New York, NY. (Top40 Charts/ Shore Fire Media) - On April 21st Smithsonian Folkways Recordings will release 'Son de Mi Tierra,' a gorgeous new album from Son de Madera that recaptures the vibrant, improvisatory styling of the original son jarocho music of Veracruz while incorporating new sounds and stylistic perspectives.
This string-driven, regional son jarocho tradition originated in local farming, fishing and ranching communities. When it first hit the Mexican airwaves in the 1930s, it became a great commercial success. In a 37-page booklet with detailed song notes, director and curator of Smithsonian Folkways Daniel E. Sheehy and anthropologist and Son de Madera member Rubi Oseguera describes the evolution of son jarocho from its origins to the 'folklorized' version ubiquitous on Mexican records, radio and cinema in the 1930s and '40s, to the revival movement that began in the 1970s and continues today.
At the peak of its popularity, son jarocho had been reduced to a few standard songs with set lyrics and arrangements. The image of a Veracruz ensemble with its uniform clothing, marked by loose, white guayabera shirts evocative of the tropical coast, eventually became a stereotype. It was not until Gilberto Gutierrez formed the group Mono Blanco with his older brother in 1977 that the rural roots of the son jarocho resurfaced. Gilberto's younger brother, Ramon Gutierrez, now the leader of Son de Madera, joined Mono Blanco, and with many like-minded groups that followed played a key role in spawning a reawakening of interest in a roots version of the son jarocho. The members of Son de Madera have long been at the forefront of this revival.
On 'Son de Mi Tierra' Son de Madera both brilliantly channels the soulful nature of the beloved son jarocho and infuses it with contemporary elements. Their synthesis of the rural and the popular is 'a combination...about what the music was, about what tradition was,' says Oseguera. 'With all this dimension of globalization that we have, we cannot remain in the rural and traditional stage. There are people creating many new things, not to innovate, nor just to be in the vanguard of cultural development, but rather because those same local processes, those same traditional processes, lead you to that. We need to see how we're going to project our music, how we're going to encourage those traditional, communal processes that continue to be the base. We need to get to the point of being more open to other things, to another type of interchange, in order to continue developing.'
NOTE: Smithsonian Folkways Recordings retail distribution is through RYKO Distribution at 800.808.RKYO. Smithsonian Folkways Recordings releases are available through records and book outlets. Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, as well as the original Folkways, Cook, Dyer-Bennet, Monitor, Paredon, Collector and Fast Folk collections, are available via mail order at 1.888.FOLKWAYS or 800.410.9815 and via the Internet.
Visit the Smithsonian Folkways Recording website at https://www.folkways.si.edu/ and https://www.smithsonianglobalsound.org/.
