Daniel Buckley Arts

Ballet Folklórico Tapatio

There has been a trend among folklórico groups in Tucson over the years of transforming traditional Mexican folkloric dance to a true vehicle of story telling.

Julie Gallego and her Viva dancers were among the pioneers of the trend, putting together shows that told the history of Tucson from precolonial times to the present. Along the way her Viva Arizona shows also filled in the blanks about our town’s Mexican American history – the pioneers of Mexican radio, the old ballrooms that here so much the heart of the culture, the barrios (neighborhoods) that bustled with culture and life, and so much more.

Gallego painted portraits of Christmas in the Mexican American community as well that showed what was unique to her culture and what overlapped with the prevailing American culture. She reinterpreted that Christmas show at Saint Augustine Cathedral and created a new sacred counterpart to her secular theater offering, Noche de Paz. Gallego’s ability to tell long-form stories with folklorico and other dance forms is what has made her an indispensable part of mariachi shows in Las Vegas, and what earned her group an invitation to perform at the 2012 London Olympics. Her shows over the decades have carved a unique niche for themselves in Tucson’s cultural landscape.

Julie Gallego’s Noche de Paz

In recent years the younger Ballet Folklorico Tapatio company, under the direction of Jose Luis Baca, has taken a different tack on story telling through dance, reinterpreting classic Mexican corridos (ballads). Whether one comprehends a word of Spanish or not, no one can be unmoved by their work in realizing El Corrido de Polino Guererreo as they show a happy young couple in the sway of love, the man abruptly murdered by a jealous lover. The mourning woman arches over the murdered man’s lifeless body as woman of the village echo her sadness in stylized dances, encircling her as the mourning woman kneels in shock. The men of the village, in stylized, ritual precision full of dignity and grace, hoist the murdered man on their shoulders and carry him off, the woman and the rest of the mourners following in rhythmic expression of grief and collective sorrow.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCFCt8gXgKo

Ballet Folklorico Tapatio’s El Corrido de Polino Guererreo. Click the right hand bottom of the video screen to watch larger on YouTube.

Every element is as precisely rendered as a fine oil painting by one of the masters. The movement, the lighting, the costuming, the choreography and the music conspire to sweep the audience into the drama and emotion within the traditional song. It is at once exquisite and profoundly moving. And it sets the bar high for those who will follow.

Like mariachis before them, Tucson’s folklórico dancers are evolving deeper and richer traditions of their own and forging new directions in their artistry. They are no longer mere color in a show. They ARE the show.

Seeing the work of the Viva dancers and Ballet Folklorico Tapatio fills the sails of this documentary on the rise of the mariachi and folklórico movements in Tucson. The music and the dance are as inseparable as the poetry from the tune of a song. Along with the political, educational  and social changes these art forms have generated in our town there has been a corresponding lift in artistry. The standard moves higher with every new wave of young talent.

What’s interesting as well is that both Julie Gallego’s Viva group and Jose Luis Baca’s Ballet Folklorico Tapatio ensemble keep as strong a hand in teaching as they do creating new works. They are passing along the craft of dance as they inspire the coming generations. And they incorporate the young talent within their shows, making sure that kids see themselves both in their culture and in the high art their dancing might lead to.

Tradition is not a frog in formaldehyde. It has to move forward and innovate or else it dies out. It also must appeal to new generations to be carried on. Tucson’s folklórico dance tradition is alive and well.

.

Posted in Daniel Buckley Arts, Daniel Buckley Documentaries, Mariachi blog, Mariachi documentary, Uncategorized
Tags: art, Ballet Folklórico Tapatio, corridos, culture, dance, Daniel Buckley, Jose Luis Baca, Julie Gallego, mariachi, Mexican American, Viva Arizona

“Tucson’s Heart and Soul: El Casino Ballroom” has been selected to be screened as part of the 2013 Arizona International Film Festival, running April 12-28 at Tucson’s Screening Room.

The film will be shown April 20 at 2 p.m. at The Screening Room, 127 E. Congress Street Tucson, AZ 85701 (520) 882-0204. In addition Buckley will be part of a Tedx Tucson Film Salon on Thursday, April 18, 5:30 p.m. at the UA Bookstore.

