Mariachi

The origin of the term ‘Mariachi’ is not clear. Some Central American settlements of the 1880s used the term, but its connection to a genre of music is not well-documented. It now comes to describe a form of music that has evolved to be at the core of Mexico’s cultural experience.

 Because of the deep emotion it stirs and its connection to the common man, it’s been described as Mexico’s version of “The Blues.” Mariachi music is best identified by its blaring trumpets, impassioned vocals, and ornate costuming. It is music meant for celebration, dance, and camaraderie.  

Mariachi is a point of pride for many Mexican-Americans, as it represents their cultural heritage. The Mariachi tradition gained popularity in the States during the 1960s, as part of the pro-Latin Chicano cultural and political movement.

Mariachi lyrics deal with all aspects of life. Songs that fall into the popular cancion ranchero category deal with spurned love and betrayal. Other songs celebrate rural life, landscapes, celebrities, and events. Like a human jukebox, the mariachi pride themselves on learning new songs upon request and incorporating them into their repertoire. 

In a Mariachi group, there are usually six to twelve musicians, playing guitarron, vihuela, guitars, violins, trumpet, and sometimes the harp. The guitarron (a low-pitched instrument with a round back) provides the bassline, and the vihuela (a high-pitched, four-string instrument) provides harmony and a percussive rhythm. The six-string Spanish guitar augments the sound. There are also standard European violins, often played in three-part harmony, and a standard B-flat trumpet. The addition of the trumpet to mariachi, beginning in the ‘30s, signified an evolution in the music, allowing bands to interpret more genres of music. 

When Spanish Conquistador Hernán Cortés invaded the shores of Mexico in 1519, he brought musicians to entertain his troops. The instruments they carried included early guitars, violins, and harps; the rudiments of a mariachi group. Over the next 300 years, colonizers from Spain, as well as African slaves and their descendants, interacted with Mexico’s many American Indian cultures. Each geographical region developed its own modified culture, including unique musical traditions. 

The mariachi is traditionally associated with the Western Mexican coastal state Jalisco. The popular folk song form son jalisciense originated there in the 1800s. With its distinctive 12/8 time signature and established verse structure, son jalisciense is the foundation for Mariachi music. Its most famous song, “El Son De La Negra,” is sometimes called mariachi’s “national anthem” and “Mexico’s second anthem.” It is a flirty song about pining for a woman of African descent. 

The lyrics go:

When will you bring my black woman?
Because I want to see her here
with her silk rebozo
which I bought for her from Tepic.

Another Mariachi classic is “Malagueña Salerosa,” a love song from a poor courtier addressed to a woman from Malagua, Spain. Like many early Mariachi songs, its author is in dispute, but it was made famous by Mexican composer and violinist Elpidio Ramírez. The song is woven into the Quentin Tarinto movie Kill Bill and has been covered by metal band Avenged Sevenfold. 

It was long believed that the word “mariachi” was derived from the French for “marriage.” But the word was used before the arrival of the French in 1862. An 1852 letter from Father Kos Santa Ana to his bishop complained about the mariachis who played across the street from his church in Rosa Morada. “Mariachi” was also used as a name for some settlements in the 1830s. 

Before the Mexican Revolution of 1910, rural mariachi groups stuck to their own towns.  In the ‘20s, two mariachi groups, Eche Andrade and Cilo Maro, emigrated to Mexico City from Cocula (the main city in Jalisco). There they established a cantina called Salon Tenampa in Plaza Garibaldi. By the 1930s, there were eight groups working the Plaza. Today, hundreds of groups perform there. People who want to hire bands go down to the plaza to sample the music, and then haggle over the price. 

Mariachi music today encompasses a vast repertoire of songs. The original mariachi musicians stuck to a handful of genres; the sones, rancheras, corridos, and the cancion ranchera. After the mariachis moved to Mexico City, they attracted a more urban audience, and began to incorporate other genres into their songbook. 

By the turn of century, Mexicans had absorbed the European art music tradition of opera, salon music, and waltzes, and began composing their own songs in these styles. The traje de charro outfits were adapted by the urban mariachi in the 1920s, borrowed from the rural orquestas típicas salon orchestras. The outfits – sombreros, ruffled shirts, and embroidered  black jackets and pants, were inspired by cowboys and represented Mexican nationalism. 

In Mexico City, they adapted the Waltz, bolero, and clásicas, popular with urban audiences. They also began performing songs usually reserved for orchestras, like the paso doble, used for bullfights. Popular genres from South America, like cumbia from Colombia, and the joropo, from Venezuela were also absorbed into the music. The now legendary group Mariachi Vargas moved to Mexico City from the village of Tequila in 1934. There they struggled to find work, until they were hired as the official musical group of the Mexico City police department. They competed with the more popular groups from Cocula, who appeared in Mexican movies and radio programs, and backed up established singers. 

Mariachi Vargas rose to fame after adding Miguel Martínez, known as the greatest Mariachi trumpeter of all time, to the group. In 1944, they also added Ruben Fuentes, a classically trained instrumentalist who’d mastered the violin. His approach to composing, arranging and orchestration would set the standard for mariachi music for decades to come. 

Radio spread mariachi overseas in the 1930s, and the popularity of Mexican cinema helped expose the music to a wider audience. The 1936 Mexican film “Ay! Jalisco, Rancho Grande” helped kick off the western movie craze, most of which featured mariachi groups in a scene or two. 

Mariachi music became big business in the 1930s, as it was discovered and promoted by radio stations, movie studios, and record companies. By the 1950s, it was identifiable by its typical arrangement of two trumpets, three or more violins, the vihuela, and the guitarron. Wandering Mariachi bands had picked up a number of song forms, including speedy sones, plaintive canciones rancheras (or “country music”), polkas, boleros, and many more.

During World War II, President Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Mexican government arranged to have Mexican laborers come to the US to perform agricultural labor. These laborers brought Mexican culture and music with them, and it gradually influenced American culture at large. This is most evident on Cinco De Mayo, an informal US holiday, which usually features live Mariachi music.  

In 1955, Chicano rocker Ritchie Valens had an international hit with the spanish language “La Bamba.” It quickly became a mariachi staple.  In the 1960s, rock and roll and mariachi met, as Elvis Presley sang “Guadalajara” while fronting a mariachi band in the film Fun in Acapulco. 

Today you will find Mariachi bands busking their way through the subway cars of the 7 train in Queens, one of the most ethnically diverse regions in the world. There are now thousands of mariachi musicians in the United States, and hundreds of schools offer mariachi education programs. The music is in major concert halls, but is also performed at restaurants, weddings, baptisms, birthday parties, and even funerals. There are dozens of annual festivals across the Southwest. 

NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert with the all-female Mariachi Flor De Toloache has been viewed over three million times. The popular LA punk band Mariachi El Bronx write Mariachi songs with English lyrics, and cover other artists like Prince and the Decemberists in a similar style. The band has performed at Coachella and Warped Tour. 

Fans of the music look forward to the annual eleven-day International Mariachi Festival in Guadalajara, where groups from as far away as Russia and China gather to play as many songs as they can think of.