by Stephen McGuire
Even for Austin’s super-
charged music scene it’s an unlikely time for a show: Sunday afternoon. But when I open Chicago House’s oblique door and step inside, it could be a
Saturday night. The two bleachers are filled, kids sit on the floor, others
stand where they can. Applause repeatedly erupts for a mixed bill of Yiddish
tunes, poetry, and Latin American folk music in its many forms. In spite of the
closing of Chicago House, this type of capacity crowd has sparked requests from
other promoters to provide new venues for the event – an event that’s working
not merely because it’s a collection of remarkably fine musicians, but because
it’s a developing scene and a community. It is the “Last Sunday of the
Month Pe�a.”
“The reason we started it,” relates singer and guitarist Lourdes Perez, “was
to create and expand a context in which to come together. Correo Aereo
[airmail], myself and Cenzontle [mockingbird] started The Last Sunday of the
Month Pe�a so musicians could come together and establish a community.
The most valuable thing is collaboration. People are starting to know they are
welcome where their music stands on its own in a culture that is totally
different from their own.” Madeleine Sosin, who with Abel Rocha form the
popular folk duo Correo Aereo, sees the Latin American concept of a Pe�a
as truly foreign to the mainstream of this country. “There is less distinction
and more interaction between the artist and the audience. We also have poets,
dancers, and some drama. There has been music in the Mexican mercados forever;
it is not a new movement.”
For Chicago House co-owner Peg Miller, who has observed many a proceeding, the
Pe�a (not to be confused with “La Pe�a,” a local organization
which promotes multi-disciplinary arts, including the “Last Sunday
Pe�a”) goes well beyond a music and art exchange. “People come together
and embrace each other’s politics and culture,” says Miller. “It’s a lot more
than getting together to break bread once a month. It’s the fellowship of the
tortilla.” In short, what was once a cut-off collection of foreign souls with
even more obscure music is now a collective community, preserving and creating
in a remarkably warm and efficient atmosphere. For Perez, that specific
function of the Pe�a is serious: “If the context is not respectful of
what you do, don’t go there. A lot of us work in the community and have very
strong political convictions. I won’t go where the place is not conducive to
your growth or audience growth.”
Yet outside the Pe�a, problems extend beyond just another new face
trying to get gigs: both musician and music are foreign and on the cutting edge
of nowhere. Angel Ibanez, a Mexican who plays harp and guitar, knows about
other venues and the occupational hazards of immigrant status. “I used to play
in a group called Cuerdas Latina [latin strings], until the other [principle]
member went back to Peru.” Now, Ibanez is retooling the group with new members
before he can return to the mixed bag of Ruta Maya Coffee House, El Torito
Restaurant, Huntington Art Gallery, and the Dougherty Arts Center.
Similarly, Antonio Dionisio is waiting for the rest of his band, MMR, to
arrive from Brazil. Then he will fly one-way to South Florida for a rendezvous,
rent a van, and hit the road. “The tour starts in Miami, then Tampa, Athens,
Atlanta, New Orleans, then hopefully La Zona Rosa.” In the meantime, like other
Latin musicians, he plays solo guitar at Flipnotics, Mojo’s, Casa de Luz, and
Resistencia Book Store – roughly, the same coffeehouse/storefront/free-fire
zone that forms the circuit for many unsanctified jazz ensembles.
Lambada it ain’t. The great musical variety seen in just one Pe�a
stands in contrast to what most Americans visualize about Latin music. “Salsa
has become very popular,” explains Perez, “due to immigration to the U.S. from
Puerto Rico where Latin music and jazz were incorporated. But when a form
becomes popular, everyone thinks it’s the only form from that area.” According
to Javier Palacios, vocalist for Centzontle, the Pe�a’s format helps
clear up that misconception. “People hear all these styles and get up and
dance, [but] it’s very educational: we give a short explanation about the music
and where its from. [Otherwise], they think Mexican, Bolivian, and Argentinian
music is all the same.”
The tension resulting from a convergence of Latin American folk forms plays
out differently among musicians. “I’m trying to keep the same style from Mexico
that I have been playing since I was nine,” Ibanez states quite simply. And
it’s much the same for Dionisio. “I don’t see change, but an adding to [Latin
music],” he explains. “That’s how it grows, gets better, and gets bigger –
more complex. What I play is Brazilian. People know that kind of music and
don’t confuse it with others.”
