On
Thursday, the 22nd of Feb. 2001, Ken, Jeanie and Mark,
along with Dennis Daily and Rus Bradburd of La Mesilla,
all took a 14 hour bus trip from Juárez, Mex. to
Durango, Mex. and played three gigs in two days. We arrived
in Durango on Friday morning and that night played a concert
for the Teacher's Union in their Union hall. Sat. night
we played a concert in the beautiful Victoria Theatre
in downtown Durango with two other groups, one of them
a wonderful folklorico group called Flor y Barro and the
other local group called Grupo Norteño. After the
concert we went and played at a late night Peña.
We three left on Sunday evening for an all night bus to
Mexico City. When we got there at 9:30 in the morning,
we were met by Lindajoy Fenley, the organizer of Dos Tradiciones.
She told us that we had to do six different interviews
with newspapers and radios, all but one in Spanish, not
easy when one is very tired, but, for me, when I am that
tired, I get crazy and will try to talk in any language.
Jeanie and I went down to to see the Carnival celebration
in Tepoztlán, where they all dress up like European
princesses and princes with beards, sort of to make fun
of the conquerors, I, Ken, braided my beard to look like
the ones on their masks and was pulled into the procession
and fit right in.
Thursday
we returned to México City and stayed in the
beautiful Majestic Hotel, right on the Zócalo.
Friday night we had a concert in the Colegio San Ildefonso
right near the Zócolo downtown. There is a beautiful
early Diego Rivera mural on stage. Jerry Holland, the
deft Cape Breton Fiddler, accompanied by Allan Dewar
played a set, and so did we. The last set was the great
Don Juan Reynoso and his band. It was wonderful evening,
but the best was yet to come.
The next day we drove in a bus for almost
eight hours of windy road to Ciudad Altimirano, which
is southwest of the Mexico City in Guerrero. In the
evening we drove another hour to the small village of
Coyuca de Catalán and we, along with the other
musicians on the tour, played a concert for the village.
People came from all over the area and some of the local
musicians also played. We had a great time with all
of them and especially the kids, who loved my beard.
At midnight, when it was over, and we were all tired,
we walked two blocks to a large gymnasium where the
townspeople had cooked up a wonderful meal for us and
people started to play music and dance. The next night,
it was the same in the village of San Miguel Totolapán,
which had been there when the Spanish came. The last
night was in the town plaza in Altimirano.
All the concerts were well attended and lots of local
politicians spoke about how music brings all cultures
together, and from what I saw, it seemed to be working.
This was the idea of the tour, which was a wonderful
experience and was succesful for everyone. Every year
that this festival goes on it gets more support and
it is important that it is primarily done in isolated
villages that don't see many outsiders.
After the Guerrero part
of the trip, we stayed one more night in Mexico City,
and then played in the colonial town of Querétero
in ther Casa del Faldón, a beautiful open air performance
area. The only problem was that the sound man was watching
the football game, and so he wasn't paying attention to
the stage sound levels until the game was over. The next
day we went to San Miguel de Allende, a very touristy
town to play a benefit for disabled children. It was sponsored
by the Fire Department, which had also been fixing up
an old van that Roger Bellow, one of the musicians on
the tour, had donated, so that the villages in the mountains
could have an ambulance. The ambulance was presented to
one of the musicians, Angel Gonzalez, who lives in the
village of Palomas way up in the Sierra Gorda (fat mountains).
Angel and his band had been with us on the whole trip,
and were recieved very enthusiastically. The next day
we drove many more hours from the east side of the Sierra
Gorda, around the south end and up the east side of the
mountains to Jalpán. We played another benefit,
for medical care in the mountains, in the Museo Historico,
with lots of other musicians, including Angel's band,
Los Campesinos de la Sierra. (Oh come, Angel's band)
The next day it
was time to go up to the mountains, six hours on a one
lane dirt road in pickup trucks. The canyons were very
deep and we were very close to the edge but we made
it. The first gig was in Caricillo, a village even higher
up than Palomas. They had food ready for us when we
got there and they watched as we ate. They had been
worried that we wouldn't be able to eat their food,
but it was great- garbanzo beans, nopales (cactus cut
into strips, very good), rice, beans, wonderful corn
tortillas with a green color (blue and yellow corn ground
together.) . Then we played acoustic music, looking
out over thousands of feet of canyons, in a basketball
court for 600 people. A bunch of different musicians
played, we were next to last, just before Angel, and
people were a little tired, and kids were running around.
