Photo By Blanca Esthela Castañeda García / Staff
ANOTHER TASTE OF THE BEST—Southwestern’s Mariachi Garibaldi remains on its throne as Planet Earth’s premier collegiate mariachi following its memorable spring concert in the PAC. Superb musicianship and showmanship enthralled another SRO audience. (center) Dr. Jeff Nevin leads his elite ensemble.
By Blanca Esthela Castañeda García
To make history it helps to know history.
Southwestern College’s historically maravilloso mariachi has a luminous future because it knows how to honor the past. More important, it knows how to please a contemporary audience.
An SRO crowd at the PAC for mariachi is as expected as violet jacaranda flowers lining the roads into the college in June. So is a world-class performance from El Mariachi Garibaldi under the direction of maestro Dr. Jeff Nevin.
Garibaldistas wove together their organic orchestra of guitars, trumpets, flutes, harps, vihuela, guitarron and violin like Mexican Mozart. Siren voices completed the spell. Southwestern audiences have, after 25 years, grown accustomed to Nevin’s radical inclusiveness, inviting gifted women into what was traditionally a male musical enclave.
Planet Earth’s best collegiate mariachi killed it. Its sultry interpretation of the Brazilian classic “Mas Que Nada” felt as gracious as going on a much needed vacation. Relaxed and gentle, it swayed like twilight palms in an onshore breeze. Tender voices guided the melody from satisfying to sublime.
Giving the mariachi treatment to a Brazilian composition was a mildly seditious act by Nevin, but he pleased the purists with mariachi anthem “Volver, Volver.” Its inclusion was predictable, but el maestro’s attack always leaves room for surprises. El mariachi americano clearly knows Jazz and keeps his musicians on their toes by spontaneously calling down different players to sing. One after another the vocalists sauntered up to the mic, then hit it out of the park.
Mariachi songs are traditionally dedicated to someone, be it a hot woman in a tropical club with accordion walls or a respected doña on a sprawling ranchero. Classics are storytelling vehicles that require performance and commitment. Audience members welcome the overt romanticism and vocalize their approval, be it a melodramatic swoon or festive “Ay! Ay! Ay!”
Juan Gabriel’s “Me gustas mucho” hit the marks. “I’ve liked you for a long time and what I like I get,” can be macho braggadocio if sung aggressively, flirty if sung tentatively or seductive if performed just right. The band plucked heartstrings like a heavenly harp. It was mariachi magica.
Mexico’s Golden Era of Music was treated con respeto but with a whiff of punk that made it feel as if it belonged in the Age of Swift and the Queen Bey. It has been a quarter century of excellence for Southwestern’s mariachi with no end in sight.