No wonder. The predominant language of Brazil is Portuguese, and most
Americans shopping a mall know the Getz-Gilberto pop bossa nova tune “Girl From
Ipanema,” and the super-group Sergio Mendes & Brasil ’66. Other countries
have a presence as well in the subconscious of American pop charts. When the
late superstar Selena’s parents were babes, Mexican culture gave us Tejano
music, in the form of Betto Villa, and the Los Angeles-based rock of Ritchie
Valens (Richard Valenzuela). Puerto Rico has its Salsa and Chile its Andean
folk, made famous by that country’s most famous group, Inti-Illimani. Clearly,
Latin American cultures have a long track record of dealing with “el Norte.”
But reconciling folk forms with the current upsurge in salsa, cumbia, and
other hot and danceable forms can be difficult. “Borinquen (on South Congress)
was the first place to start with Latin [dance] music,” says Palacios, “then it
was Calle Ocho. They’re going to open more. People are starving to death for
this type of music. We would like to play Calle Ocho, but we don’t have three
hours of music like cumbia for people to dance to. This is scary because it
forces us to concentrate on a commercial dance form instead of traditional
forms.”
Sosin sees another kind of starvation. “People, in general, are hungrier and
hungrier for the kind of getting together that satisfies the soul instead of
going out, watching a show, and getting crazy. I had someone come up after a
set and say, `after all that red light music, it’s good to be penetrated in a
deeper, softer way.’ You need both. You don’t have to get drunk at the
Pe�a.”
For underlying the flowering popular musics are the root folk forms which,
while symbiotic to the whole, remain out of sight for most. “The scene has
changed, but not very fast,” says Ibanez. “Five years ago, there were few
musicians. But now we are more and people are getting accustomed to it. It has
improved [perhaps because] salsa and merengue are getting popular.”
The Pe�a has primed the pump. But Dionisio sees the need for more than
drip irrigation. “If [the Pe�a] is done twice a month, I think it will
grow. Advertise more, get more sponsors from the business community like Seis
Salsas Restaurant. Musicians are not as organized as they should be. It’s a
serious scene and you have to deal with the business side.” There is a personal
and artistic side to expansion as well. “It would be good to have a place to go
once a week for everyone who is involved in folk and roots music.”
Some signs of a more conventional circuit can be seen. The Cactus Cafe, long a
folk-friendly venue, tops out when Correo Aereo plays. And Ruta Maya, which has
quickly developed a long line of credit as an alternative culture oasis, brings
a loose-shoes, Ellis Island ambiance for musicians and audience alike. “People
finally know we exist,” contends Palacios. “We can draw crowds; we developed a
following at Seis Salsas.”
For Sosin, there is opportunity – some of it missed. “What is promising is
that we are always playing for new people and not just Latin Americans. They
want to know where this has been all their lives. But Mexic-Arte Museum, which
is centrally located and has space, doesn’t treat music as a viable art form.
There should be workshops and a concert series.” Yet, while Sosin is critical
of the lack of creative booking in clubs, she’s amused by the potential in
irregular venues, such as Central Market. “It certainly is unconventional.
Mercados in Latin America are natural places full of life where everything
comes together: the food, the flowers, people, clothes, music… it’s
wonderful. Here in the U.S., we have created grocery stores that start out with
a sterile environment; now there are some stores which are trying to be a
mercado. It’s a healthy instinct and brings families and children together if
they don’t go to clubs. Music opens peoples’ hearts at a young age.” She does
salute the airwaves without reservation: “KUT and KOOP radio do an excellent
job when they present world music.”
In the meantime, can the Pe�a continue to work? After all, collective
community, though bandied about daily in sound bites as somehow vaguely missing
in our lives, is literally a foreign and subversive concept: It requires giving
up a little of that precious individualism that besots our non-collective
psyches. Ironically, few can question the business end of the Pe�a. It
has consolidated music and artistic forms, reached out to new markets, and
created that all-important “buzz.” Still, it’s easy, when things go wrong or
tastes change, to just turn and walk away. The Last Sunday Pe�a may not
stop that, but it continues to work in a hostile environment not because of
“reinvention” or another marketing trend, but because the people in it make it
work. They will be sorely tested when Chicago House closes.
“We’re sad,” laments Annette D’Armata, Director of Encanto Productions and a
member of the Pe�a collective. “Lourdes recorded her CD there. It’s a
special room. Pe�a at Chicago House was important for the spirit of the
people. Peg and [co-owner] Glynda Cox would give you the shirt off their backs.
We want to keep to a theatre-type space. It’s important that the context not be
a bar or restaurant, but a place where we can be heard.”
The Pe�a rises or falls on the faith or foibles of individuals wanting
to be together. That’s a concept which could stand some reinvention even in
Austin. n
The next “The Last Sunday of the Month Pe�a” will be held at Chicago
House, October 29, 4-7pm, in celebration of the Day of the Dead. Admission is
$5.
This article appears in October 20 • 1995 and October 20 • 1995 (Cover).