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Latino Solido
TEX-MEX MUSIC has been around longer than even most avid fans realize. Maybe there wasn't an official name for it, but some Tucson musicians remember playing the style years back around San Antonio, Texas, and thereabouts.
Growing out of norteño music and conjunto bands, Tex-Mex also incorporated the popular music found around its birthplace in Latino communities in Texas. An infectious dance music, it combines the contemporary with the traditional and mixes up Mexican with American cultures just like the neighborhoods in which it thrives.
Its current growing popularity not only draws fans from other widely popular styles--American pop, country, Mexican folk and pop musics--but also continues to evolve and add compatible influences.
That's one reason the music appealed to kids in Tucson's Desert View High School. Four years ago, they approached Jose Carbajal, who had played Tex-Mex professionally when he was young, and asked to use his P.A. and his garage to rehearse.
Carbajal thought it would be a passing fancy--after all, some of the guys were only 15--but they showed him they were serious and asked him to play with them. After he helped them work up a big enough repertoire to become professional, he stayed on as manager of Latino Sólido.
As Carbajal put it, they convinced him that they had "something worth nourishing." It was a way to "keep traditional, authentic Tex-Mex music going and help the kids go to college."
Most of the young members of Latino Sólido are in college now, and have graduated to doing their own arrangements, too. As Carbajal says, they "breathe a little bit of life" into well-chosen old songs like "Sabor a Mi," "Por el Amor de Mi Madre," or "Tejano Enamorado."
But they haven't replaced the true brass sound, the "soul" and breath of a real horn player with synthesizers like some other Tex-Mex groups. Latino Sólido favors the tradition of the Tex-Mex bands from the '60s and '70s with pride.
Ranging from 19 to 24 years old, the young professionals of Latino Sólido play the usual venues--weddings, parties, and festivals, and have gigged in the Tucson Latin clubs. They work up to three nights a week, and even have to turn down some work--after all, they're still in school.
--Janice Jarrett
Latin Express
LAST YEAR, CELEBRATING only their third anniversary, Latin Express won first place and made a present of the TAMMIES compilation CD to one of their major influences, Tex-Mex star Emilio Navaira. Their award got the word out that they were a hot professional group to be reckoned with. They've been playing all over Arizona. Their new album, with five brand new originals, should be out in a couple of months.
Latin Express spokesperson Martin Alvarez commented last year that Tex-Mex music was on the rise, that it was fast becoming a crossover music--that is, popular among non-Mexicans, too. Seems he was right. In no small part its growing popularity in Tucson is due to the seriousness and style with which Latin Express musicians Martin Alvarez (saxophone), Henry Inocencio (drummer and lead vocals), Tom Rogers (keyboards), Mario Gonzalez (trumpet), Benny Saucedo (bass guitar), Ernesto Martinez (lead guitar), and Jesus "Chuy" Espinoza play their hearts out.
--Janice Jarrett
