Cooking up a Mexican musical melting pot
Charleston Gazette
Thursday February 17, 2000

By Paul Gartner
STAFF WRITER

The music of Mexico is coming to Charleston. By way of Chicago.

That's right. The Windy City. The home of "da Bears," da blues and since 1994, Sones de Mexico.

The proper name of the six-man band is Sones de Mexico Ensemble Chicago. "Sones" describes the large family of Mexican music, dance and instrumental styles. Each region of the nation has its own "son."

SdM will bring all these traditions to a Friends of Old-time Music and Dance concert at 8 p.m. Saturday at the Cultural Center theater in the state Capitol Complex.

Chicago is home to a large Latino community, says founding SdM member Juan Dies, who is also director of community outreach at Chicago's respected Old Town School of Folk Music. Dies estimates that one in five Chicago residents is of Latino ancestry.

That includes Dies, who was born in Mexico. His parents moved to Indiana when he was 17. "I've gone around the full circle," he said from Chicago.

As a child, Dies heard the local music, then went on to study classical and jazz in college. Later he earned a master's degree in ethnomusicology, studying the music of Africa, where he did some field work.

Then he brought it all back home.

In Chicago, Dies hooked up with Victor Pichardo, now the director of SdM. Also a native of Mexico, Pichardo toured extensively there with folk groups. Along the way, he met and heard many native musicians.

"In the process, he accumulated an impressive amount of knowledge about Mexican music," Dies said.

The other members of the band are Rene Cardoza, Renato Ceron, Gonzalo Cordova and Raul Fernandez.

"I stay mostly on guitarron," Dies said. "On the melodic end, Victor and Renato switch from violin to clarinet or saxophone to accordion, depending on the style."

There is more than instrumental prowess at work in SdM.

"In the United States, ethnic roots are more distinct," Dies said. "In Mexico, the races have mixed. Everyone has a little bit of everything in them."

According to Aztec legend, we live in the fifth world. Our task is to find equilibrium, Dies said.

"We borrow that tale, that mythology, to balance the various ethnicities that have formed us."

Balance among the roots was the idea behind the band's first CD, "¡Que Florexca! (Let it Bloom)." The audience will hear some of that music at Saturday's FOOTMAD show.

"There is a progression from native Mexican music to the more European influence," Dies said.

He points to the juapango, from Mexico's Huasteco region, which absorbed flamenco sounds.

While SdM started out with strict ideas about the music, now they mix things up a little.

"We constantly negotiate in the group about what is traditional," Dies said. "We haven't reached the point where we bring in synthesizers."

SdM did add a full drum kit, played by Raul Fernandez. They did so "to reach out a little more, and make the music a little more accessible," Dies said. "More danceable."

In addition to using 25 instruments - guitars, guitarron, violin, donkey jaw, and vihuela to name a few - Rene Cardoza also plays and dances with a machete.

That tradition began with campesinos - farm workers - in the state of Nayarit. "In dancing, they would take their machetes and play," Dies said. "They would hit them together so hard sparks would fly. It is very spectacular."

Be advised - keep your eyes open all the way to the end of the dancing machetes. Cardoza is a "daredevil," he said.

SdM's second set will feature a dance party, with audience members joining in the fun.

Dies' other job at the folk school is focused squarely on community.

The school wanted a broader appeal in the city, he said. "We've made some important steps. It is more of a multicultural organization."

"I feel as an ethnomusicologist, a mission to translate the culture to a broader audience."

Half the students taking music classes at the folk school are not Latino, he said.

"We try to take it a little further and educate people about what we are doing."

This includes performing in Chicago schools, in neighborhoods where children can use good role models, he said. "Kids are attracted to MTV, but when they see something from their own culture, they feel good about themselves."