Grupo Mono Blanco.- Testimonios.- An article by Eugene Rodríguez

This is an article written for the booklet of the CD  El Mundo se Va a Acabar  (Mono Blanco and Stone Lips):

When I first heard Mono Blanco in 1989, I was not expecting the sounds that came from these quiet musicians and their ancient instruments, a sound that the New York Times described as a "high powered music box". What emanated from this quartet was what I could only describe at that time as a highly contrapuntal, tightly woven and rythmically undulating wall of sound.

I had just graduated from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music with a Master's degree in classical guitar and was begining a journey, discovering the variety of mexican regional music. I grew up in southern California hearing my family play and sing rancheras and boleros accompanied by mariachi. The music always had a warm family association and was a door to understanding the place my grandparents came from. However, hearing Mono Blanco rid me of the nostalgia I felt about mexican music, I was filled with a new wonder that set me upon a different kind of study.

I studied the recordings of the group, paying special attention to the guitarra de son figuras of Andrés Vega. Mono Blanco's music was what I imagined folk musicians of baroque Europe played, improvised figures on popular rythms and basic harmonic structures. Baroque contrapuntal masterpieces left to us in notation were not born in a vacuum, but rather within a musical culture in which counterpoint and improvisation were the norm. Folk rythms and forms were shared by folk and "classical" musicians alike.

I was struck that Mono Blanco's music, like baroque, lacked overt sentimentality, but was so emotionaly charged. They have an uncany ability to communicate, improvise musical ideas with great fluidity. They were immersed in the tradition, not simply as a study or vocation, but in a manner that defined who they are.

As it turns out, my assumptions of the origins of the son jarocho in the baroque music of Europe were justified. The jarana and guitarra de son are clear descendants of the baroque guitar and the renaissance guitar, respectively. There is also evidence that the super genre known as the son jarocho was probably divided into many rhythmic structures (i.e. jarabes, bambas) such as the many european dance rhythms (minuet, gigue, sarabande, etc.).

On those occasions that I have been fortunate enough to play with the group, I was quick to learn that I was not alone in adscribing the cultural lineage of these dynamic music. Throughout the travels with them there were many people who, upon hearing the music, clamed the son jarocho as their own. West african drummers immediately identifie the rhythms and origins of son jarocho as West African, East Indian musicians, Afro-Cuban soneros, as well as flamenco musicians of southern Spain immediately identified with the rythms, verse structures and dances of the son jarocho.

Of course  they are all correct. Veracruz, the home to the music and the group is a historically important port of entry to Mexico and has seen wave   upon wave of cultural infusions from all over the world. These many claims to the son jarocho are testimony to its richness and historical roots, but also to Mono Blanco's  ability to draw from so many influences while distinctly being representative of the rural son jarocho.

I was also impressed that their work has created a renaissance of the fandango jarocho in Veracruz. Gilberto and the group have established workshops in music, zapateado, versos and instrument building that have new generations of soneros and fandangos taking root. The fandango jarocho, the social and cultural context of the son -the lifeblood of the son jarocho and the artistic renaissance of the son-, could not take place in a lasting or meaningful manner if not for its own health. They are linked inextricably. I saw the need to reconect traditional music and popular culture also in California where we remain close to Mexico but far removed from its cultural roots.

In 1991 I took a group of mexican-american teens to Veracruz to study with Gilberto and participate in the fandango at Santiago Tuxtla. Soon after, I invited Gilberto to California. Sponsored by the Mexico-US Fund for Culture we formed the Fandango Project. Our mission was to reintegrate cultural context into Mexican-American interpretation of tradicional Mexican music and dance. Enphasizing comunal creative expression, we explored and shared our musical visions with Mexican American Communities across the country.

The foundation of these, Son Con Son project was a 1994 recording sessions in a dingy studio in the Mission District of San Francisco, with Gilberto Gutiérrez, Octavio Vega and myself. The lead instrumental tracks of harp, guitar and jarana formed the basis for the energy and outlook of the project. In fact, those same tracks still form the core of Son del Viento. We (much later) added basist Jorge Pomar, violinist Shira Kamem and vocals.

With that tape Gilberto was able to secure funds from Mexico's National Endowment for the Arts to begin the project.

The process of finding musicians to join in the project was both informal and intuitive. Many gifted musicians surounded us with roots in a variety of musical cultures. We sought out open minds for crossover experiments and those with the skill of listening and using music as a conversational language. Each of the original sones was to find its instrumentation in the process of working studio sessions. Very little was rehearsed.

This recording is an exploration of the material done with various cultural and musical points of view. The compositions make use of traditional elements that distinguish the son jarocho, but personalize and expand its stylistic parameters. It is my hope that it will contribute to an appreciation of the traditional son jarocho and affirm the genre's ability of touching a broad audience.

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