By Paul Yarbrough, for the UCCA
It’s impossible to pigeonhole “Las Cafeteras,” who will be performing at 2 p.m. on May 4 at the Ukiah High School Auditorium. They defy categorization. Certainly, they are a musical group, but they also dance.
They perform poetry and tell stories, often about ancestors as well as contemporary life. Their music is rooted in Latin folk tradition, such as Son Jarocho, Cumbia, and Zapateado dancing, while incorporating modern sounds of Afro-Mexican rhythms and electronic beats.
To understand Las Cafeteras is to go back to their origins in East LA around 2005, when a loosely organized group of college students began to develop their particular brand of social activism around folk music and community. They performed at coffee shops (which gave rise to their name) and in parks, with a message of social justice and Latin and LGBT pride.
It was a “horizontal collective” of about 10 people, as Hector Flores, the band’s co-artistic director described it in a recent phone conversation. “We started going to marches and demonstrations and coffee shops, playing everywhere and playing for free. We were friends and family, activists, learning music together. We played at cafes like Corazon Del Pueblo, a political center that supported the Zapatista movement in Mexico, and the Eastside Cafe, a volunteer run space that offered dance classes, ESL classes, punk shows, all kinds of things for the community. That’s where we learned to play music, and why we chose our name.
“Then in 2011, we opened for Carla Morrison in a show at the Echo in LA and there was a Japanese man there who explained that there was a hunger for Chicano music in Japan and asked if we’d like to go. We said ‘of course!.’ Then he asked three questions that changed our lives, our trajectory. First he asked did we have an album; we said no. Then he asked did we have a music video; we said no. Then he asked did we have a website; again we said no. So he said if we would get him those things, he would take us to Japan. We did all those things, and to make a long story short: we never went to Japan, but we became a band.”
And what a band! — performing around the world in shows from Bonnaroo to the Hollywood Bowl, WOMAD New Zealand and Montreal Jazz Festival, having made numerous albums and videos while collaborating and sharing the stage with an incredibly diverse array of musical artists. Some of the musical acts they have appeared with include Cafe Tacuba, Colombian superstar Juanes, the Gypsy Kings, hip-hop artist Common, Los Angeles legends Ozomatli, and Los Lobos and even the Los Angeles Philharmonic. The musicians of Las Cafeteras play the 8-string Jarana, the 4-string Requinto, Quijada (donkey jawbone) and Tarima (a wooden platform) along with bass, synthesizer and percussion to create a sonic explosion of joyous music and words.
Hector Flores and his co-artistic director, Denise Carlos, share the song writing, with Hector initiating the process and Denise contributing to the content. When the song is finished they take it to their music director, bassist Moises Baqueiro, who does arrangements.
There will be a total of seven musicians in the band for their local appearance. The music is unfailingly charming and vibrant, while its subject matter is urgent and timely. This is roots music that starts from the love and respect for tradition, adds the relevance of its contemporary message and expands to a beautiful vision of tomorrow, bringing past, present and future together in an unforgettable experience of sharing. You might not be able to resist dancing!
Tickets are available for purchase at Mendocino Book Company in Ukiah and Mazahar in Willits (payment by cash or check only), and online at www.ukiahconcerts.org. Single tickets are $35 if purchased ahead, and $40 at the door. UCCA offers free tickets to youth 17 and under who are accompanied by an adult and to full-time college students (12 units). Free tickets must be reserved by calling (707) 463-2738 and providing name, phone number and email address.
Thank you to our sponsors for their generous support: Arts Council of Mendocino, KZYX&Z, KWINE, The Ukiah Daily Journal, Black Oak Coffee, Schat’s Bakery, Lost in the Cellar, Graziano Family of Wines, Cesar Toxqui Cellars, W/E Flowers, Mendocino College Foundation and Mendocino College Recording Arts & Technology Program.
Ukiah Community Concert Association has been presenting nationally acclaimed talent since 1947. This all-volunteer nonprofit’s mission is to build and maintain a permanent concert audience and cultivate an interest in fine music of all genres among the citizens of the community and surrounding area. It is also its goal to encourage music appreciation in the schools of the community.
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