son jarocho
Veracruz, Mexico
Photo: Daniel E. Sheehy
Over nearly a half century as the leader of the legendary ensemble Grupo Mono Blanco, Gilberto Gutiérrez Silva has been the driving force behind the resurgent popularity of son jarocho, the signature folk music of the state of Veracruz on Mexico’s Gulf Coast. A movement as much as a band, Mono Blanco has also taught and inspired a new generation of musicians who are creating an international network of communities dedicated to this beloved music.
“Son” means sound, and jarocho refers to both the people and culture of Veracruz’s southern coastal plain. Centuries ago, the musical traditions of the region’s Indigenous people, Spanish colonists, and Africans, both enslaved and free, intertwined to produce this tradition noted for its poetic lyrics and compellingly danceable rhythms. The typical performance setting was the fandango, both community dance and jam session, where young and old gathered and social distinctions fell away. Beginning in the 1930s, son jarocho became popular throughout Mexico, as the new medium of radio broadcast the sound across the country. By the mid-20th century, it was a tourist draw on the performance stages of Mexico City but rarely performed in its original context; the fandango tradition had dwindled as Mexico urbanized, and as the same national media that had promoted son jarocho flattened out the differences between regional cultures.
Indeed, Gilberto Gutiérrez Silva first heard the signature music of his birthplace when he moved to the capital city for work as a teenager. Inspired by this encounter with jarocho music, Gutiérrez formed a band with his brother Ángel and their friend Juan Pascoe in 1977 when he was just 19. They named the ensemble after the Indigenous legend of the White Monkey, a deity whose love of music and community is still celebrated at an annual festival. Grupo Mono Blanco sourced hard-to-find traditional instruments and began travelling throughout Veracruz seeking out master musicians who could teach them the music’s intricacies, like the legendary Arcadio Hidalgo. To bring son jarocho forward, Gutiérrez says, “We went backward, toward the inside of that world.” An essential step, they realized, would be recreating the cultural context in which the music had thrived, so Mono Blanco sponsored fandangoes and offered teaching workshops, building a network of musicians spanning from the last of the old guard to eager young students. Today thriving fandango cultures in cities like Los Angeles trace their origins to students of Mono Blanco.
The current membership of Mono Blanco also demonstrates the fruits of this cultural revitalization, bringing together Gutiérrez’s longtime musical collaborators, family members from two generations, and outstanding students from Mono Blanco’s teaching programs. Members play son jarocho’s three principal regional instruments: the jarana, an eight-stringed, small-bodied guitar; the requinto jarocho, a four-stringed melody guitar; and the arpa, or harp. In son jarocho, the principal voice is the pregonero (caller), who leads call-and-response singing. The pregonero possesses a vast repertoire of sones and a deft ability to improvise lyrics, whether on lost love, historical memory, or struggles for justice. Unlike most ensembles who have a single pregonero, Mono Blanco have expanded the fandango’s sense of community into a shared role of singing. As Gutiérrez points out, “Every voice has its own need to sing something.”
Grupo Mono Blanco’s performances at the Richmond Folk Festival are made possible in part with support from Mexico’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Embassy of Mexico in the U.S., and the Mexican Cultural Institute in D.C.
