traje de charro (cowboy suit), imitating the orquestas típicas of the period. Since
1908, the music of one mariachi called Quartet Coculense was disseminated by
North American record companies and in 1925, the first concert of mariachi music
was broadcast over the radio in Mexico City. Since then, the mariachi has been
rooted in the country’s capital, where in the 1930’s music for a new estilo bravío,
which was advocated as jaliscience (Jalisco style) began to be composed, and was
presented as rustic style, having as one of its original interpreters Lucha Reyes, a na-
tive of Guadalajara with a penetrating voice. The emergence and formation of mod-
ern mariachi in Mexico City led to a transformation of the elements of traditional
mariachi: increased number of ensemble musicians, the use of the charro uniform,
an alteration of the musical balance to enthrone the trumpet as an essential instru-
ment, and the incorporation of songs with themes and urban texts like “Guadala-
jara,” “Cocula,” and “El Mexicano.” Some time later, Jose Alfredo Jimenez added
a spoken text to address internal conflict and frustrations of the Mexican male.
In 1940, mariachi music was integrated into classical music worldwide as a rep-
resentative of Mexico. Sones de mariachi, arranged by Blas Galindo, is a work that
surpassed exposition of rural issues and promoted these works to the rank of na-
tional airs. This step was a decisive move for the orquesta typica and the mariachi
trio ranchero with trumpet, which dominated the national Mexican scenery.
The development of modern mariachi is linked to the course of development of
singers in the ranchero style, most notably Pedro Vargas and Miguel Aceves and
Mariachi
|
239
idols Jorge Negrete, Pedro Infante, and Javier Solis, who helped in its dissemination
at the international level. Among composers, Tomas Mendez, Cuco Sanchez, and
Chava Flores excelled, and among arrangers, Manuel Esperon and Ruben Fuentes. In
the second half of the 20th century, the cowboy singers Cornelio Reyna and Vicente
Fernandez came to the scene as well as popular singers Maria de Lourdes and Aida
Cuevas, and the composer Juan Gabriel, who introduced playful or amorous themes
with gender-neutral lyrics. Over time, idols and songs are replaced regularly, and
mariachi music adjusts to hybrid interpretations distanced from its classic sound.
Few mariachi groups, considered among the elite, succeeded exhibiting them-
selves as soloists, among those Mariachi Mexico de Pepe Villa and Mariachi
Vargas de Tecalitlan, whose musicians are performers, singers, and dancers/cho-
reographers. Some of these ensembles introduced the genre mariachístico, and had
steady development of their careers, but the majority of these acts were of variable
significance. An egalitarian complaint has been made for the inclusion of women
and the formation of female mariachi ensembles has been accepted. The majority
of popular mariachis, however, remain without proper social recognition, and as
ephemeral groups lacking in economic resources to compete.
The modern mariachi emerged as a product of mass communication media,
those in America and disseminated by Latin America in the United States through
radio, records, and movies. In fact, it was the golden age of Mexican cinema that
forged the visual and sonic stereotype of the mariachi as a rustic jalisciense ensem-
ble composed of mestizos with an image closer to Europeans and distanced from
the indigenous and the black.
Although it is the musical symbol of Mexico, the special fusion of rhythmic, mu-
sical, and textual elements of various cultural branches has risen the mariachi to a
universal rank having popularity not only in Colombia, Venezuela, Costa Rica,
Guatemala, Aruba, and the United States, but also in Spain, Italy, France, Holland,
Belgium, the Balkans, and even in Japan. In a non-Spanish-speaking context, the
mariachi first circulated as an exotic music, but was soon adopted as worthy repre-
sentative of a Latin American cultural amalgam. It is paradoxical to observe that
while in Mexico the diffusion of the music has fallen, in the United States the maria-
chi entered the university in 1962, from when it began its academic study and the
schooling of its profession. At the same time, festivals and conferences of mariachi
began to emerge, among them the Tucson Mariachi Conference in 1983 whose suc-
cess later prompted the International Mariachi Conference in Guadalajara in 1994.
In current-day, modern Mexico, among the mariachi elite, espectaculaers or and
monumentales are perhaps a new version of the orquesta típica porfiriana, with
whom they share the following characteristics: they are composed of musicians of
note, they dress in the cowboy suit, they interpret the vernacular music of differ-
ent regions in Mexico, they exhibit themselves as representatives of the national
music, they have the medley as one of their principal genres, and their presentations
240 | Marimba
are delivered on stage for an audience gathered to listen. From the traditional ma-
riachi, they maintain the habit of playing while standing and have a conductor/
performer, but the instrumental contribution is the unique style of trumpets that is
not originally from Jalisco, but Mexico City.
Further Reading
Jáuregui, Jesús. El Mariachi. Símbolo musical de México. Mexico: Taurus, 2007.