In addition the film will be screened at a private gala fundraiser in Patagonia, Arizona on April 19 to benefit the town’s Tin Shed Theatre Company. Contact adrienne@globalartsgallery.com or call 520-404-3490 for more information on that event.

The story of the last big Latino ballroom in Tucson, documentary maker Daniel Buckley spent 19 months making the film with associate producers Ralph Gonzalez and Julie Gallego.

Buckley will give a “Show and Tell” talk about “Tucson’s Heart and Soul: El Casino Ballroom” on March 13 from 5:30-7 p.m. at the Playground Bar and Lounge, 268 E. Congress Street, Tucson, Arizona. The Show & Tell series is sponsored by the University of Arizona’s Confluence Center for creative inquiry. See poster below for details.

“Tucson’s Heart and Soul: El Casino Ballroom” is the tale of a special place in Tucson’s history – a  place begun by Latinos for their culture in a day when they were not always welcome everywhere, but open and welcoming of all of the city’s myriad cultures.

Its walls have seen celebrations of culture, community and family, performances by the greatest musical acts of an era, political rallies, gatherings of mourning and strength, and so much more. Its sprung wooden dance floor – the largest in the state of Arizona – has buoyed dancers from the big band era through the early days of rock and soul, norteño, Tejano, mariachi, rock of all sorts and more.

El Casino Ballroom founders (l-r) Benjamin Jacobs, Adolfo Loustaunau and Ramon Siqueiros.

Generations of Mexican American families have held wedding receptions, quinceaneras and family gatherings of all sorts at El Casino Ballroom.

It is tradition, community, family and more. It was the true community center of Tucson long before the convention center was built.

In 1991 a microburst flipped half the roof off and landed it in the parking lot. For nine years afterward it sat dormant until a group of construction workers and baseball enthusiasts decided enough is enough. They volunteered their time for 4-6 hours a day, after work, for nearly a year and a half to restore a little over half of the original structure and re-open it to the public.

Today El Casino Ballroom is going strong again, and serving the community as it always has.

“Tucson’s Heart and Soul: El Casino Ballroom” takes viewers through a quick tour of the landmark ballroom’s first 65 years, from the days when founders Ben Jacobs, Ramon Siqueiros and Adolpho Loustaunau set the bar for the decades to come, on through the KXCI shows of the 1980s, the roof blowing off, and its community resurrection.

It’s a universal tale of places in all communities that assume meaning and sense of place to a town far beyond what mere bricks and mortar would suggest.

“Tucson’s Heart and Soul: El Casino Ballroom” is the fifth installment of the Cine Plaza at the Fox documentary series, which celebrates Latino history and culture in Tucson, Arizona.

For more on “Tucson’s Heat and Soul: El Casino Ballroom” click on the following links for the El Casino Ballroom documentary home page, the Cine Plaza at the Fox homepage, the El Casino documentary blog and the El Casino documentary’s Facebook page.

“Tucson’s Heat and Soul: El Casino Ballroom” was produced in part through a grant from the Tucson Pima Arts Council‘s PLACE Initiative program. Partners in the film include the Arizona Historical Society, KXCI, The CHISPA Foundation, the Fox Tucson Theatre Foundation, the Latin American Social Club and El Casino Ballroom.

Daniel Buckley’s next Cine Plaza at the Fox documentary is in production now, focusing on the Rise of the Mariachi and Folklórico movements in Tucson. Learn more about this next documentary through its homepage, blog and Facebook page.

Posted in Cine Plaza progress, Daniel Buckley Arts, Daniel Buckley Documentaries, El Casino Ballroom documentary, Uncategorized
Tags: Cine Plaza at the Fox, Daniel Buckley, El Casino Ballroom, Julie Gallego, Ralph Gonzalez

The term Totentanz translates to Dance of the Dead.

The most famous of these is Hungarian classical composer Franz Liszt’s brilliant and virtuosic set of variations on Dies Irae, written for piano and orchestra. The plainsong Dies Irae is the famous Gregorian chant from the mass of the dead.

Composer Daniel Buckley’s Totentanzes are a series of dance works incorporating audio recordings from the Jonestown tragedy, in which 900-plus people took their lives or were murdered at Jonestown in the Guayanese jungle on Novemeber 18, 1978. Hundreds of audio recordings are available of Rev. Jim Jones and his followers from both before the move to Guayana, and after. There is even a recording of the people taking the cyanide-laced Kool Aid that killed most of them. In 2009, the Jonestown Institute turned over copies of all of the recordings found by the FBI after the Jonestown tragedy, as well as recordings contributed by family members in the years that followed.

