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Las Cafeteras Defy Tradition
Their take on Veracruz music is pissing some folks off
While the group members insist they have made a strong effort to demonstrate their respect for the genre — even traveling to Veracruz early on to learn with the masters — they don't deny doing nontraditional adaptations of it.
Ricky Garay, a promoter who has booked Las Cafeteras for his Mucho Wednesday parties at La Cita and the Echo, says the band has been a hit since its first nightclub show for his series back in 2009. "It's universal. Hipsters, Latino hipsters, they seduce every audience into tapping their heels," Garay says. "You don't have to know the songs or the music, you just start moving."
PHOTO BY BRANDON SHOWERS
Las Cafeteras at Eastside Cafe
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Salon De La Plaza
1866 E. First St.
Los Angeles, CA 90033
Category: Restaurant > Small Plates
Region: East L.A.
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The group has released only one album so far, a live 2009 concert recorded at Mucho called Las Cafeteras Live at Mucho Wednesdays. But it wasn't received how band members had hoped; in fact, it's precisely what drove the still-sensitive rift between Las Cafeteras and L.A.'s Son Jarocho community.
Alexandro Hernández, an ethnomusicologist and musician who knows many of the band members, says several of the city's more experienced musicians asked Las Cafeteras to a meeting shortly after they released their live album. "There was this moment where [Las Cafeteras] were told, 'You should respect the music,' " Hernández says. "And I think they felt shunned."
Hector Flores believes the band's naysayers simply don't want the traditional music to be lost, which he understands. "We need those folks holding the line to be, like, 'You can't allow people to do this, you need to play like this, in an accent like this,' which is legit."
Still, that doesn't mean they have to listen. "We're a new age and a new space and a new set of ideas and beliefs," Gallegos says.
"We're DIY," Hector adds. "We're fucking punks, dude, we do shit on our own."
It's now late August, and Las Cafeteras are returning from a show in the coastal Baja town of Ensenada. There's a three-hour wait at the U.S.-Mexico border, and Torres, Carlos, Hector Flores and French are crammed into French's little Yaris.
Amid the stinky, exhaust-clouded throng, Carlos' jarana is being passed around the car, with each band member taking a turn playing. The songs go on for 15 minutes or more, as Carlos and French invent an endless stream of new verses.
Their road trip was a brief, 36-hour affair. The group was invited to play a show called "From Son Jarocho to Hip-Hop" at Ensenada's WorldBeat Cultural Center. The gig covered their travel costs. Late that Saturday evening, the Cafeteras took the stage, after a rapper from Mexico City and before another Son Jarocho group from Santa Ana in Orange County. After the show, the two groups led a fandango jam into the early morning.
Drowsiness sets in, and as the car approaches the border station, Carlos, with an edge in her voice, instructs Hector to put the jarana away to avoid any extra questions.
But he fails to do so, and the agent — head-to-toe in government-issued tan — asks about the reason for their trip. Then he spots the jarana and says, "Why don't you play me a song?"
Hector obliges with the opening chords of "La Bamba." It's hard to guess what the agent might make of the band's signature verse — "Yo no creo en fronteras" — but before you know it everyone is wildly clapping and yelling, "Hey!" on the downbeats.
"Para cruzar la frontera!" French improvises. "Para cruzar la frontera/Se necesita una poca de paciencia." (To cross the border, it takes a little bit of patience.)
It's a typical Las Cafeteras response to a sticky situation: Don't think, just play. Faced with their share of conflict over the last two years, that attitude has served them well.
After the jam goes on probably 30 seconds too long, the border agent finally cuts it off and waves the car through with a laugh. "You guys just made my night," he says.
Las Cafeteras play the Nepantla New Year's Eve Party, with Chicano Son and La Chamba, Saturday at Salon de la Plaza in Boyle Heights.
16 comments
Quetzal: Keep to making boring bland music..Get over yourself u Dr. Spock looking nerd-bitch..
