In the 14 years that the band Jarana Beat has been founded, it has only produced two albums , “¡Echapalante!”, In 2011, and “Vibration por sympathy”, which premiered earlier this month.
The reason is very simple, as explained by the founder of this band formed in the South Bronx, Sinuhé Padilla-Isunza: “Our motivation was not the band’s career, but the sound of our community.”
So much so that this project took seven years to materialize, which were documented in a triple album. In them is recorded the passage through the band of 55 musicians and singers, most of them experts jaraneros and soneros of this popular rhythm from the Mexican state of Veracruz .
This album, in addition to being a musical jewel, has the clear intention of being anthropological material because in its lyrics, all original, it carries a message of inclusion, tolerance and understanding.
“Having a microphone is a privilege,” said the musician, who is also the group’s director. “I believe that artists have a responsibility to be the voice of a community Music is the faithful mirror of the community that makes it. ”
Although the musical base of the album is the joyful sound, it is very likely that those who listen to it will find a bit of its own culture in him, explained the artist. This is because, although this rhythm has its origin in Mexican Afro-indigenous music, the truth is that this is the result of the sounds that arrived during the colony of places like West Africa and the Andalusian region of Spain.
However, the fusion did not stop there, but traveled to all corners of Latin America where it took new forms. Now, with the arrival of musicians from all the countries of America to the south of The Bronx, jaranera music has a new nuance, which is what is reflected in “Vibration for sympathy.”
“That is the theme of Jarana Beat, to recognize these musical roots,” said Padilla-Isunza. “Those sounds that are still alive and that reached the Spanish colony, that developed there, are now in the United States, in a neighborhood of a cosmopolitan city and they take sounds from where they are sown; now they are seeds in a new land and the fruits that come out continue to speak of our roots. ”
Among the rhythms included in the album, edited by Jarana Records, are son jarocho, the currulao, the danzón, the alegrías de Cádiz, the festejo, the landó, the bomba and Plena, the huapango, the chacarera, the cumbia, and the Yoruba. All of these sounds are also a sampler of what is performed at the Jarana Beat festivals every year in the South Bronx, an area whose demographics have transformed in recent decades. Now it is populated by migrants from Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean, after having been a region with a Puerto Rican majority.
“Hace 15 years, when we did the fandangos [fiestas jaraneras] when a lot we congregated some 50 people ”, said Padilla- Isunza, who is originally from Mexico City. “But in the last decade, Mexican culture has been felt more, which is new but growing.”