1978 was the height of the disco era back in the states and around much of the world. The Bee Gees’ “Stayin’ Alive” had been the number one Billboard hit just weeks before the Jonestown incident. Jones himself had an Earth, Wind and Fire style funk band at Jonestown called the Jonestown Express that covered popular hits of the day, sometimes changing the lyrics to glorify Jones or Jonestown.

Tapes found by the FBI at Jonestown

Buckley’s Totentanzes will incorporate these audio recordings in various ways, as well as strictly instrumental compositions and songs using the composer’s lyrics. As a body of work, they are a means to an end – the study materials for blending popular and classical styles, working toward the outcome of a new opera about Jonestown.

But they are also meant to be a body of work of their own that will bridge night club and classical recital environments. As such they are another means to a different end – that of engaging different audiences in a project that at first glance might seem a tough sell. Just as Jones’ preaching brought together people of diverse ages, ethnicities and backgrounds, so Buckley is working to entice an unlikely audience to engage in the story and learn about a shadowy moment in fairly recent history.

While not using the title Totentanzes before, Buckley toyed with the concept while composing his string quartet, “Soul Seduction: A Jonestown Scrapbook” for the Kronos Quartet in the mid-1990s. With a nod to Lizst’s Totentanz, and to works of other classical composers, Buckley wove his own set of variations on the plainchant “Dies Irae” into the cello part of the final movement of the piece.

It is almost certain that this historic theme will find its way into some portion of Buckley’s new Totentanzes, as well as the resulting opera.

The Jonestown audio recordings, and other spoken word works, have been a major chunk of Buckley’s musical pursuits for decades.

Below are some examples of Jonestown-specific works, as well as a link to more recent experimentation using the Jonestown audio tapes with more modern software and techniques.

• Here are a few fairly straight treatments of materials from the Jonestown tapes, from various decades. •

During the early 1990s Buckley started working with his first “professional” sampler – the Ensoniq EPS. Heavily hampered by its lack of memory, one had to learn to work around its limitations by creating short samples and transposing the pitch downward to achieve a sense of elongation and duration. “Jonestown Swings,” an instrumental work, here excerpted, strives to create the eerie sound of abandoned playground equipment blowing in the wind in the wake of the Jonestown tragedy.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Buckley was using Casio SK-5  8-bit sampling technology as cheesy instruments in conjunction with phrases from the Jonestown tapes. As the 1990s started, his concept of how to musically approach the Jonestown  materials was also in transition. Jones was, after all, a man who appeared to be one thing but actually was something far darker. Using traditional Hungarian modes a la Bartok, Buckley was trying to project this underlying sense of menace behind Jones’ comforting words. “Think Back” for Casio piano and the voice of Jim Jones is an example of this phase of work.

In the mid-1990s, Buckley was approached by Kronos Quartet first violinist David Harrington to write a string quartet for the group using elements from the Jonestown tapes. Harrington was compiling music for a CD of music that used spoken word and string quartet. In late 1996, Buckley delivered the four-movement “Soul Seduction: A Jonestown Scrapbook.” Unfortunately a series of personal tragedies within the group that coincided with the delivery of the piece, and it has remained unperformed. The realization heard here is from a mid-1990s sampling keyboard mockup.

Like “Think Back,” Soul Seduction” uses Hungarian modes to generate the desired air of creepiness. But unlike the elastic-metered “Think Back,” “Soul Seduction” is scored in the form of three funk movements and an opening African-inspired movement. The “story telling” in each section is linear – in other words, it follows the progression of the original tapes to a large degree.

Movement Two draws its material from a night when Jones was browbeating an elderly African American follower for wanting to go back to visit his family.

Movement Four pulls material from a “white night” – basically a dress rehearsal for the inevitable mass suicide – during which Jones whips his followers into a frenzy, convincing them that they are about to be attacked by armed forces from the U.S. Like many classical works before it, the movement quotes the “Dies Irae” (Day of Wrath) Gregorian plainchant from the mass of the dead.

