Mexican cumbia

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Mexican cumbia is a musical subgenre of Mexican cumbia, and this is originated from Colombian Cumbia in South America. Mexican cumbia also is the form of dance and music found in Mexico,

The Colombian Cumbia called only Cumbia, was created during the Spanish colonial times.

Contents 1 Origins of Mexican cumbia 2 Some definitions and variations of Mexican cumbia 3 Development of Mexican cumbia 3.1 The Fifties 3.2 The sixties 4 Cumbia Pegassera

[edit] Origins of Mexican cumbia

There aren't referring serious studies about this music, except in its country of origin (Colombia and in smaller degree Panama) where had a principle and end of creation due to the declivity of the "time of gold" of cumbia in Colombia and certain direct references to which one of this music in Mexico.

Therefore in the northern country, like in many other countries like Argentina and Peru, the cumbia in Mexico, is popular like the afrocuban, Afro-American and other amerindian rhythms, but haven't been studied or documented since it has been relegated to being music of poor social classes in diverse parts of the republic and other latinamerican countries, in according to the LP records of diverse national producers, the cumbia in other countries in the 50's began its gestation and earlier 60's, a parallel way had in diverse countries of the continent.

[edit] Some definitions and variations of Mexican cumbia

The Mexican Cumbia has adapted versions of Colombian music like Peruvian Cumbia or Argentinian Cumbia, among others. It is not a unification of unique sound styles that identifies because these styles are very diverse and varied, of province in province, of time at time, the Mexican cumbia styles are had that once the public and the musicians of cumbia are assimilated the new cumbia sounds, have the consequence to mark a tendency to follow by new cumbia musical groups. Examples of subgenres of Mexican cumbia are the Northern Cumbia or Cumbia norteña, Southeastern Cumbia, Cumbia Mariachi or Cumbia Sonidera and other, its national variants, is a fusion of the adapted folklores of Colombia with the nationals like northern music, the mariachi, band, romantic music, huapango, or huasteco, as well as old and modern genres of other countries, such as the Cuban Salsa, merengue, reggae, ska and other Carribean sounds. Also represented are Bolivian and Ecuadorian folklore, waltz and Peruvian folklore, with other popular genres such as rock & roll, hip-hop, rap, Disco 70's, Dance, and electronic music. These tendencies have varied according to the popularity of each of the rhythms with which they have merged.

[edit] Development of Mexican cumbia

[edit] The Fifties

In the 40's, 50's and until half-full of 60's, Colombia had a "time of gold of cumbia" which it reflected on world-wide scale folklore of this country, with diverse successes that gave to identity per decades to the andean country with its most famous cumbia song, "La pollera colorá" ("the red skirt") but due to diverse social factors, the cumbia was losing popularity due to the invasion in Colombia of other musical genres mainly from the north of the continent as the Mexican music in all its variants (in Spanish) and the American (English) combined to the afrocaribean rhythms as the Salsa and merengue and others and the empowering of the Vallenato as national music that would move the cumbia almost until the extinction, at the moment in Colombia is almost null the recording and interpretation of musical groups dedicated to the cumbia, and however the Vallenato has become symbol of Colombian national music, relegating cumbia only to nationalistic events of the historical past of the andean country.

During its splendor in the 40's and 50's, the colombian cumbia was expanded by several countries of latinamerica being more or less popular in different countries, mainly nowadays,three countries have the cumbia as pupular music, Peru, Mexico and Argentina, the reason is that only until those decades of 40's and 50's, colombian musicians distributes its recordings of Colombian groups like the "Corraleros de Majagual", and others.

The justification of the adaptation of the Cumbia in diverse countries corresponds to diverse reasons, for example, in Argentina the genre was adopted transparently because the tango music uses accordion, reason why for in the Argentinian musical groups its adoptación was direct, the same it happens in Mexico that uses in its northern music as main musical instrument the accordion reason which, the fusion with the Colombian cumbia in its music was direct and natural, and later also in other cumbia's countries in all the continent, derivated of northern music the "acompañamiento" (loop sound of bajosexto) replaced by the guitar in Mexico and other countries.

In the middle of the 50's in Mexico, enjoyed singular success the musical group "Los Cometas" which perform diverse genres like bolero, tropical music, Cuban, among other Cuban rhythms and foxtrot in their recordings, this group recorded for the company CBS (nowadays Sony Music).

Its particularitity is the use in all its songs the accordion as main instrument, the successes mixture of tropical bolero and with accordion like "Jugando poker", "Tomando caña", "Donde esta mi saxofón", "Que se mueran los feos", etc. that would give the precedent of the popularity of cumbia music with accordion, combined to the northern music.

The first Colombian musician that traveled to the north of the continent was Luis Carlos Meyer who decided after being an enormous successful in Colombia to make a tour by different countries and arriving for the first time to Mexico the Cumbia through him, was one of the first introducers of cumbia in the country, leaving that sample of the new "tropical" music in Mexico recording together with the orchestra of Lucho Paz and Tony Camargo thus other musicians few years later would assimilate the new Colombian genre, Meyer continuous their scaling to USA where finally he lived.

