Los californios®
Historic Secular Music of Mexican-Era California
Photo by Jerry Bowen
From left: Janet Martini, David
Swarens, Vykki Mende Gray The Peña Adobe in Vacaville, CA.
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Los californios®, based in San Diego,
California, play and sing the secular music of California from the days when our state was part of
Spain and then Mexico. These sweet, melodic pieces include waltzes and polkas used for dancing, and songs
about love and rancho life, often with comic lyrics. Although the music includes elements of
Spanish music, it also includes influences from European and American folk music — as
trading ships often visited the coast of Alta California, from the indigenous peoples of
California, and from the diverse heritages of the early Mexican settlers.
Los californios® is a self-supporting project of
San Diego Friends of
Old-Time Music, a California non-profit educational corporation.
This project works to expose California audiences to their own historic musical
heritage; to research, document and transcribe social music and dances from
eighteenth and nineteenth century Spanish-speaking Californians; and to teach and distribute
this information to a wide audience of musicians, dancers and enthusiasts through
workshops, performances, articles and papers presented at educational conferences, and
music classes at
Sherman Heights Community Center.
Los californios® received a People in Preservation
Award from
Save Our Heritage
Organisation for these accomplishments.
Los californios® is a registered
service mark
belonging to San Diego Friends of Old-Time Music, Inc.
Los californios® include:
Janet Martini,
accordion and vocals
Vykki Mende Gray, violín, tambor, and vocals
David Swarens, guitar
CONTACT
For bookings, contact:
David Swarens
619/232-4475
Or send e-mail to
info@loscalifornios.com |
From left:
David Swarens, Janet Martini, Vykki Mende Gray
At San Pasqual Battlefield State Monument. |
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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 above to see the cover, and to read the album notes
and words to songs.
Click here for an order form
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.
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| 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. |
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Nuestras Herencias, Folklórico dance program at Royce Hall, UCLA
David Swarens, Janet Martini, Vykki Mende Gray
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
Olvera Street
Preserving Californio Music
In the era of Alta
(Upper) California, the 5000 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.
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,
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’s Spanish-era missions.
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 the original wax cylinders.
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, follow this link.
Historical photograph by Irene Welch Garner.
Padua Hills Theatre — The Mexican Players
Conchita Gallardo and Magrucio Jara
Los californios® Collection
Living History and Music
Photo by Bill Thorpe
From left: David Swarens, Janet
Martini, Vykki Mende Gray
At San Pasqual Battlefield State Historic Park.
Los californios® play and sing at
many historic festivals around Southern and Central California. Their authentic period clothing and
music entertain audiences wherever they perform, including their frequent appearances at such
places as:
El museo de las Californias
at the Centro Cultural, Tijuana, Baja California, Mexico
Bowers Museum, Santa Ana, CA
Jensen-Alvarado Ranch, Riverside, CA
Old Town, San Diego, CA
Museum of the American West
(Formerly the Gene Autry Western Heritage Museum), Los Angeles, CA
Cowboy Poetry and Western Art Roundup, Lakeside, CA
Mission Valley Library, San Diego, CA
Mission San Luis Rey de Francia, Oceanside,
CA
Fort Guijarros Fiesta, San Diego
Friends of the Ranch House Chapel, Camp Pendleton
Joaquin Murrieta Days, Tecate, Baja California, Mexico
Día de los Muertos, Old Town Cemetery, San Diego, CA
Rancho Guajome, Oceanside, CA
Rancho Los Alamitos Historic
Ranch, Long Beach, CA
The Nature Conservancy’s historic ranch at
Santa Rosa Plateau, CA
Rancho Los Cerritos, Long Beach, CA
El Molino Viejo,
San Marino, CA
Mission Trails Regional Park,
San Diego, CA
Fiesta del Río,
Tijuana, Baja California, Mexico & Imperial Beach, CA
The Cowboy Soiree, Julian
Wild West Days, Campo, CA
San Pasqual Historic Battleground
Pío Pico Mansion, Whittier, CA
Spanish Village, Balboa Park, San Diego
Old Spanish Days, Santa Barbara, CA
Adams Avenue Roots Festival, San Diego, CA
(Photo)
(Photo)
Vaquero Days
at McClintock Saddle Works in
Descanso, CA
Sam Hinton Folk Heritage Folk Festival
(Previously the San Diego Folk Heritage Folk Festival) San Diego, CA
Banning Residence, Wilmington, CA
Buena Vista Adobe, Vista, CA
College campuses
History and archeology conferences
Whaley House, San Diego, CA
Save Our Heritage
Organisation
Chula Vista
Library
Guasti Mansion, Ontario, CA
Olvera Street, Los Angeles, CA
Presidio, San Francisco, CA
The General Bernardo de Galvez Project
El alisal, the Lummis home, Los Angeles, CA
Columbia, California
Los californios® artistic director,
Vykki Mende Gray, also teaches californio and Mariachi music at Sherman Heights Community
Center. She is the author of a book exploring another aspect of traditional music in California:
Kenny Hall’s Music Book: Old-Time Music for Fiddle and Mandolin, published by
Mel Bay
Publications.
With Yesteryears Dancers at California State University,
Dominguez Hills
Charles Fletcher Lummis
Photo by Charles
Fletcher Lummis, of Charles Fletcher Lummis
Original autographed photograph
Los Californios® Collection
Always your friend
Chas. F. Lummis — Happy New Year 1910 |
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
lummis.loscalifornios.net. |
Californio Links
Pirates anyone?
18th Century Pirate Dances at Fiesta del Río,
a celebration of the Tijuana Estuary and its history, in Imperial Beach, California
Contact Los californios® at
info@loscalifornios.com
Los californios® is a
registered service mark belonging to San Diego Friends of Old-Time Music, Inc.,
a California non-profit corporation.
©
Vykki Mende Gray, 2007
All rights reserved. |