue to be incredibly successful as son jarocho pioneers in NY, but we are also doing something that not many bands from Veracruz do: we write our own original material. We are now ready to record our second album with all new compositions and one song by Patricio Hidalgo. This is something that has never been done before! Yes, many groups like Chuchumbé, Son de Madera and Cojolites have written and recorded their own songs, some of which we have taken inspiration from. However, there has not been, as far as we know, a whole son jarocho album that's made of all new songs. If they do it in rock n' roll, why can't we, soneros, do it? So, stay tuned and be ready for the amazing urban sones jarochos that we’re going to throw your way very soon.
Many musicians have shared the stage with us. Some only for a couple of times, others for several months. Damián López, from Oaxaca, taught us some great new verses and helped us come up with arrangement for traditional sones; Bianca Falco shared with us her experiences in Veracruz; Sinuhé Padilla was great with the percussions, while Carlos Salazar was our requintero for more than a year before moving back to his hometown, San Antonio, TX. Cecilia Ortega cheered us all up with her good humor and joyful zapateado, and Juan Lucero made us all smile with his potent voice and witty verses. Undoubtedly, José Servín has had the strongest influence on Radio Jarocho. He is a wonderful musician and dancer, as well as a great friend. His project Gallos Plateados has become very successful in Mexico as one of the best son tixtleco groups around. We send him all our good wishes. These collaborations have contributed greatly to what we are today and we appreciate everyone who has ever played with us. We wish them all good luck in their new projects and endeavors, and hope we can share the stage again some day in the future.
So, this is a very short summary of what we do, where we’ve been and whom we’ve known. We hope you’ve enjoyed it and that you keep coming back for more Radio Jarocho. Please don’t forget our next performances and remember that if you can’t come to one of them, you’ll have plenty of other opportunities. We’ll be very busy this summer. Check our schedule for upcoming shows. Also, listen here to the fabulous interview that Gabriel and Julia did with CitadinoSon, a wonderful band based in Mexico City that play son jarocho, son cubano, trova and guaguancó.
This edition of our blog is dedicated to our new friends Cascada de Flores. The three members of the group, Arwen Lawrence, Sabra Weber and Jorge Liceaga, play traditional music from Mexico and the Caribbean. They are based in Oakland, CA and bring back the sounds of the Golden Age of Song in Latin America. They recreate these musics and spice them up with their own unique accents, using guitars, foot stomping, donkey jawbone and bass lamellaphone. So, check out Cascada de Flores and enjoy a romantic evening with their beautiful music. Arwen, Sabra and Liceaga will come to NY in June to share the stage with Radio Jarocho at Jalopy Theater. You can’t miss it!
With much sonero love,
Radio Jarocho
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