[edit] The sixties

Few musicians in Mexico knew cumbia, and practically the history of cumbia in Mexico is parallel to the rock & roll history and also it had almost of the same way.

Policarpo Calle, an accordionist of cumbia and very popular vallenato musician in Colombia and Mexico with his song "La Porra Caimanera", "La Cumbia chida", "La Monaguilla", "Leyda", "Se cabrio la Cumbia" "Maria Salome" among others, mentions that the first introducer of cumbia in Mexico was the Mexican singer Carmen Rivero [1], she traveled until Colombia to learn cumbia music and to bring it to the country, parallelly, Mike Laure a rock & roll musician from Jalisco began with the change of its style of rocker whom was not to him very favorable to a declared tropical musician, began trying in the new "tropical" music gernre called cumbia, both, Carmen Rivero and Mike Laure by different ways, did not know that they would be in the pioneers and creators of the real Mexican cumbia.

When Carmen Rivero returned from Colombia, brought a repertoire of colombian cumbia of Colombian previous decade, the Mexican Rivero made, like Mike Laure a symbiosis of cumbia brought of Colombia with the experience that both had of different music styles.

Meanwhile, Mike Laure, in 1959 and 1960, had already formed its first musical group that just a short time later would change its name to "Los Cometas", (the same name of another group that recorded for CBS Columbia mentioned before), having a musical experience in Rock, Mike Laure makes a particular musical fusion recognized, its fusion of cumbia with the rock & roll, he separated the real Colombian percussions of cumbia replacing them by the acoustic Drum kit (because he had instruments to play rock & roll). With relatives of him, introduce some instruments protagonists of cumbia Colombian, like the accordion, sax and clarinet, and the bases of the rhythm is made by guiro (substitute of the guacharaca of the Colombian cumbia) the acoustic drum kit, adding an instrument that already had been used by the Colombians but were not used more because in Colombia began to lose force, we reffers to the electric guitar, as rock musician, invariably would have to use it within its recordings.

Mike Laure with its "tropical music" and the cumbia, begun to became very popular, he recorded his songs for "Discos Musart" a Mexican company, his songs were covers of Colombian groups like Antolín y su Combo Orence with the famous "Tabaco mascao", of Combo los Galleros with the "cieguita" Lucy Gonzalez, and of other famous musician, Alejandro Durán with his hit called "039" in accordion, another songs of Corraleros de Majagual and Colombian songs composed by Eliseo Herrera, Julio Erazo, and Cresencio Salcedo among others.

Mike Laure recorded Colombian hits of cumbia and other Colombian genres as Porro, Vallenato or Joropo, the re-recordings had adapted musically to satisfy the Mexican public, and because he did not have experience in this musical genre of cumbia, so the cumbia, almost for the first time has one of its radical adaptations and changes into the hands of Mike Laure, in addition that he did not have the real instruments of an orchestra of Colombian cumbia, Mike Laure used for the first time in recordings of cumbia for Mexican companies the use of accordion, electric guitar, clarinet and sax, and to simulate the percussions it uses "tumbadoras" or "congas". Mike Laure in its recordings imposed guidelines for the future tendencies of cumbia in Mexico, cumbia with accordion, cumbia with sax and cumbia with electric guitar. Although many of cumbias were covers, soon began to be composed the first Mexican cumbias and also recorded by Mike Laure.

Parallelly, Carmen Rivero once brought its Colombian repertoire and to have itself later as singer together Linda Vera, made its recordings for Discos CBS Columbia / Discos Orfeón, reason why soon it begins to become popular due to cumbias famous to cover of Colombian groups, the success subjects were clearly "the chicken farmer will colorá", "fisherman" and like in the race of Mike Laure, they would begin to be made up and to record first cumbias Mexican, like including in his first discs of Carmen Rivero like the subject "To Tabasco" talking about to the Mexican state of Tabasco

[edit] Cumbia Pegassera

Yet another very popular and distinctive style in cumbia is what is denoted or tagged as "estilo Pegasso", Spanish for "Pegasso-style". Other phrases used to describe this style is "onda pegassera", "sonido pegasso", and "musica pegassera". This style of cumbia has roots with the great Rigo Tovar when he introduced acoustical instruments into his band enssemble. Although this cumbia style had its glory years in the 80's decade and early 90's throughout Mexico and the US, it is still popular in the northern Mexican states of Nuevo Leon and Tamaulipas. These states' bordering cities with Texas and throughout Texas such as Houston, Dallas, Fort Worth still have a large fan-base of this style. Outside of Texas, there is still an enumerable audience of this cumbia style that are spread in other US States.

The band that is credited with this style is Grupo Pegasso, bearing the name that connoted the phrase "onda Pegassera" and the such. Due to the band's popularity in the early 80's, it's style was instilled onto other bands which followed with a very similar, yet distinctive "style". Bands which were popular such as Zazz, Toppazz, Pegasso del Pollo Estevan, Cupido, Corcel Negro are considered to fall under the "pegasso-syle" umbrella.