“Totentanz 1,” presented in excerpt, is a piece from 2008 written as a sketch toward what will become an early piece in the Jonestown Opera. Dramatically the opera unfolds as a flashback on Reverend Jim Jones’ life that begins after he is shot to death, at the start of the opera. At that point, a Day of the Dead flamenco dance takes place around Jones’ body. Scored for orchestral percussion, Jonestown voices and solo violin. A “totentanz” is a dance of death, frequently using the Gregorian “Dies Irae” (Day of Wrath) chant from the mass of the dead. The most famous totentanz is Franz Liszt’s remarkable variations on Dies Irae for piano and orchestra.

“Dark Sparkly” is another of the Totentanzes, composed in 2008. The piece uses much of the same story line material as the fourth movement of the “Soul Seduction” string quartet. Musically it’s a dark disco piece with power-chord rock guitars, synthesizers and orchestral winds and brass.

What is termed for now the “Choral Montage” is a sketch toward what will eventual become the overture to the Jonestown opera. Scored for massed voices and orchestral percussion, the sketch is from 2008.

“Danza 1,” here excerpted, is an instrumental sketch for another of the Jonestown Totentanzes. What it is!

“Twilight,” from late 2010, combines sampling with formant analysis to create a mix of “real” and synthesized sounds. Originally scored for clarinet, harp and tympani, the tympani track was later process using formant shaping technology to produce a sound somewhere between synthesizers and strings. The instrumental piece is intended as a dramatic interlude to be played as dawn breaks on the morning of the final day at Jonestown. Followers of Jones have been passing messages to Congressman Leo Ryan’s staff all night, saying that they want to leave with him in the morning. When they attempt to do so, they are murdered along with the congressman, and Jones convinces those who stayed that their only course is suicide. The music for the dawn of the final morning is beautiful at first, then foreboding.

All rights reserved, Saguaro Furnace music publishing.

Posted in Daniel Buckley Arts, Daniel Buckley Music, Jonestown progress, Uncategorized
Tags: Classical, dance music, Daniel Buckley, Jonestown, opera, totentanz

By nature I am a planner – a long-term thinker.

I tend to engage in projects that take years to unfold, and that require carefully considered steps to arrive at a final destination. Sometimes the journey is that destination, at others there is a clear perceived goal.

My Cine Plaza at the Fox documentary series is an example of a project in which the journey is the destination. It began with the examination of a long-demolished theatre that meant so much to Tucson’s Mexican American population. It evolved through the study of Tucson’s barrios, important cultural centers and the urban renewal program of the 1960s that was such a blow to the city’s Mexican American population.

Currently the series is looking at the important art forms (mariachi and folklórico dance) that have helped Mexican Americans discover their culture, reconnect with their roots and set sail toward the future. After that it will touch base with the Tucson-born father of Chicano music – Lalo Guerrero – and revisit more of the barrios. And eventually it will turn to the evolution of Mexican American political power and the struggle for quality education.

In my musical pursuits, Jonestown has been a source of inspiration and reason to work for decades. Since the early 1980s I have been creating pieces around Jonestown as a means of building the skills, the knowledge and the unique musical vocabulary to eventually take on the subject as a full blown opera. In the early days I used tape loops to construct experimental creations. Later digital sampling technology and more traditional scoring methods were employed. I wrote a string quartet for the Kronos Quartet in the mid 1990s using audio recordings from Jonestown to tell a different story in each of the four movements.

While I started my Jonestown Totentanzes (Dances of Death) back in 2008, I knew that they were going to take a long time to develop as they were really about building a new vocabulary and engaging an audience in ways different from how I am most comfortable. They are a pivotal element in the evolution of the opera that is the eventual goal.

And just as the Cine Plaza documentary series has progressed methodically from step to step, so the Jonestown project is simultaneously taking shape. This too is normal for me as I often take on several projects at once, each becoming an escape from the other so that my mind is constantly focused, yet cleared in creative ways.

As 2013 begins I am engaged in the film on the rise of the mariachi and folklórico movement in Tucson, while planning the next steps in that documentary series. At the same time I am trying to carve out time and resources to hunker down on the Jonestown Totentanzes, to continue my studies of the source audio materials and to generate other installments in that series.

There have been other significant series works in my output as a composer. My 1987 opera “West]” turned out to be a starting pint rather than a destination. In writing it I started to develop a musical language bent on sonically portraying the landscapes and historical markers of the American west. This led to a series called the Prevailing Westerlies that continues to this day.