So we started our set on the court, and got a line of
people to follow us around while we played "Saute
Crapaud"( Jump Frog) and got them all involved
in the performance. Then we got on stage and kept the
dancing going, with "Papa's on the Housetop"
(with a Spanish chorus), and then our old favorite,
the Broom dance. Everyone was awake and excited for
Angel and his group.
After the
concert we drove about 45 minutes to Palomas in very
bright moonlight, and gratefully went to sleep in people's
houses. The next morning we did a little concert for
the kids at the local school. They all want to play
violins and guitars but there are none up there and
they are very poor. We are going to try to get them
some, I know that with Angel's inspiration they will
learn. That night we played the last concert with everyone
in Palomas. The Ambulance was presented to the village,
and all of the villagers who had recieved Emergency
Medical Technician licenses were honored on the stage.
This is the only ambulance in that part of the mountains
to help these people, and it is an old 1983 ford van,
but it works great. When we played, Angel and his wife,
Leonila, joined us for a few tunes like Flor de Las
Flores and Purple Lilies. It was a great night!
At 4 the next morning we had a one hour ride
in the ambulance to a dirt crossroads where we caught
a bus for a 4 hour ride through the mountains to Xichú,
all but 1/2 hour on narrow dirt roads where, in order
to get around the turns, the bus would have to have
it's front tires within a foot of the edge, and no fence,
just a long way down. But they have never had a bus
accident since the roads were put here in 1985. Before
the roads came, Angel and the others had to walk 12
hours downhill, through the mountains on little trails,
to get to Jalpán. There they would load up burros
and their own backs for the two day return trip. Last
year they got electricity in Palomas. Luckily they have
a very good water supply up there, but wasteful use
by the government and others is lowering the aquifers
(water table), and they are worried about their sources
going dry.
The music that Angel and his band play is in the Huastecan
tradition of poetry (décimas) and music. Often,
the band will play a fiesta with another band, each
one on the opposite side of the plaza on very tall stages,
sometimes on top of a bus. One band will start with
a dance tune and then the singer/poet will slow down
and start to recite a poem. This will only be a small
part of a longer poem that will take from 20 minutes
to over an hour. The poet will recite several verses,
then the they all sing a chorus, then play a different
dance tune, then Angel will stop them and say another
couple of verses, then the chorus, then a different
dance tune. At first he will say verses he has already
written, then they improvise verses, and this is the
challenge to the other poet when it is his turn. They
write about their lives, politics, and Angel writes
about music bringing people's souls together, saving
water, his culture, his mountains and saving the plants
the people need, all kinds of things. He only went through
the 3rd grade in a little school, but he is an educated
man and a leader for his people, helping them take control
of their lives in the mountains. In a few words, it
was an amazing trip. Thanks to the dedication and hard
work of Lindajoy Fenley, the organizer of the Dos Tradiciones
Festival for the wonderful experience, Ken Keppeler
On
Thursday, the 22nd of Feb. 2001, Ken, Jeanie and Mark,
along with Dennis Daily and Rus Bradburd of La Mesilla,
all took a 14 hour bus trip from Juárez, Mex. to
Durango, Mex. and played three gigs in two days. We arrived
in Durango on Friday morning and that night played a concert
for the Teacher's Union in their Union hall. Sat. night
we played a concert in the beautiful Victoria Theatre
in downtown Durango with two other groups, one of them
a wonderful folklorico group called Flor y Barro and the
other local group called Grupo Norteño. After the
concert we went and played at a late night Peña.