Moreno, Yolanda. Historia de la música popular mexicana ( los noventa ), Mexico:
Alianza Editorial, 1989.
Sheehy, Daniel. Mariachi Music in America. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006.
J. Jesús Jáuregui Jimenez
Marimba
The marimba is a type of xylophone consisting of wooden bars suspended over a set
of resonators and struck with mallets, the marimba first emerged in Latin America
during the colonial period. Recreated from diverse African models brought to the
Americas by slaves, evidence suggests that use of the instrument was once wide-
spread throughout Latin America, including in Brazil, Cuba, and Peru, though
extant marimba traditions today are found in only two regions: Central America,
including southern Mexico; and northwestern South America, along the Pacific
coast of Colombia and Ecuador.
In the Meso-American region, the marimba is found in urban areas of all coun-
tries in Central America except Belize and Panama, and is especially prominent
in the indigenous and mestizo/ladino musical traditions of Guatemala, where it is
considered the national instrument, and the southern Mexican states of Oaxaca and
Chiapas. The near-disappearance of Afro-descendant communities in this region
by the 19th century, as well as the instrument’s early acceptance by the indigenous
Mayan population, have largely obscured the marimba’s African origins in Central
America, and led to the instrument being primarily associated with indigenous and
nationalist musical traditions. Nonetheless, aspects of African musical influence
remain, particularly in the charleo or buzzing sound of the instrument, which is
created by a thin membrane stretched across a small hole in each resonator.
Several types of marimba are played in the Guate
malan/Mexican region. The
marimba de tecomates is a single-rank, diatonic instrument with gourd resonators.
Typically played by a single musician in indigenous communities, it is performed
for both sacred and secular occasions, and may be accompanied by a small drum
or cane flute. The marimba sencilla, or simple marimba, is a larger diatonic instrument with suspended wooden box resonators, which emerged in urban areas in
the 19th century and allows multiple players to perform on a single, freestanding
Marimba
|
241
instrument. Finally, the marimba doble, or double marimba, is a chromatic, double-
rank instrument with box resonators, typically suspended from an ornately carved
wooden frame, and played by three to four people simultaneously. This instrument
was invented in the late 19th century to allow for more complex arrangements of
popular music and became the favored instrument of urban, mestizo marimba en-
sembles. Often performed in pairs of a marimba grande (large marimba ) and ma-
rimba cuache (tenor marimba ), and accompanied by a rhythm section including
drumset and bass, the marimba doble remains the dominant version of the instru-
ment found throughout Central America today, and was the prototype for the North
American orchestral marimba earlier in the 20th century.
The exception to this characterization is the Nicaraguan marimba de arco (arc
or hoop marimba ), found in the Pacific coastal area of southern Nicaragua and
most prominently associated with the city of Masaya. Retaining the arc found on
the northern marimba de tecomates but substituting tubular resonators carved from
cedar wood, the marimba de arco is performed in a trio that also includes guitar
and guitarilla, a small four-stringed lute. Unlike the marimba sencilla or marimba doble, in which melody, harmony, and bass lines are divided between multiple
players, the marimba de arco is a solo instrument, with the bass line and harmony/
melody divided between the performer’s left and right hands, respectively.
The South American marimba tradition differs substantially from its Central
American counterpart. Played almost exclusively by Afro-descendant populations
in Ecuador and Colombia, the musical ensemble and esthetic bear a much closer re-
lationship with African musics, including leader–group alternation, drum ensemble
accompaniment, and cyclical, improvisatory forms, though without the characteris-
tic buzzing sound of Central American and most African marimbas. The marimba
itself in this region is traditionally a single-rank, diatonic instrument of roughly
three-and-a-half octaves, with bamboo resonators, though chromatic double-rank
instruments have recently become popular. The instrument is played by two per-
formers, one of whom plays an ostinato-like bass figure called the bordón, the sec-
ond of which plays the more improvisatory treble line called the tiple . They are
accompanied by an ensemble including two cununos (wedge-tuned hand drums,
similar to a Cuban conga ), one or two bombos (bass drums played with sticks), several guasás (bamboo shakers), and vocalists, including a glosador (lead singer) and
several respondadoras (female choir). The marimba ensemble typically plays to
accompany folk dances that correspond to the different temas or themes played by
the marimba itself. Since the 1990s, the marimba has become an important symbol
of Afro-Ecuadorian and Afro-Colombian identity and is celebrated in numerous
festivals every year throughout the region.
Further Reading
Navarrete Pellicer, Sergio. Maya Achi Marimba Music in Guatemala. Philadelphia, PA:
Temple University Press, 2005.
242 | Marímbula
Scruggs, T.M. “Central America: Marimba and Other Musics of Guatemala and Nicara-
gua.” In Musics in Latin American Culture: Regional Traditions, edited by John Schechter,
80–125. New York: Schirmer Books, 1999.