And like every composer, there are works that, for the moment at least, have no apparent connection to one another. Who knows where they may lead, and if similar new directions will evolve in my film work.

Posted in Cine Plaza progress, Daniel Buckley Arts, Daniel Buckley Documentaries, Daniel Buckley Music, Jonestown progress, Mariachi blog, Mariachi documentary
Tags: Cine Plaza at the Fox, Daniel Buckley, folklorico, Jonestown, mariachi

When it comes to sound libraries for digital samplers, two names stand out – 8DIO and Soniccouture.

Both create sound libraries for Native Instruments’ Kontakt sampling software, and both make libraries of massive versatility and unique value.

As a composer who writes contemporary classical music, as well as various soundtrack and experimental styles, I’m looking for libraries that sound like the real thing, are highly expressive and sonically engaging.

8DIO has of late been issuing libraries of symphonic instruments that are second to none for sound quality, versatility and playability. When they take on an instrument they record it using the finest microphones, preamps and techniques. Moreover they record each instrument with virtually every articulation a player can perform, at close and at various distances. Their round robin arrays ensure that each time you trigger a given key within the same articulation set – a muted string, for example – each key stroke will produce a slightly different variation of that instrument playing that note in that style. The result is a series of sound libraries one can play from a keyboard that sound as real and colorful as the original instrumentals.

8DIO also features trigger keys, usually on the lowest register of the keyboard, that can switch articulations for you. From one bow pressure to another, or into harmonics, different phrasing, etc., one can move smoothly and quickly between instrumental colors.

These are not the cheapest sound libraries on earth, but they are considerably cheaper than those of Vienna Symphonic Libraries and to my ear, easier to use and more authentic sounding.

I turn to Soniccouture when I’m looking for the unusual. The company’s Glassworks collection is particularly noteworthy, featuring high quality samples of Harry Partch’s Cloud Chamber Bowls, Glass Armonica and the Cristal Bachet, all of which add unusual color and texture to my pieces.

Similarly its extended piano library of plucked, bowed, muted, mallet and SFX piano sounds is one of the best available. Its EP73 and Broken Wurli electric piano collections contain both routine and exotic sounds one might never expect to hear from such a familiar instrument. They also have libraries for the Ondes Martenot (a weird early cousin of the Theremin), Balinese Gamelan and all manner of exotic percussion and wind instruments. When you’re looking for something a little “out there,” Soniccouture is your go-to sound library distributor.

No, even the best sound libraries are no substitute for a great player, and never will be. But they allow a composer the ability to mock up the sound of a piece to a good approximation of what the final piece might sound like, and to make appropriate, knowledgeable choices about what articulations will work best in their pieces.

My go-to sample playing software is Native Instruments’ Kontakt, though I also use and love MOTU’s Mach V 3. But there are far more libraries specifically geared toward Kontakt, much as there were for Gigasampler back in the day. And while both Kontakt and Mach V will play virtually every sound library on the market (including Gigasampler), Kontakt loads about 10 times faster than Mach V, even in MOTU’s Digital Performer sequencer.

Posted in Critic's corner, Daniel Buckley Arts, Daniel Buckley Music, Uncategorized
Tags: 8DIO, composer, Daniel Buckley, Kontakt, Mach V, MOTU, Native Instruments, sample library, SOniccouture

Producer Daniel Buckley

Mark Wednesday, March 13 on your calendar to hear documentary maker Daniel Buckley talk about “Tucson’s Heart and Soul: El Casino Ballroom” during Show and Tell night at The Playground in downtown Tucson. 5:30 to 7 p.m.

Copies of the film will be available for sale at the event.

Buckley will be talking about the next Cine Plaza at the Fox documentary film, in production now, on the rise of the mariachi movement in Tucson.

Since 1947, Tucson’s venerable El Casino Ballroom has been the city’s unofficial community center, welcoming people of all cultures and backgrounds to come and celebrate.

El Casino Ballroom founders (l-r) Benjamin Jacobs, Adolfo Loustaunau and Ramon Siqueiros.