We three left on Sunday evening for an all night bus to
Mexico City. When we got there at 9:30 in the morning,
we were met by Lindajoy Fenley, the organizer of Dos Tradiciones.
She told us that we had to do six different interviews
with newspapers and radios, all but one in Spanish, not
easy when one is very tired, but, for me, when I am that
tired, I get crazy and will try to talk in any language.
Jeanie and I went down to to see the Carnival celebration
in Tepoztlán, where they all dress up like European
princesses and princes with beards, sort of to make fun
of the conquerors, I, Ken, braided my beard to look like
the ones on their masks and was pulled into the procession
and fit right in.
Thursday
we returned to México City and stayed in the
beautiful Majestic Hotel, right on the Zócalo.
Friday night we had a concert in the Colegio San Ildefonso
right near the Zócolo downtown. There is a beautiful
early Diego Rivera mural on stage. Jerry Holland, the
deft Cape Breton Fiddler, accompanied by Allan Dewar
played a set, and so did we. The last set was the great
Don Juan Reynoso and his band. It was wonderful evening,
but the best was yet to come.
After the Guerrero part
of the trip, we stayed one more night in Mexico City,
and then played in the colonial town of Querétero
in ther Casa del Faldón, a beautiful open air performance
area. The only problem was that the sound man was watching
the football game, and so he wasn't paying attention to
the stage sound levels until the game was over. The next
day we went to San Miguel de Allende, a very touristy
town to play a benefit for disabled children. It was sponsored
by the Fire Department, which had also been fixing up
an old van that Roger Bellow, one of the musicians on
the tour, had donated, so that the villages in the mountains
could have an ambulance. The ambulance was presented to
one of the musicians, Angel Gonzalez, who lives in the
village of Palomas way up in the Sierra Gorda (fat mountains).
Angel and his band had been with us on the whole trip,
and were recieved very enthusiastically. The next day
we drove many more hours from the east side of the Sierra
Gorda, around the south end and up the east side of the
mountains to Jalpán. We played another benefit,
for medical care in the mountains, in the Museo Historico,
with lots of other musicians, including Angel's band,
Los Campesinos de la Sierra. (Oh come, Angel's band)
The next day it
was time to go up to the mountains, six hours on a one
lane dirt road in pickup trucks. The canyons were very
deep and we were very close to the edge but we made
it. The first gig was in Caricillo, a village even higher
up than Palomas. They had food ready for us when we
got there and they watched as we ate. They had been
worried that we wouldn't be able to eat their food,
but it was great- garbanzo beans, nopales (cactus cut
into strips, very good), rice, beans, wonderful corn
tortillas with a green color (blue and yellow corn ground
together.) . Then we played acoustic music, looking
out over thousands of feet of canyons, in a basketball
court for 600 people. A bunch of different musicians
played, we were next to last, just before Angel, and
people were a little tired, and kids were running around.
So we started our set on the court, and got a line of
people to follow us around while we played "Saute
Crapaud"( Jump Frog) and got them all involved
in the performance. Then we got on stage and kept the
dancing going, with "Papa's on the Housetop"
(with a Spanish chorus), and then our old favorite,
the Broom dance. Everyone was awake and excited for
Angel and his group. 
After the
concert we drove about 45 minutes to Palomas in very
bright moonlight, and gratefully went to sleep in people's
houses. The next morning we did a little concert for
the kids at the local school. They all want to play
violins and guitars but there are none up there and
they are very poor. We are going to try to get them
some, I know that with Angel's inspiration they will
learn. That night we played the last concert with everyone
in Palomas. The Ambulance was presented to the village,
and all of the villagers who had recieved Emergency
Medical Technician licenses were honored on the stage.
This is the only ambulance in that part of the mountains
to help these people, and it is an old 1983 ford van,
but it works great. When we played, Angel and his wife,
Leonila, joined us for a few tunes like Flor de Las
Flores and Purple Lilies. It was a great night!
