A child's voice intones those words softly, without emotion — as if competing in a spelling bee — before a crisp, syncopated acoustic guitar and rubbery, bossa nova rhythm kick in. The song, "Ice - El Hielo," by the Los Angeles band La Santa Cecilia, zeros in on a word, in both English and Spanish, that carries deeply emotional resonance, particularly for Latino immigrants forced to hide in plain sight, often cold and alone, from icy-faced authority figures whose job is to profile brown people as criminals.
José "Pepe" Carlos, La Santa Cecilia's accordionist and requinto player, knows what that feels like. An undocumented immigrant who came to the United States as a kid, Carlos was not able to travel outside of the U.S. to perform with his band until President Barack Obama's Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals gave Carlos relief from deportation.
"We had been together for six years, and we would go to San Antonio or to Austin to play, but I couldn't play in Mexico," Carlos says of La Santa Cecilia's formative years. "When I got the deferred action, I finally got to go and play in Mexico City." His voice takes on a tone of wonder. "It was amazing," he continues. "And now we've played in Argentina and Colombia. I've crossed many borders and I never thought that would happen."
Border crossing
La Santa Cecilia is one of an extraordinary number of Latino bands bringing an even more extraordinary range of Latino music to San Francisco this week. The group performs at SFJAZZ Center July 24 as part of the music portion of the second annual Mex-I-Am Festival. The four-day series also includes performances from the Mexican singer-songwriter Natalia Lafourcade, on July 23; Peruvian-Mexican singer Tania Libertad, who pays tribute to ranchera legend Chavela Vargas on July 26; and veteran Tex-Mex accordionist Flaco Jiménez, who performs July 27.
The Mex-I-Am Festival covers a lot of Mexican musical territory, but the SFJAZZ Center is not the only place you can hear a variety of sounds from Latin America's rich musical well this week. The experimental Argentine singer and songwriter Federico Aubele brings his woozy mix of electronics, accordions, and guitars to Leo's on July 23; opening for Aubele is the equally intriguing Peruvian indie-folk duo Alejandro and Maria Laura. On July 24, Venezuela's funky Los Amigos Invisibles will be doing acoustic versions of their sexy, sweaty dance music at The Fillmore. And ¡Cubanismo! brings its hot mix of danceable, big-band Afro-Cuban and Latin jazz to Yoshi's in Oakland on July 26.
As for the Mex-I-Am fest, this year's expanded lineup came by fortuitous coincidence, says SFJAZZ spokesman Marshall Lamm. "[We] approached the Mexican Consulate to let them know that we had booked this week of music and to see if they wanted to support the concerts," Lamm says. "As it turned out, the consulate was starting to plan their Mex-I-Am Festival for the same time."
For the inaugural Mex-I-Am event last year, Lafourcade and Mexican electronics composer Murcof performed at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts as part of the larger, multidisciplinary festival that also includes film, dance, visual arts, and discussion of ideas. This year, due to SFJAZZ's involvement, the music portion of the festival will play an even bigger role. Lamm says his organization wanted a program that would "highlight a wide cross-section of artists from, or descended from, Mexico. SFJAZZ is hoping to reach the significant Mexican-American population living in and around San Francisco, and to honor the rich contribution of Mexican and Mexican-American artists to music."
Culture clashing
La Santa Cecilia's contribution to music is a sound that reflects the clash of cultures in contemporary Los Angeles. The band mixes traditional Latin and Mexican folklóricos, boleros, and other forms with American blues, R&B, gospel, and rock. At its center is singer Marisol Hernández's deeply soulful voice, which sometimes growls and tugs at notes with the effortless swagger of Aretha Franklin, and other times flutters with the ease and grace of the late Tejano songbird Lydia Mendoza. When the group's debut, Treinta Dias (30 Days), took the Grammy last year for Best Latin Alternative Album, Hernández dedicated the win to "the more than 11 million undocumented people that live and work really hard in this country."
Lafourcade, by contrast, was born and raised in southeastern Mexico, and still lives in her country of origin. Her music draws less from tradition and more from contemporary pop, and her sassy and buoyant self-titled debut was all the rage on the rock en español scene when it came out in 2002. Since then, Lafourcade's sound has matured; her latest, Hasta la Raíz, is lush and warm, a meticulously arranged set of songs with more sophisticated lyrics and bigger, broader, bolder instrumental brush strokes.
Libertad and Jiménez bring the roots of Mexican folk music to the Mex-I-Am series. Libertad pays tribute to the late Vargas, who was born in Costa Rica but at 14 moved to Mexico where she quickly became identified with the rural Mexican style of songs known as rancheras. One of Vargas' most memorable late-career performances was a cameo in the 2002 film Frida in which she wailed out her most familiar song, the canción folklórica "La Llorona" (The Weeping Woman). Like Vargas, Peruvian-born Libertad is not a native Mexican, but has absorbed the country's musical traditions since she became a citizen in the late 1970s.
Jiménez is a pioneer of Tex-Mex, the most traditional form of Mexican-American fusion music, and one of the more well-known Latin music styles in the U.S. His distinctive flair on accordion can be heard in numerous sessions he's done with pop, rock, and country stars ranging from '80s neo-traditionalist Dwight Yoakam to former Roxy Music frontman Bryan Ferry to the Rolling Stones.
That kind of mixing and matching is what motivates Pepe Carlos. "We're so lucky to live in such a diverse county," he says. "When you come out to a La Santa Cecilia show, you see all types of people from all parts of the world. It's really true that music knows no borders, and that there's no specific way of dancing."
The spate of Latin music doesn't stop with this week: On Aug. 6, Mexican rock en español pioneers Maldita Vecindad play the Fillmore; that same night, Colombian rock superstar Juanes performs with Mexican singer-songwriter Ximena Sariñana at the Warfield. Also playing that night is Honduran singer Aurelio, who will be showcasing the African and Caribbean music of the Garifuna people at SFJAZZ. Finally, Oakland's own La Misa Negra brings its blistering cumbia rhythms to The Independent Aug. 1.
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