Founded by the trio of Ramon Siqueiros, Benjamin Jacobs and Adolfo Loustaunau, the ballroom boasted the largest dance floor in the state of Arizona and welcomed an array of diverse talent from Lola Beltrán, Pedro Infante, Jorge Negrete, Perez Prado and Little Joe y la Familia to James Brown, Little Richard, Fats Domino, Benny Goodman and many more.

It was the hall of choice for generations of Tucson’s Mexican American population, serving as home base for hundreds of weddings, quinceañeras, anniversary and birthday parties and memorial services. Politicians from the Udalls to Barry Goldwater, Lyndon Johnson, Raul Grijalva and countless others came to El Casino Ballroom to woo the Latino vote over its 65 years of operation. It also was an important headquarters for Fiestas Patrias (important Mexican patriotic holidays) celebrations, as well as rallies for the Chicano movement in the 1970s and the recent Mexican American Studies struggles with Tucson Unified School District.

In the 1980s, community radio station KXCI made El Casino Ballroom the hip destination for all of Tucson with its House Rockin’ Concert Series, featuring the likes of Queen Ida, the Dirty Dozen Brass Band, Los Lobos, Buddy Guy and The Paladins. That same decade also saw El Casino become the birthplace of Tucson’s Tejano music scene.

At least since the Latin American Social Club bought El Casino in the late 1960s, the hall has been turned over without charge every Sunday to community non-profit groups and people in need for fundraisers. And since as far back as 1950, the hall has been host to a Christmas party that gave toys and food to needy Tucson kids and families.

In the early 1990s, a freak storm blew the roof off of El Casino Ballroom, and the fire department condemned the property. It lay dormant for nine years before a group of volunteers came together to work four nights a week after their day job, without pay, to return the ballroom to community service.

For 18 months, documentary film maker Daniel Buckley shot at El Casino Ballroom and interviewed everyone from the kids of its founders and the people who have taken care of it over the years to couples who fell in love and married there, music fans who came to the shows, politicians who held rallies there and the men who brought it back to life after the roof blew off. The stories are told directly by those who lived it, without voice over, captions or narration. Just the human stories of a special place that continues to make memories for the people of Tucson.

Posted in Cine Plaza progress, Daniel Buckley Arts, Daniel Buckley Documentaries, El Casino Ballroom documentary, Uncategorized
Tags: Cine Plaza at the Fox, Daniel Buckley Arts, El Casino Ballroom

Daniel Buckley’s “Jonestown” / photo by Renee Bracamonte

The Jonestown Project

Aisle seats: Arts picks for the week (Arizona Daily Star, November 2008)

Jonestown Project: Painting with History” by Daniel Buckley (The Jonestown Report, 2009)

Producer Daniel Buckley

Cine Plaza Press Links:

T Q&A: Daniel Buckley (Tucson Weekly 5/6/2010)

Festival en el Barrio Viejo: A Barrio Exorcism (Tucson Weekly, March 4, 2010

Bobby’s Room: Cine Plaza at the Fox (Bob Diaz’ blog)

Back to the Barrio (Tucson Weekly 6/2/2011)

Cine Plaza is Remembered in special Fox Theatre event (Downtown Tucson, March 10, 2010)

Vuelve Cine Plaza al Corazón de Tucsón (la Estrella de Tucson)

Fox revives Mexican films of Cine Plaza (Arizona Daily Star, March 11, 2010)

Cine Plaza at the Fox is Back, this time for laughs! (Arizona Bilingual, November 2010)

Joe Garcia was El Cine Plaza’s genial can-do man (Arizona Daily Star, September 2011)

‘Tucson’s Heart and Soul’: El Casino Ballroom Re-Debuts ‘Fiesta El Casino’ (Tucson Weekly, November 2012)

El Casino Ballroom in Limelight – Arizona Public Media    (KUAT PBS November, 2012)

Arts & Culture Guy: Events and movies around town (KVOA TV, December 2012)

Documentary features historic and colorful El Casino Ballroom (Arizona Daily Star, August 2012)

The Big Ask: (Tucson Weekly April 2013)

Need More Reasons to Support Daniel Buckley’s Kickstarter campaign? How About One Freaking Cool Award (Tucson Weekly April 20113)

Daniel Buckley at the Tucson International Mariachi Conference Espectacular concert, 2007, Photo by Jennifer Brankin

Tucson Citizen writer/columnist:

