In the '50s, as a drifting youngster from Nebraska inclined to lie about his age to insure getting a visa, I wandered into a number of towns along Mexico's West Coast, and had the opportunity of stumbling, unknowingly, upon "Carnaval" in the languid port town of Mazatlan. Much different than it is today, the small dusty port was then dreaming of becoming something of a resort for game fishermen from the United States.
But for a brief period that February, Mardi Gras turned it into a true national resort center as Carnaval excitement swept through the cobbled streets like a great gust of irresistible fever, attracting thousands of people from throughout the republic. Most prominent among this colorful fiesta influx were the musicians, who seemingly represented nearly every region of the nation: mariachis from Jalisco, bandas huapangos who advertised that they were from Veracruz, marimba bands from Tabasco and Oaxaca, jumpy, polka-playing norteño bands from Chihuahua.
Pleasing noise
Late one afternoon, I wandered into a small, sultry restaurant, teaming with the odors of jalapeños, beer, mole and carnitas, dense with thirsty Carnaval celebrants, and shared a table with a generous, older couple. Happily, the man turned out to be a gringo. His wife, a mexicana, was rather proud of her considerable, attractively broken English. I had become a little desperate in the last few days, for my Spanish consisted of si, gracias, mas, por favor, cerveza, tequila, muchachas and cuarto.
Though I never figured out what the man, who said he was originally from Seattle, did in Mexico, it was soon apparent that he knew an impressive amount about this Republic and its music.
And in that tiny single room of the restaurant there was plenty of music. A mariachi conjunto played at the behest of a table near the back, while in front of the large, glassless windows opening onto the street, a marimba band played, in general, for the rest of us. The resulting noise seemed to please just about everybody, including me.
Between blasts of "La Negra" from the mariachis and the tinkling thunk of the marimba playing "La Llorona," the man--whose first name was Teo, the Spanish nickname, he told me, for Theodore--patiently answered my questions about Mexican music. I figured that if I was ever going to understand anything about this intense dark-eyed country, I'd better begin with what was at hand.
As Teo talked, I drank Cerveza Pacifica and took notes--a habit I was then assiduously cultivating--which amused his wife, Beatriz, greatly. "So serious," she would say, pointing at me and laughing.
Teo's surprising, scholarly knowledge and gentle encouragement would have kindled an enthusiasm for Mexican music in almost anyone; and although I can't even hum satisfactorily in the shower, he prompted a curiosity for music here that I've enjoyed ever since.
Pre-Columbian music
Music, singing and dancing was an important part of pre-Hispanic Mexican life. In his "Historia Chichimeca," Ixtlilxochitl talks about early, intricately organized academies of music. (Chichimeca was the name given to those Indians who inhabited Jalisco and other parts of western Mexico when the Spanish arrived.) But most of this original indigenous music was obliterated by the Spanish, since they interpreted it as an expression of "pagan" Indian religious beliefs. Those bits of Indian music that did survive were quickly merged with the dominating Spanish influences to eventually form the foundation of mestizomusical expression. (Many of the pre-Conquest dances have survived in such forms as "La Danza del Volador" and "La Danza de los Quetzales.")
European forms
Spanish music had an overwhelming effect on the Indians of Mexico, since, in their efforts to convert the entire population of the land to Roman Catholicism, the Spanish friars prohibited indigenous musicians and substituted European forms. Pedro de Gante established a "school for the teaching of European subjects" at Texcoco. European instruments were both imported and made here, and the Indians were taught the techniques of plainsong and polyphonic music, which they quickly adapted in a nimble, subversive way: to celebrate their old traditions under the guise of Christianity. Even today there are few traditional Indian fiestas that have a purely Catholic significance in fundamental religious terms. And several of the most ancient fiestas have, in many parts of Mexico, escaped significant Spanish influence altogether.
African influence
One of the most enriching "outside" elements of Mexican music was, of course, the African traditions introduced in the late 16th century, when black slaves were imported to beef-up the dwindling Indian labor pool. The quite obvious African influence, which is often vehemently denied by many Mexican historians, has been a deep and lasting one. The reason for this is obvious when one looks at the population figures at the time when the foundations of Mexican society were being planted. In 1580, there were approximately 18,500 African blacks in Mexico; the number of Spaniards was around 15,000.
While Spanish authorities tried to destroy the traditions the blacks brought with them, they failed to stop the Africans from putting their stamp on the church's most important holidays which they were encouraged--indeed, coerced--to celebrate. (These slaves adopted the culture of their masters, who converted them to Catholicism.) The black influence spread as slaves were sent throughout New Spain--to Mexico City of course, to Guanajuato, Morelia, Guadalajara, Pachuca, and it was especially vigorous in the gateway of the land, Veracruz. Much of this black music was critical of and hostile to New Spain's rulers, and as such coincided with the ideas of national independence gradually becoming popular among mestizos at the end of the 17th century.
Teo was one of those rare North Americans who thoroughly loved Mexico but who had avoided becoming romantically blinded by its dazzling charms. He recognized its diverse shortcomings, its cultural contradictions and its extraordinary eccentricities. As I was to discover later (for he was to be my guide to Mexico for many years), he found in many of these mysteries a challenge to his gringo instincts and habits of mind; this country's seeming paradoxes excited his curiosity, which he had refined into a patient, probing instrument. Music, folk tales and nonlinear concepts of time, tangled, asymmetrical, oblique cultural relationships exhilarated him it seemed. He could sit beside a dirt road in the middle of nowhere with a campesino, neither of them saying more than a few sentences, and return positively glowing with information, cultural deductions, a rustic dicho that revealed "tons," as he would say gleefully, "absolutely tons."
"Music," he told me over the Carnaval blast of Mazatlan. "Think about the words. Not just of one song, but of an era, a decade, a historically coherent period. It'll tell you everything. You can trace the nation's history in those singing words. What it felt, what it thought. Pay attention, don't hurry."
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