bsed - Posted - 09/12/2010:  19:07:03

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Santa Rosa Processional

I began playing this tune when I learned it at Clifftop maybe 10 years ago.

Back in the 1980s I spent a short but musically rich time in Tucson . I made a bunch of friends associated with TFTM (Tucson Friends of Traditional Music), and I was surprised to see some of them after so many years. When they played SRP (that doesn’t stand for Salt River Project in this case), I just had to learn it, given its pedigree, described to the best of my ability below.

In 2005 the group Bayou Seco produced a CD called MORE MEMORIES IN CABABI. It was generally devoted to the music of the Tohono O’odham (if you remember back to your elementary school textbooks, these were the “Pueblo” Indians), who live on a reservation south of Tucson. In particular, the disc pays homage to Elliott Johnson, who passed in 1993. (He had lived in the small town of Cababi, AZ.) Mr. Johnson was just about the only remaining tribal member left who still played the traditional tunes the way they were supposed to be. Prior to his passing, he made sure that Bayou members Ken Keppeler and Jeanie McLerie learned to play his tunes right!

When I learned the tune, I only learned two parts. (That’s all they played that night at that Clifftop jam.) So when Ken & Jeanie came around to Bluff Country Gathering a few years ago, they played the third part, which seemed to have been forgotten within Elliott’s lifetime.

Here is how the liner notes to the CD described SRP:
“This exquisite tune is played as the Saint is paraded around the church on the town Saints Day in Santa Rosa, a small town south of Casa Grande, AZ. This tune might have arrived on the reservation 200 years ago when the missionaries taught the Tohono O’odham people to play fiddles for the mass. The 3rd part had been forgotten, and Elliott
made sure we learned it.”

I have recorded the tune a bit slower for those that want to learn it.
hangoutstorage.com/fiddlehango...92010.mp3

In true Tohono O’odham tradition, you really need to have the drum accompanying it.

Here is Bayou Seco playing Santa Rosa Processional:
hangoutstorage.com/fiddlehango...92010.mp3

When I first learned the tune, I thought it was a waltz. I played it a little slower than the recording, because that’s how I heard it played. I have since learned that this tune is a mazurka. I’m not real clear on the difference between a waltz and a mazurka. Maybe somebody can address that.

I don’t think there’s a lot of material on this tune on the net, so I’m thinking that perhaps we should open up the discussion this week to all things Elliott Johnson (for those of you, particularly in the SW, who may be more familiar with him).

bsed - Posted - 09/12/2010:  19:20:41

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WARNING!!
If you play my own recording FIRST, and then click on the Bayou Seco link to hear their version, MAKE SURE YOU TURN YOUR SOUND DOWN! That's because in order to hear my recording you have to "turn it up" in order to hear it well. But you'll suffer hearing damage if you don't turn it down when you're through.

wormbower - Posted - 09/12/2010:  21:18:39

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What a cool tune, bruce! I've never heard of it, but have pointed your post out to many of my Tucson friends, some of whom may very well be among those you met in the 1980s. Maybe they'll join the discussion. Both of the clips you posted are great!

Paul

wormbower - Posted - 09/12/2010:  21:26:30

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quote:

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(if you remember back to your elementary school textbooks, these were the “Pueblo” Indians), who live on a reservation south of Tucson.

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When I first moved to Tucson 20 years ago the were called the the Papagos. Shortly thereafter, they reverted to their ancestral name, Tohono O'odham ("People of the Desert"). I don't believe the Tohono O'odham are Pueblo Indians, such as the Jemez, who live in New Mexico, but I could be wrong. Tucson is, after all, affectionately known as The Old Pueblo.

Paul

ajisai - Posted - 09/12/2010:  22:14:20

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I was curious about Tohono O'odham music so I Googled. This web page gives some interesting background: parentseyes.arizona.edu/msw/to...ndex.html

Apltrez - Posted - 09/13/2010:  06:34:44

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Paul, you are correct, they are not part of the Pueblo people.

coelhoe - Posted - 09/13/2010:  07:48:25

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The Tohono O'odham reservation is the seventh largest in the US and is mostly to the west of Tucson. I drove through there in April and it took about three hours to get across to Lukeville on the border.

This lovely melody indicates formal European composition, probably during the mazurka craze of the middle 1800's, and it sounds to me of German/ Austrian origin filtered through a period in Mexico, also in the middle 1800's. It has the same structure as "Jesusita in Chihuahua" (aka "Jesse Polka) with shorter third part modulating to the V chord. On the other hand, almost every ethnic region in Europe developed a local variation on the mazurka, so finding the origins of this melody are probably impossible, at least under the existing title.

As with the polka, and the waltz, percussion is typically part of the European performance and was no doubt adopted locally, even though two-beat drumming is part almost every North America native culture. Forget the Hollywood presentation of Native drumming as four beat with the accent on the first beat.

hendrid - Posted - 09/13/2010:  08:09:21

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Little bit more background
Gu Achi Fiddlers
rambles.net/guachi_oldtime97.html
San Xavier Fiddle band and different bands and music
drumbeatindianarts.com/pdfs/Ch...ratch.pdf
Re Edmund Wilson and some mp3 tunes
parentseyes.arizona.edu/msw/to...usic.html

Ozarkian D.L. - Posted - 09/13/2010:  08:14:48

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Yes.....a fast waltz or a slower polka comes to mind. Great tune Bruce.

bsed - Posted - 09/13/2010:  18:41:49

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quote:

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Originally posted by wormbower

quote:

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(if you remember back to your elementary school textbooks, these were the “Pueblo” Indians), who live on a reservation south of Tucson.