TUCSON CITIZEN MORGUE, PART 1 (2006-2009)

 Daniel Buckley’s YouTube channel:

dbtucson1

Posted in Cine Plaza progress, Critic's corner, Daniel Buckley Arts, Daniel Buckley Documentaries, Daniel Buckley Music, El Casino Ballroom documentary, Jonestown progress, Mariachi documentary
Tags: Arizona, Barrio Hollywood, Cine Plaza at the Fox, columnist, composer, Daniel Buckley, Daniel Buckley Arts, documentary, El Casino Ballroom, folklorico, mariachi, Tucson, video

When I worked for the Tucson Citizen I hated writing obituaries but I sometimes wrote columns of remembrance for folks I knew in the community.

Haven’t written one since the paper closed, but the passing of Gene Jones gives me reason to say a few words.

I first met Gene when I was covering the Tucson Symphony Orchestra. He was a member of the board of directors at that time. Some members of the board seemed to think they were there to have their butts kissed for the big checks they wrote. Gene was someone who really cared about that orchestra and the whole community.

Every now and then he’d call me and we’d go to lunch and talk about the direction the orchestra was heading, how it was improving and what could be done better. Though he sought my advice, he also shared with me his own thoughts about all of this and they were on the money every time. He understood both the artistic quality of that group and its fiscal challenges. And he never tired of finding better ways that things could be done.

Press release from Arts Integration Solutions

One day he called me up after a trip to a Symphony Orchestra League conference and asked to meet as soon as possible. He was very excited about something he’d seen. We met up a day or two later and I could see that he was just reenergized from the start.

He told me that one day during the conference he had a spare hour or two to kill and didn’t feel like leaving the convention area so he stopped into one of the conference rooms to sit in the back, rest a bit, and maybe take a nap. It happened that the room was where an innovative group of teachers from North Carolina, as I recall, were talking about a program they had set up in poor schools, using musicians from the local symphony. At first he was paying polite attention. But as they started to roll out the data about how this fairly simple program was radically improving test scores, attendance, discipline issues and the like, he gave it his undivided attention. He stayed after the talk and chatted with the teachers about how they had accomplished all of this. And by the time he got on the plane to return to Tucson, he had the fire in his belly to transplant this idea to Tucson.

Like a Pied Piper, Gene got an every widening circle of people interested in the concept. A few months later he flew the teachers from the Carolinas to Tucson on his own dime to share what they had done with members of the Tucson Symphony, TUSD staff, etc. Everyone came away ready to march on it.

The following year Jones put up $1 million of his own money to give it a try, and got several schools in the poorest neighborhoods in town to agree to house the experiment. They called it OMA, standing for Opening Minds Through the Arts. They played classical music in the hallways of the school – mostly major key barque music  – at moderate to low levels over the PA system. The rule became that no one could talk in the halls louder than the music was playing. Immediately the din of school hallways diminished.

And funny things started happening. Sick kids started complaining to their parents that they didn’t want to stay home because it was an OMA day. The music programs the teachers introduced helped them understand simple mathematical concepts – higher and lower, more and less. They started to improve their vocabulary and spelling. Their scores n standardized tests started to dramatically improve. Education was succeeding, and both the regular teachers and the OMA teachers could see it happening before their eyes.

Jones knew anecdotal evidence was not going to cut it, so he got the University of Arizona’s education and music departments, plus an independent group, to start tracking and verifying the results. The program spread to more schools. They got huge grant and big community support. It was a major success story.

Later OMA branched off and became Arts Integrations Solutions, which works with arts teachers and regular teachers of all disciplines to make art part of the solution in public education.

Without Gene Jones’ vision, enthusiasm  and stubborn devotion, the lives of many Tucsonans would not be nearly as successful and our schools would clearly be diminished. Thank you Gene for all you did, for your wisdom, your generosity and your caring. Can’t wait to see how you’ve improved the next world when we get there.

Posted in Critic's corner, Daniel Buckley Arts, Uncategorized
Tags: Arts Integration Solutions, Daniel Buckley, Gene Jones, OMA, Opening Minds through the Arts, Tucson Citizen, Tucson Symphony Orchestra. education

Members of Ballet Folklórico San Juan perform at San Augustine Church.

