La Jornada: Zacamandú returns to revive Jarocho sounds from the 17th to 20th centuries

Like the Cid Campeador – that mythical medieval knight and military leader who, according to legend, won a battle after death –, Zacamandú is now ringing a new bell.

Despite having dissolved in the mid-1990s, this legendary group of Jarocho and Huastec sones will today release a phonographic material that remained unreleased for 32 years: Zacamandú: Ancient Jarocho sounds. Volume 2.

The album, recorded live between 1993 and 1994 in the Carlos Chávez room of the University Cultural Center and in the Ollin Yoliztli Cultural Center, is the result of a project aimed at preserving and reviving old Jarocho sounds.

“More than a rescue, it is a recovery of songs that were out of use and that we had the great pleasure of reconstructing, interpreting and reviving,” explains harpist Adriana Cao Romero, founder of the group, who, while practicing her university profession, remains current in that musical genre at the head of the group Caña Dulce y Caña Brava.

The nine pieces that make it up span from the 17th century to the 20th century. Its origin dates back to a rigorous investigation by the renowned historian and reveler Antonio García de León, who rescued the lyrics and scores from archives and ancient writings.

According to Leopoldo Novoa, another of the former members of Zacamandú, determining the exact birth of these sounds is a task that is not only complex, but in many ways impossible.

“All this music was made and transmitted by word of mouth,” explains the composer and multi-instrumentalist of Colombian origin, who mentions that García de León himself explains in his book The sea of ​​desires that Latin American culture was born in the Caribbean, in a constant mixture.

“It was the small merchants and travelers who carried the music, lyrics and verses from port to port. That is why it is possible to find the same verses in the Argentine ‘Martín Fierro’ as in the llanera music of Colombia and Venezuela, as in Cuba, Puerto Rico and Mexico,” he points out and adds that such dynamics extended to Europe, where Bach himself, for example, has a chaconne (a baroque dance and musical form of New Spain origin).

Latent risk

The recording, made in a single take with two microphones by engineer Guillermo Guillo Pous, it is a period document. Without software or digital editing, the balance was achieved by moving the musicians in space, remembers Novoa, who came to the country to study composition and joined Zacamandú upon discovering the value and beauty of the traditional music of our country.

The only thing that was done now with that material was mastering it to “give it a slight surround sound,” he details, but the essence is the same: raw, direct and deeply traditional.

Among the parts included are The Peach, The Negritos, The Snake, The Chuchurumaca, The Soursop, The Bakers y The coffee, plus an intimate and improvised version of The rattlesnake, performed alone by Antonio García de León with his jarana.

To assess the importance of this initiative, we must keep in mind that between the 1980s and 1990s son jarocho faced a latent risk of disappearing.

“From that moment on, there were many people who took on the task of not only spreading the word, but also teaching, going to the communities, and making revels and fandangos again,” highlights Novoa. “Zacamandú was part of that movement.”

The most important thing for the group at that time, according to Adriana Cao, was to get together in that kind of musical family to play the pieces that García de León provided them and fulfill the goal of participating every year in the Encuentro de Jaraneros de Tlacotalpan, Veracruz, with a new son and a handmade songbook made by Armando Herrera.

That this recording remained silent for more than three decades is due to the fact that “it was lost,” in addition to the fact that “there was no interest and, although we knew it existed, everyone had their own projects,” says the harpist.

It was the insistence of Armando Herrera and the support of the Fonarte Latino label, through Diego Ávila, that made it possible to locate, master and finally edit the material, which will be available on all digital platforms (YouTube, Apple Music and Spotify, among others) and on the site www.leopoldonovoa.org/zacamandu. There will also be a special compact disc edition of 300 copies.

The musicians Octavio Vega Hernández, Diego López Vergara, Ramón Gutiérrez Hernández, Salvador Negro Ojeda and Darmacio Cobos. They are joined as collaborators by the recently deceased historian Ricardo Pérez Monfort, as well as Graciela Ramírez and Felipe Oropeza.

Founded in 1980, Zacamandú was made up of Adriana and Wendy Cao Romero, Antonio and Pedro García de León, Ernesto Anaya, Francisco García Ranz, Lucas Hernández Bico, Armando Herrera Silva and Leopoldo Novoa.