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Mariachi strolls on to Minnesota music scene
by Dan Olson, Minnesota Public Radio
May 2, 2003

Band members seated: Heather Newman, Cristela Frias. Back row left to right: David Schmitt, Felix Guadalajara, Miguel Villegas, Jason Vasquez, Pedro Torres. (MPR photo/Dan Olson)

This weekend on St. Paul's west side, one of Minnesota's best known Mariachi bands performs in the state's biggest Cinco de Mayo celebration. Mariachi music is an infectious blend of brass, strings and voices featuring songs about life's eternal themes.

St. Paul, Minn. — We Minnesotans have bounced to polkas, wriggled and writhed to rock and roll, and now mariachi is strolling on to the scene.

And what, you might ask, is mariachi music about?

"Life, love, work, everything about life, they (mariachi songs) express them in such a joyful way," says Pedro Torres, a founder of Mariachi Flor y Canto. He and the six other band members have families and day jobs, but they grab every chance to play and sing.

	Mariachi trumpet players

"It's a great need that's coming from within me, and I have the necessity to express my feelings, my culture, my happiness, my sadness," Torres says.

Mariachi music is old but not ancient. It was born in Mexico's Jalisco region.

Dr. Daniel Sheehy, curator of the Smithsonian's Folkways recordings in Washington, D.C., says one of the first written mentions of mariachi is from the pen of a cleric. Some 151 years ago, a dyspeptic parish priest in rural Mexico wrote his superior that he was peeved with members of his flock for falling under the spell of local musicians.

"He was complaining," Sheehy says, "because on Holy Saturday there were these musicians making music, and playing cards, and carrying on out in the town plaza -- and they called this mariachi."

	Mariachi string players

Mariachi music's popularity rocketed into orbit in the l930s, propelled by movies and radio. The music spread like wildfire across the border into the southwestern United States. Now, there are dozens of festivals, high school and even college music programs featuring mariachi music. The music's style has changed dramatically from the old days when it was played on harp and drum. The Saturday night revelry part of the tradition is holding up just fine.

Every month, on the fourth Saturday, Pedro Torres and his fellow Mariachi Flora y Canto members serenade diners at Boca Chica, a restaurant on the west side of St. Paul. The restaurant is a teeming blend of spanish-speakers cheek-by-jowl with Anglos and others -- all enjoying the eatery's famous Mexican cuisine.

Dressed in traditional mariachi black suits, white shirts and belts with elaborate buckles, Torres and the band -- five men and two women -- stroll, strum and sing.

Pedro Torres' soulful brown eyes gleam at mariachi's bright future in Minnesota. There's a steady stream of new residents with the music in their blood spreading the mariachi tradition.

"We are going to have much much greater opportunities to play and to develop mariachi music," he says, "maybe someday schools. These people are bringing culture too to us."

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