The year may be fresh, but that’s never slowed down Viva el Arte de Santa Barbara, a nonprofit coalition that brings world-class Hispanic musical ensembles to the county. The group offers a series of outreach performances at schools, workshops, and free community concerts in Santa Barbara, Isla Vista, and Guadalupe.
Viva’s first guest this year is a returning ensemble, Los Camperos de Nati Cano, which will perform two community concerts in Guadalupe on Jan. 9 in the City Hall Auditorium.
Los Camperos de Nati Cano is a mariachi group with a long history. Beginning in Los Angeles in the late 1960s, the group was led by Natividad “Nati” Cano, explained the group’s current director Jesus Guzman. Cano passed away last year, but inspired generations of musicians to keep traditional Mexican mariachi alive, Guzman said.
“I honor him at the beginning of each show, and I always try to stay true to him, in the tradition of Los Camperos,” Guzman said. “The musicians, they all played for a long time with Nati Cano, and he was a wonderful musician, a wonderful teacher, and the greatest person I’ve known in all my life.”
Cano’s legacy is one of inclusion and outreach, always staying dedicated to sharing the most authentic, classic songs of Mexico, Guzman explained. Even back when the group began, the sense of cultural crises surrounding the loss of exposure to traditional mariachi music—especially among Mexican-American youth—was felt by Cano, who made it his mission to share the musical style with everybody he could.
This dedication helped shape the American mariachi tradition, Guzman explained, especially when Cano bought the La Fonda restaurant in the historic Hayworth Building in LA. Cano created an environment of respect and welcome at La Fonda after experiencing prejudice at a number of venues that would welcome the Camperos to perform, but wouldn’t welcome them as customers.
“Nati Cano said, ‘Someday I will open a restaurant, and all the people from all nationalities can come, get dinner, and enjoy our music,’” Guzman said.
La Fonda closed in 2007, but thanks to a new owner of the Hayworth Building, the group will run the restaurant again, performing as the resident ensemble, and welcoming other great groups as well, Guzman said.
In the meantime, the Camperos will do what they’ve always done so well, perform and share the rich heritage passed down through strumming, bowing, blowing, and singing. As guest performers for Viva el Arte de Santa Barbara, the group will also give workshop performances for local schoolchildren, a very important aspect of the program, Guzman said.
“If we don’t present our culture to the young people, we lose it,” he said. “So many things are happening right now in the music—the bandas, the norteños—but the music that came from Mexico, it’s dying, so they need to know the music of Mexico, so it lasts.”
Los Camperos de Nati Cano released a tribute album to the late Nati Cano this year through Smithsonian Folkways, which features plenty of the music the group will perform in Guadalupe. Learn more about the album at folkways.si.edu.
Arts Editor Joe Payne loves all musical traditions. Contact him at jpayne@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Jan 7-14, 2016.
