Son Jarocho: A Beginner's Guide

Son jarocho is unique in that neither the artist, or even the music, is the focal point. Instead, it is the fandango – the space where the community comes to exchange their views through song, dance and verse – that is at the heart and history of the tradition.

A synthesis of rural mestizo, mulatto and African influences, fandangos can be traced back to around the 1770s when several dances were imported to the state of Veracruz by Angolan slaves, brought from Cuba via the Gulf of Mexico. The Catholic church was suspicious of lascivious dances such as chuchumbé, which involved gatherings where slaves sang about their oppressors. Afraid that they would become breeding grounds for rebels planning revolts against their authority, they took steps to veto them. Prohibition only served to fuel creativity. Banned from using hand drums, legs and feet substituted for percussion, giving birth to the dance knows as the zapateado. The sones (songs) became a complex weave of metaphors that often mocked or criticised the establishment. The style therefore became the music of resistance of the time known as son jarocho. ‘Jarocho’ refers to people and things associated with southern Veracruz, but was originally a derogatory term for someone of mixed African and indigenous ancestry.

During the Spanish rule son jarocho continued to give voice to the marginalised. Patricio Hildago is a well-known musician whose grandfather was the legendary jaranero Arcadio Hidalgo, one of the founders of Grupo Mono Blanco. “In the town where he was born, Nopalapan, everyone is dark skinned,” says the younger Hildago. “My grandfather lived at the height of the dictatorship when there were robberies, exploitation, and poverty. And he was a revolutionary.”

There are five elements to son jarocho: the music, the instruments, the dance, the verses and the poetry, which all interlace together to create syncopation and repetition. This fuels the inclusive nature of the music; it draws in the audience hypnotically and invites everyone to become participants in the fandango.

Grupo Mono Blanco (Dan Sheehy)

There are probably only 80 or so original sones in the entire tradition. The most famous is ‘El Siquisirí’, which is universally known. The custom is to start every fandango with ‘El Siquisirí’, allowing musicians to introduce themselves in the first verses or address the audience. “The difference between a son and a song is that a song stays fixed in time, and passes from generation to generation in the same form,” says Hildago. “On the other hand, a son is always changing.”

The verses of the sones take the form of decimas – a call-and-response between singers, who fit their lines into the rhythm and often create new lines or verses on the spot. “When verses are modified, recreated, and new verses are fashioned, the son continues to evolve,” Hildago says. “The son becomes more than the composers and creators. It is a living cultural entity that responds to the events of the time.”

In fandangos the musicians jam around a wooden platform (tarima) where the dancers tap their beats. In more traditional fandangos there are unspoken rules, such as the common assumption that the performance is led by the most experienced musicians, who are closest to the tarima guiding the music and the rhythm.

While instruments vary, the most common ensemble consists of an arpa veracruzana (harp), a four-string guitar called a requinto, and a jarana (small eight-string guitar made out of a solid piece of cedar wood) strummed in a rhythm called mánico, which creates the essence of the son jarocho sound. The double bass, cajón and a percussion instrument called a quijada (jawbone rattle) are also common.

In 1958 ‘La Bamba’, a son traditionally played at weddings, was popularised by Ritchie Valens. It became the only non-English-language song on Rolling Stone’s influential 500 Greatest Songs of All Time, and was notable for rallying against the prejudice and legal segregation of the era where signs such as ‘No Dogs and No Mexicans’ were common place.

Despite ‘La Bamba’s’ popularity, son jarocho was mainly only heard in rural communities in Veracruz up until the 1980s when the sound began to spread to the US as Mexican Americans, or chicanos, began to identify with the music both as a way to reclaim their indigenous origins and means to represent their experiences as immigrants. By the time Arcadio Hidalgo died in 1984, Patricio was already touring with his grandfather’s Grupo Mono Blanco, and many partly credit them with bringing son jarocho from the fandangos of Veracruz to the concert halls of the US.

In the 1980s Los Lobos fused their rock with son jarocho and recorded their version of ‘La Bamba’ for the soundtrack to their film of the same name, a biopic of Ritchie Valens.

In 1996 the socialist militant group the Zapatistas and chicano activists met in Mexico’s Chiapas state to share music, art and other forms of resistance and demand social justice. The event was called The Intercontinental Encounter for Humanity and against Neoliberalism. Among the attendees were many jaraneros such as César Castro and Patricio Hidalgo. “That was the biggest fandango that I have ever been at,” remembers Hidalgo. “There were around 300 people dancing in the rain and we were on an improvised stage that the Zapatistas had made. There were people from all over the world dancing and requesting sones. Meanwhile, [the Zapatistas] were sharing their thoughts, their strategies and their plans.”

The recent decades since its increase in popularity have also spawned international son jarocho events such as festivals in New York and LA and produced strong communities through the US and beyond to Canada. Smithsonian Folkways Recordings have played a large part in its revival, releasing more traditional-sounding albums by Grupo Mono Blanco, José Gutiérrez & Los Hermanos Ochoa and Hermanos Herrera.

Many contemporary musicians reinterpret traditional sones and bring in fusions of other folkloric sounds. Las Cafeteras have created jarana beat, a mix of son jarocho and hip-hop, and become known for a remake of ‘La Bamba’. Others, such as ¡Aparato!, add post-punk and electronic music, while newcomers El Balcón (reviewed in the November 2021 issue, #172), predominantly from a Canadian background, have woven in Balearic and Gypsy influences.

However, son jarocho as a music of resistance can still be seen today, commonly being performed at protests for immigration reform, worker’s rights and social justice demonstrations throughout Mexico and the US.

BEST ALBUMS

Quetzal

Imaginaries

(Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, 2011)

The Grammy-award winning album from the politically engaged, LA-based, Chicano group Quetzal builds on son jarocho foundations and adds a mix of Latin genres and R&B. Reviewed in the July 2012 issue (#85).

Los Lobos

Los Lobos del Este de Los Angeles

(Hollywood, reissued 2000)

This is the first album by LA-based rock band Los Lobos. Self-released and recorded in early 1978, it features a mix of Mexican sounds including son jarocho, boleros, rancheras and more. 

Los Cojolites

El Conejo

(Argos Musica, 2001)

The excellent title-track from Los Cojolites’ debut album, ‘El Conejo’ (The Rabbit), featured on the soundtrack of the Oscar-winning film Frida.

Grupo Mono Blanco

Fandango! Sones Jarochos de Veracruz

(Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, 2018)

This is the most recent album from the group that helped put son jarocho on the map. A Top of the World in the October 2018 issue (#141).

This article originally appeared in the March 2022 issue of Songlines magazine. Never miss an issue – subscribe today