As someone who covered the mariachi and folklórico dance beats for better than 30 years in Tucson, I know a fair number of key sources for my upcoming documentary on the rise of the mariachi movement in Tucson. But there are many I don’t know about as well.

And it should be plainly stated that the folklórico side of this story is equally important.

I need the help of people in the community to help me find the sources who have important parts of the story to tell. No suggestion is a bad one.

Social media such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter are ideal for spreading the word about this project and helping me get in contact with the sources I need to reach.

And for God’s sake, don’t hesitate to correct me if I get something wrong. The object of this documentary is to reveal as much of the truth as possible.

You can learn more about the project in general by clicking here, through my Facebook page on the project, or through the ongoing blog.

Posted in Cine Plaza progress, Daniel Buckley Arts, Daniel Buckley Documentaries, Daniel Buckley Images, Mariachi blog, Mariachi documentary, Uncategorized
Tags: Arizona, Daniel Buckley, folklorico, mariachi, Mexico, Tucson

Mariachi Aztlán de Pueblo High School performs at the student showcase of the Tucson International Mariachi Conference.

In creating this new documentary on the rise of mariachi and folklórico culture in Tucson, I am not trying to suggest that the national movement started in Tucson. Nor am I denying the possibility.

I’m hoping that part of the outcome of this film will be that other important cities in America’s mariachi movement will start to research their own mariachi timelines, so that collectively we might arrive at a clearer picture of when and where the phenomenon started, and how it evolved. Please feel free at any time to point me in directions I have not yet seen or offer corrections. The goal is not ego or possession, it is historic accuracy.

Tucson has its clear landmarks. The start may be the mariachi club started by Adolfo Loustaunau at El Casino Ballroom in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Mr. Loustaunau was one of the founders of El Casino Ballroom (see “Tucson’s Heart and Soul: El Casino Ballroom” documentary, 2012) and a man of some considerable community vision. According to mariachi pioneer Tony Garcia of Mariachi Tucsonense, this mariachi club both brought in mariachis from Sonora to entertain at the ballroom and took kids on field trips to Nogales, Sonora and Guadalajara. Mr. Garcia recalls meeting Silvestre Vargas, leader of the gold standard Mariachi Vargas de Tecalitlán, in a hotel lobby in Guadalajara when he was a teen and being starstruck by his idol.

In 1964, Father Charles Rourke started Mariachi Los Changuitos Feos – the Ugly Little Monkeys – in Tucson. That group, which is about to celebrate its 50th birthday, could be the first and is likely the longest continuously running youth mariachi in America. It was certainly a highly influential group, establishing the practice of charging for performances, investing the money, and sending the students to college. Its early members traveled the U.S., played in Mexico and did some international performances as well. From its ranks came the founding members of Mariachi Cobre, along with college level mariachi educator Dr. Jeff Nevin and many more.

Although the first mariachi conference was held in San Antonio, the Tucson International Mariachi Conference prides itself on being the longest continuously running conference in the world. Still, the inspiration for the Tucson conference was the San Antonio conference a few years prior.

There is general consensus that Tucson’s folklórico dance roots can be traced to choreographer Angel Hernandez, who came to Pima Community College in the 1970s and started its program.

Along with cataloging the chronology of Tucson’s mariachi movement I will be trying to document as well what it has meant to this city culturally, socially and with respect to education. This will be done not through narration or summation but rather directly from the words of the film’s interview subject. Analysis and summation will be saved for a book project or something of that order made after the film’s close.

As with past installments of the Cine Plaza at the Fox documentary series, which focuses on the history and cultural evolution of Tucson’s Latino culture, all video clips, interviews, photos, interview transcripts and other materials associated with the film will be turned over to the Arizona Historical Society at the film’s conclusion. It is hoped that these will provide primary source research materials for others tracking down the history of mariachis.

I ask your help in guiding me toward important sources, and sharing whatever photos you might have that might give a clearer picture of how all of this has evolved.

Posted in Cine Plaza progress, Daniel Buckley Arts, Daniel Buckley Documentaries, El Casino Ballroom documentary, Mariachi blog, Mariachi documentary, Uncategorized
Tags: Arizona, Arizona Historical society, Cine Plaza at the Fox, mariachi, Mariachi Cobre, Mariachi Los Changuitos Feos, Mariachi Tucsonense, Tucson, Tucson International Mariachi Conference