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Historical photograph by Irene
Welch Garner.
Padua Hills Theatre - The Mexican Players
Conchita Gallardo and Magrucio Jara
Los californios® Collection |
Preserving Californio Social
Music
In the era of Alta (Upper) California,
the 5,000 or so settlers lived far apart, spread
between San Diego and Sonoma. So when friends and
relatives gathered at a rancho for a holiday or visit,
it was an occasion for many days of singing, dancing
and celebrating.
The californio music all but died
out after the era of the ranchos ended, but songs
performed by the last generations of californios
were recorded on wax cylinders by journalist and
folklorist Charles Fletcher Lummis, mostly between
1904 and 1907. Lummis published a portfolio of
14 pieces from his recordings in 1923. (For more
information about these recordings, see Charles
Lummis' Edison Wax Cylinder Recordings).
Over time a number of groups continued
in efforts to preserve this California heritage:
the Padua
Hills Theatre (The Mexican Players) in Claremont,
the José Arias Troubadours, Eugene Plummer with
his dance group, the folk dance community with dance
collectors and teachers like Lucille Czarnowski and
Albert Pill, Gabriel Ruíz and his group of musicians
and dancers, the A la California Club (later calling
itself Los Californios), the Southwest Museum and
its adjunct the Casa
de Adobe, Elisabeth Waldo with her creative compositions
based on historic California music, Elizabeth Erro
Hvolboll, Luis Moreno, Luis Goena and his dancers
Los parientes, Yesteryears Dancers, Arnold Guerra
and his dancers Tatalejos, the Alta California Dance
Company, the Calicanto Singers, Los Bailadores of
Old Town San Diego, Los Califas in Petaluma, El coro
hispano de San Francisco, The Alta California Orchestra
(TACO), Folklórico Mexicano Del Sur de California,
and descendants groups from all over the state.
In the late 1930s Sidney Robertson
Cowell undertook a project to document Northern California
Folk Music and included a number of recordings and
photographs of people preserving this tradition of
music, including informants like: Lottie Espinosa,
Hilda Duarte Brown and Walter Sebree, and Jessie
de Soto performing Spanish-language songs from California;
and The Boys of St. Joseph's Seminary, women from
the Asistencia at Pala (Pala Indian Reservation),
and the Choristers of St. Anthony's Seminary performing
music from California'sSpanish-era missions. Links
to these related efforts.
In
1989 a group of San Diego folk musicians, organized
by Lee Birch and calling itself Los californios®,
began playing this music and learning these dances.
David Swarens knew of Lummis' original recordings
housed at the Southwest Museum in Los Angeles (a
museum that Lummis had helped to found in 1914) and
the group was able to obtain funding through San
Diego's Old Town State Park in order to obtain tape
recordings from those original wax cylinder recordings.
Since those humble beginnings, these
San Diego musicians have been privileged to conduct
original research in this field, and to meet and interview
a number of the people who have made contributions
to preserving this heritage. The group's educational
mission continues to be extended in many different
ways. Their original transcriptions from the Lummis
recordings and other recorded sources are a source
of joy for many a Californian rediscovering Mexican
California, their delightful performances at historic
sites and museums on both sides of the border with
Mexico enchant people of all ages, their scholarly
presentations at universities and for historic academicians
are widely applauded, and their popular recording Flowers
of Our Lost Romance is available at a growing number
of venues.
For
more information about the preservation of Spanish-Language
Social Music of the 19th Century in Southern
California, go to loscalifornios.info.
 Flowers
of Our Lost Romance
Los
californios® have
recorded their first album, which includes 60 minutes
of beautiful early California dances and songs
sung in the original archaic Spanish. Click
here to see the cover, and to read the album
notes and words to songs.
 Two
pieces from this CD are also part of the music used
in The
Remuda, a DVD film by J & S Productions about
the evolution of the buckaroo beginning in California
over 200 years ago. Other musicians featured in this
movie include Pedro Marquez, Ian Tyson and Dave Stamey.
Music from this CD was used for a Latino
USA program reporting on the descendents of Spanish
and Mexican-era Californians and their efforts to preserve
a genealogical identity.
For
a video clip produced by the Lively Arts History Association
using this recording for the audio, click
here. Click here for an order
form.
Sheet Music Transcriptions
Research by Los californios® has
resulted in a growing number of original transcriptions
and arrangements of songs and dance tunes, many from
the Edison wax cylinders recorded by Charles Fletcher
Lummis. This is available as a comb-bound book containing
402 pages of music transcribed over a period of ten
years, mostly from primary sources, and arranged with
chord indications in common folk music keys. Lead and
harmony lines (segunda) are included for most pieces
in the traditional style, and an index to the pieces
is included. Most of these pieces have not been readily
available to a general audience for over a hundred
years. These transcriptions finally make this music
once again accessible and available for performers
and scholars. Click
here for additional description. To Order Copies
of sheet music transcriptions Click here for an order
form.
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Original autographed photo by Charles Fletcher
Lummis, of Charles Fletcher Lummis.
"Always your friend Chas. F. Lummis -
Happy New Year 1910"
Los californios® Collection |
Charles Fletcher Lummis
Charles Fletcher Lummis (1859-1928)
was born in Massachusetts, but came to be an avid promoter
of the American Southwest. He walked from Ohio to Los
Angeles in 143 days, and published a journal of his
trip, A Tramp Across the Continent, in 1892. In addition
to the celebrated Edison wax cylinder recordings that
he made to preserve historic Spanish-language secular
songs of California and Native American music of the
Southwest, Lummis helped found the Landmarks Club in
1897 to restore the California missions, founded the
Sequoia League in 1901 to protect America's native
people, and helped create the Southwest Museum in 1914.
Lummis was an editor for the Los Angeles Times and
wrote many other books including The Land of Poco Tiempo
(1893). El Alisal, Lummis' Los Angeles home and gardens,
is now the headquarters of the Historical Society of
Southern California and is open to the public.
For more information about Lummis and
his Edison wax cylinder recordings, go to Charles
Lummis' Edison Wax Cylinder Recordings.
Mariachi Sherman
Mariachi
Sherman, out of Sherman Heights Community Center
in San Diego, is a special project of Los
californios® These
enthusiastic young musicians are learning music and
performing skills, and are in turn providing community
service through their enchanting performances both
in Sherman Heights and in the larger San Diego community.
Los californios® is
a registered service mark belonging to San Diego Friends
of Old-Time Music, Inc., a California non-profit corporation.
Contact Los
californios® at info@loscalifornios.com
© Vykki Mende Gray, 2008 All rights
reserved. Design revised May 14, 2009 by Ellen Wallace
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