Jonathan Ritter
Marímbula
The marímbula is a Cuban thumb piano used by early changüí and son groups primarily as a bass function within an ensemble. The instrument consists of a
large wooden resonating box with one to several holes in the front. Across the
front of the box is fastened a rod that acts as a bridge to hold a series of metal
tongues of different sizes, which are fastened by a pressure rod that is fitted over
the bridge. The keys are tuned by adjusting the length of the free or long ends
of the tongue, which are then plucked by the player. Normally players pluck the
metal tongues while straddling the instrument for a seated performance posi-
tion. The instrument originated in the Oriente province of Cuba, and eventually
spread to other parts of the Caribbean where it was used in regional folk musics
of Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, and Jamaica. The instrument
was cultivated by African slaves who used whatever material was available to
them, including crates for the resonator, and bamboo, or premanufactured steel
items, such as hack-saw blades, for the tongues. While the marímbula is still used
today in Cuban changüi ensembles, its use in the Cuban son was eventually su-
perseded by the double bass.
Further Reading
Thompson, Donald. “The Marímbula: An Afro-Caribbean Sanza. ” Yearbook of the
Inter-American Institute for Musical Research 7 (1971): 103–16.
George Torres
Martinique and Guadeloupe
Martinique and Guadeloupe are islands in the eastern Caribbean Sea. Former French
colonies, they were incorporated into the Republic of France as overseas départe-
ments in 1946. Due to their history of plantation slavery, the population of the two
islands is predominately Afro- Creole. Although French is the official language, most
Martinicans and Guadeloupeans speak Creole in daily conversation, and Creole is the
language most commonly used in the folk and popular music of the French Antilles.
Martinique and Guadeloupe | 243
The folk music of Martinique and Guadeloupe is based on African antecedents,
with influences from European dance music, particularly the French contredanse
and quadrille. In Martinique, these dances developed into the bèlè (of which there
are several varieties), the kalenda , and the haute taille . Musical accompaniment is
exclusively song and percussion instruments including a drum called the tanbou
bèlè and a metal rattle called the chacha . In Guadaloupe similar dances known col-
lectively as bamboula or gwotambou developed, with accompaniment of call and
response vocals and percussion. In recent years these dances have become emblem-
atic of the region’s Afro- Creole heritage and are featured in folkloric presentations
at festivals and tourist shows at local hotels.
In the 19th century, Afro- Creole musicians blended the Afro- Creole music with
European dances such as the waltz and the polka to create various styles of urban
dance music known collectively as Musique Créole . The three main song types of
Musique Créole are biguine , mazouk (mazurka), and valse Créole. Instrumentation is not standard, but generally features clarinet, saxophone, trumpet, and bamboo
flute as solo instruments, a rhythm section made up of drum set, piano, bass, and
banjo or guitar, along with Afro- Cre
ole percussion such as the tibwa (Fr. petit bois,
“little sticks”) and chacha . Biguine musicians found success in mainland France
in the 1920s and 1930s, and were popular there until newer styles emerged in the
1970s.
Carnival has been part of the festival calendar in both Martinique and Guade-
loupe since colonial times. While “foreign” music such as calypso and soca enjoy great popularity in contemporary Carnival celebrations, there have been important
local developments in recent decades. Among the changes in Vaval , the name for
Carnival in Martinique, is the introduction of groups à pied: neighborhood-based
marching bands featuring brass instruments, tanbou , chacha, as well as homemade
percussion made of various types of containers and PVC pipe. In Guadeloupe in the
1960s, urban youth revitalized Afro- Creole drumming traditions in a new style and
ensemble called gwoka (Fr. Creole gros ka, “big drum”). Seven traditional rhythms associated with gwoka accompany improvisatory dancing by male and female soloists. As in Martinique, this new style has become associated with Carnival as well
as other celebrations.
In the 1980s, zouk emerged as the dominant form of urban dance music in the
region, combining various styles of French Antillian music with reggae and salsa .
As with biguine in earlier decades, performers of zouk , such as the super-group
Kassav, have enjoyed considerable success in mainland France. From the 1990s
to the present, Jamaican dance hall has been very influential throughout the Carib-
bean. French Antillean youth have created a style called ragga in response, rap-
ping in French Creole about local issues, and blending dance hall music with the
tibwa rhythm of other genres.
244 | Maxixe
Further Reading
Guilbault, Jocelyne. Zouk: World Music in the West Indies . Chicago, IL: University of
Chicago Press, 1993.
Manuel, Peter Lamarche, Kenneth M. Bilby, and Michael D. Largey. Caribbean Cur-
rents: Caribbean Music from Rumba to Reggae . Revised and expanded. Philadelphia, PA:
Temple University Press, 2006.
Hope Smith
Maxixe
From its emergence in the late 1870s to its decline in the 1920s, few genres of pop-
Encyclopedia of Latin American Popular Music Page 42