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When I first moved to Tucson 20 years ago the were called the the Papagos. Shortly thereafter, they reverted to their ancestral name, Tohono O'odham ("People of the Desert"). I don't believe the Tohono O'odham are Pueblo Indians, such as the Jemez, who live in New Mexico, but I could be wrong. Tucson is, after all, affectionately known as The Old Pueblo.

Paul

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I think you're right. My geography was a little 'off'. Papago sounds right to me too!

coelhoe - Posted - 09/13/2010:  18:47:33

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The Gu Achi Fiddlers are terrific, playing the tunes with two fiddles in harmony, just like in Mexico. You can hear the influence.

bsed - Posted - 09/13/2010:  18:53:42

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As it was pointed out in the opening post, there's a good reason this music sounds European (originating with the Spaniards).
I talked to the Norwegian-Am. fiddler Leonard Finseth about fiddle traditions taken up by Native Americans in northern Wisconsin. Many of their tunes are European too (probably from the French, among others).

The Metis in the Canadian prairie provinces also adopted tunes from Europeans, and then went a little crazy with the metering (e.g. Red River Jig, the most widely known tune). But that's how they put their personal stamp on the tunes.
So there's a lot of examples of these traditions passing from Old World People to New. A nice counterpoint to the disease and alcohol that most people think were "traded off" to them, Eh?

bsed - Posted - 09/20/2010:  03:36:05

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BTW Mr. Muhlrad, where were you in 1984?

wormbower - Posted - 09/20/2010:  05:56:25

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quote:

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Originally posted by bsed

BTW Mr. Muhlrad, where were you in 1984?

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Not Tucson.

Paul

coelhoe - Posted - 09/20/2010:  06:09:42

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Although the PC rhetoric about this music has the Native peoples learning this from the sturdy missionaries, the musical form itself, especially the mazurka, shows mid-19th century derivation of popular music and dance from Mexico directly, and by extension from the German and French influences in Mexico in that same mid-19th century period, while Mexico was occupied by French and Austrian troops until 1867.

Musically, this occupation led to the introduction in Mexico of popular European dances such as the mazurka, the waltz, and most influential, the polka. It also led to the introduction of trumpets and other brass, the violin as a popular instrument, and the diatonic accordion, and commercially produced percussion instruments.

That Native peoples owe their musical talents in these dance forms strictly to the influence of missionaries seems to me historically and culturally unsupportable.

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Edited by - coelhoe on 09/20/2010 08:34:25

bsed - Posted - 09/20/2010:  20:06:52

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I'm not sure who you're referring to as having made an "unsupportable" point. If it was me, I suggest you go back and reread my earlier post.

coelhoe - Posted - 09/21/2010:  11:52:01

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Hey, Bruce: Easy, there. My comments are directed at the liner notes for the Gu-Achi album, and, in general, at the discussion of this dance music in the Southwest, including Native American, Mexican, and New Mexican Hispanic traditions which are repeatedly credited to missionaries usually a century before the development of their musical dance form at hand. It is a kind of cultural imperialism which implies that the musicians themselves could not have learned the music from materials around them.

I first encountered this music in 1981 from some tapes that Jim Griffith from the Anthro Dept. at the University in Tucson played at a conference in Logan, Utah. My first or second post on the FHO a few years ago concerned this music as an example of how much more complex North American fiddle traditions were than those usually found in collections of "American" fiddle tunes.

I want to thank you for bringing this discussion around again and for providing such excellent examples (that I wish I had known of when I posted this before).

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Edited by - coelhoe on 09/21/2010 11:52:50

bsed - Posted - 09/21/2010:  17:26:19

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So what I hear you saying is that the conquering culture gave the Natives instruments of European origin (of course), and they were channeled into playing the music of the conquistadores (as I'd bet that the Natives own music was regarded by the conquerors as gibberish).
And before I ever made that realization, I did wonder how it was that these Native people happened to play music that would make Johann Strauss (or Levi, for that matter) grin widely.

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Edited by - bsed on 09/21/2010 17:30:03

coelhoe - Posted - 09/21/2010:  18:00:09

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What I'm saying is that, though the church would like to claim the credit for teaching music in general and this dance music in particular to Native peoples, it is more likely that cultural influences from Mexico to the south and its history of European influences are the true sources.

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Edited by - coelhoe on 09/21/2010 20:13:07

bsed - Posted - 09/22/2010:  17:49:35

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That's plausible for the Tohono O'odham. But would you extend that idea to Native fiddle (and music in general) traditions in the Great plains and Canada prairie provinces?

I'd have to stick with the idea of European transmission of musical ideas which (at least in the SW) was done through the missionaries. If there was influence wafting up from Mexico, wouldn't you think that would be largely European in origin too?

In northern Wisconsin lumber camps, the mode of transmission was, I'd say, through French (and British?) trappers and lumberjacks.

So it just kind of depended on geography, at least in part.

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Edited by - bsed on 09/22/2010 17:51:21