Pickamania in Silver City, NM: Bluegrass Music Grows Up

Steve Riley and the Mamou Playboys

My first experience with a bluegrass festival was way back in 1974, together with my buddy Emmett Collier on our Grand Tour of the West, and my first true foray into the world of backpacking and independent travel, cutting off those ties with Mom and Dad and the girl I might've left behind, if I'd had one. I remember the dates distinctly because I left the day I turned twenty. I didn't return 'home' for over six months. Hey, I was hungry. And it was the holiday season. The rest is history.

COMO AGUA PARA NESCAFE… VANILLI… CHOCOLATE!

Okay, so it’s not exactly the good, the bad, and the ugly, but it is three very different branches of musica Latina. The Brooklyn group Pistolera started off the festivities on Wednesday at MacArthur Park here in LA. They’re great, rockin’ and boppin’ with some constantly upbeat Tex-Mex ranchera music. They’re a mixed bag, three females and one male, two Mexicanas and two Gringos, two lead instruments and two rhythm. These gals rock. What Mexican music is doing up in Brooklyn in the first place is anybody’s guess, but somebody’s done their homework. Fortunately I’m not a big stickler on authenticity as long as the music’s good. They seem to be ‘breaking out’ so something must be going right for them. Still I wonder if they’ve got their marketing plan right. They could run into some image problems along the way or limit their acceptance to the ‘ethnic-music-as-kitsch’ niche. They don’t have a Hollywood-tested centerpiece like Lila Downs, so that’s not an option, and wearing Mexican/cowboy wear would be phony given their city backgrounds. I wouldn’t necessarily recommend ethnique chic with Guatemalan huipiles and such, but if the only option is matronly retro wear and high heels, then maybe (my ex- is going to kill me)…

Chana is something totally different. Now if there’s anything more suspicious to me than models-as-singers, it’s music coming off a stage from instruments that don’t exist except in some studio somewhere hopefully no farther away than Echo Park. So Chana came with two strikes against her for me. Of course, if the girl can sing, you can’t begrudge her her fetchingness, and if the band members are all holding instruments and playing them, then what’s wrong with a few supplemental tracks? Still, it stretches the definition of ‘live’ and again raises those artificial reality scenarios and conspiracy theories that I fear more than the conspiracies themselves. Just gimme the truth. I’m a big fan of multi-media, mind you; I just like to know what’s what. Still it’s a sign of the times and if you start rejecting dub tracks you may just be relegating yourself to the sidelines. Should I go ahead with that prototype for a guitar-shaped laptop?

The audience is always right after all, but you might want to make a distinction between what’s appropriate for a disco and what’s appropriate for an outdoor stage. I remember lone drummers playing along to DJ tracks way back in the Stone Age for extra oomph in the butt-twitchability department, but I don’t think I’ll pack a picnic and take my kids to see that, if I had kids, and if I liked cold fried chicken and potato salad, that is. What’s that? Wine and cheese? Really? That’s legal? Playing self-described ‘trop-electro-hip-pop’ Chana is headed up by Rosanna Tavares (NuYoMinican) and Martin Chan (Chinese-Peruvian). They each have multiple talents and I’d be interested in seeing them in a club along with ‘multimedia stuff’, as long as Martin winds up back in front of his instrument by the time the song is over. Some of their abrupt endings after extended texturing are like sex without the climax. They played a short set also, if that helps the metaphor…

“Chuchito” Valdez needs no second-guessing from dilettante mother-bloggers like myself. He’s a wonder, laying down notes in inspired sonic washes up to the point of drowning in them, only to come up for air just in the nick of time to walk on the water again. To call him a master of understatement would be an understatement. The salsa dancers’ loss is the listener’s gain. I’ve mentioned frequently the mix and mash of Latin jazz and salsa available here in LA and how tough it is for a band to distinguish itself, but that’s no problem here. “Chuchito” Valdes is beyond the category of mere ‘musician’. The man is an artist, tickling our sensibilities along with his precious ivories, which seem to serve more as an extension of his nervous system than a mere instrument to be abused by 10-year-olds the world over doing their mothers’ bidding and compensating for their own missed opportunities. I only regret that I missed him last week with the Mladi’ Chamber Orchestra, but that was because I ran into Big Sam’s Funky Nation along the way, so all’s well that ends well, right? Still, though, “Chuchito” with a chamber orchestra…

I stopped in to see Fishtank Ensemble at Cal Plaza Saturday night almost as an afterthought, so that was a pleasant surprise. They were opening for the movie Gypsy Caravan, so their own brand of mostly East European Gypsy music was great. They even played a Flamenco song or two to satisfy that branch of the musical DNA, but it certainly wasn’t a Flamenco band. This was Slavic drinking music and Romanian rants, filtered through the translocations of time and space. With strong backing from bass, guitar, and violin, front-woman Ursula Knudson was free to explore other terrains with more exotic instruments, such as a theremin-like musical saw, and especially, her voice. She hit notes that are best appreciated by dogs, and did things with it that might best be described as ethereal scat. I’d like to see a longer set, with alcohol…

This week is a mixed bag for world music in LA. If you’ve got time, gas, and fifteen bucks, Manu Chao is down at the bullring-on-the-beach in TJ on Sunday after his gig in SF Outside Lands on Friday. I think they backed off on that new passport requirement. You definitely won’t need it this Wednesday at the Knitting Factory on Hollywood for ‘Verano Alternativo’ with alterno-Latinos Quetzal, the Salvador Santana Band, Chicago’s Alla’, and ZocaloZue. For us cheapies ZocaloZue will be at the Japanese American National Museum on Thursday for free along with La Santa Cecilia and Cheap Landscape, the band not the city. The Indo-Germanic group Ahimsa will be at Skirball Cultural Center also on Thursday. Then there are my usual haunts. First there’s Mariachi Reyna, ‘America’s First Female Mariachi Ensemble’, then SambaDa at MacArthur Park on Wednesday and Thursday respectively. Then there are Xavier Quijas Yxayotl and America Indigena on Friday with Mayan and Aztecan music and dance, then Kevin ‘Bujo’ Jones with Afro-Cuban jazz on Saturday, both at Levitt Pavilion in Pasadena. Cal Plaza Grand Performances has Very Be Careful with Money Mark Friday night and daKAH Hip-Hop Orchestra on Saturday. LACMA has the Scott Martin Latin Soul Band earlier Friday evening. See you there.