Cafeter@s: keep NOT studying music and son, and keep pumping out cliché propaganda in your crappy coplas so that people like yque! have somewhere to get drunk on Wednesdays.
Just to add. MANY jarocho ensembles have been performing jarocho on stage and that includes many jaranero ensembles such as Mono Blanco, Son de Madera, etc.....
Except Mono Blanco and Son de Madera are led by not only professional musicians, but by musicians that grew up in the Jarocho tradition. I think that people are "pissed off" because the Son is being played badly by people who are not musicians
Thank you for writing about things happening on the Eastside & groups who are combining their expression with efforts to improve their community. I'd like to hear more stories like this.
If it wasn't for Las Cafeteras, I wouldn't even know about Son Jarocho! They made me want to learn more about it!!! They may be non-traditional but they are creating a fan base and exposing not only a new generation to this type of music but also opening the eyes and hearts of music lovers in general to the genre and various causes. The first time I saw them, I really felt like I was connected to my brothers and sisters in the Latino community more than ever before and they also gave me reinforcement that I could CREATE on my own. I remember Hector saying something to the effect of: "I don't sing because I'm a singer, I sing as an expression of my soul". I've only seen them once but it made a big impact on me.
Who exactly are they pissing off?? Ive co-organized the Encuentro de Jaraneros de California Festival in So cal for the past 9 years, was president of the non-profit Encuentro de Jaraneros, Inc. for 4 years,have produced the Noche Veracruzana concert series at the Ford Theater with the LA County Arts Commission for the past 3 years, and have directed my own jarocho ensemble for the last 16 years. In this time, i have worked with the majority of the jarocho ensembles on this side and that side of the border, and not once have i heard of them upsetting anyone in the Son Jarocho scene. Stop digging for something that not there.
A lot of people got pissed off, and they were called out in a community meeting. Don't act like they weren't hated on.
What community are YOU referring too?? None of the Jarocho ensembles that i know, and i know ALL of them, have ever called them out.
A7,If such as meeting did occur, it sure as hell did not speak for the ENTIRE jarocho community and as someone that's been involved in the jarocho scene in LA for years i find it asinine and childish that a call out like this would occur. When it comes to folk music, people tend to take matters WAY too personal. Ive co-organized the California Encuentro de Jaraneros Festival for years and there has always been a competitive spirit that exists in between the LA jarocho ensembles, but never one that is antagonistic.Music is forever transforming and changing and while all of us hold our own opinions and musical style preferences such a public call-out should not have occurred.
All due respect to parties named and implied, but are you then saying, FJG, that certain members of prominent families and instrument-makers who are also musicians and performers, who DID call a meeting, and DID straight-up tell Cafeteras they were something akin to sell-outs and exploiters of a pristine folk art are NOT part of the Jarocho community? Because if you are, then problem solved. Let the critics debate and the artists create.
The Cafeteras have backed up what they do with a lot of integrity and respect for the community that they come from, which is Los Angeles. The dialogue around the choices they are making is useful and challenging, though it often leaves out the fact that they have listened for the sounds of L.A and let it seep into their music as opposed to focusing strictly on form and tradition while representing neither.
I think Quetzal is just JEALOUS that Las Cafeteras are so successful and surpassing his group in fame. It happens. When a group starts to get recognition and come up some folks find that threatening. What they should understand is that Las Cafeteras' success is our success. It doesn't take away from their band n their principles. People wanna bash Las Cafeteras for performing onstage and not being real musicians. Whos to say what a real musician is and why some groups can perform onstage and others can't. Listen to their lyrics. Don't they move you, unify you.... I'm in awe of their music and can't figure out which one is my favorite song. Thank you for the political messages and spreading the messages of resistance, unity, community, gratitude and love. I think we all secretly wish that we could be more creative and defy tradition in the name of it. Try not bashing on others for spreading the love and instead focus on what it is you'd like to do better in your own life. Why judge em? They're truly uplifting the community and if you can't see that open your eyes, listen to luna lovers. You'll sleep better ;-)
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