Los Cenzontles serves up hummable history lesson
New video ‘Corrido de Anza’ features vibrant scenery, traditional costumes
Every fourth grader in California’s public schools learns about Juan Bautista de Anza’s epic 1775-76 trek across the northern frontier of the Spanish empire, a five-month journey that culminated with the founding of San Francisco’s Presidio. It’s already a dramatic story on the page, but the Anza Expedition takes on vivid new life in the hands of the musicians of Los Cenzontles. “El Corrido de Anza” is a striking 10-minute music video that details the 1,200mile journey in song while capturing the succession of gorgeous landscapes encountered by the travelers. The piece was expertly shot and edited by Los Angelesbased Salvadoran American filmmaker Armando Aparicio. Composed by guitarist Eugene Rodriguez, the founder and executive director of San Pablo’s Los Cenzontles Mexican Arts Center, the song features lyrics by Gilberto Gutierrez Silva, founder of the Veracruz son jarocho revivalist group Mono Blanco. Working in the format of a traditional corrido, the piece unfolds as an unbroken narrative, detailing a mission undertaken to shore up Spain’s Alta California holdings against Russian encroachment. “I thought a corrido would be the most appropriate form,” said Rodriguez as the sounds of Los Cenzontles classes being conducted online could be heard in the background. “They’re story songs telling a hero’s tale or tragedy. Gilberto Gutierrez Silva from Mono Blanco is a wonderfully talented lyricist, and he immersed in the history, writing 45 verses. My job was to make a 10-minute song that doesn’t lose the audience’s attention. So I gave it a rhythm with a bounce and used different tonal centers that fit the story.” With the great early music violinist Shira Kammen and Central Valley harpist Leonel Mendoza as special guests joining Rodriguez on the lute-like vihuela and five-string guitarra de golpe, the instrumentation harkens back to the 18thcentury setting of the Anza Expedition (Emiliano Rodriguez fills out the ensemble’s low end on bass). But the stars of “El Corrido de Anza” are Los Cenzontles’ founding vocalists Lucina Rodriguez and Fabiola Trujillo, who declaim the fourline stanzas from the various historical settings. Separately and in harmony, the women’s voices are lush and almost conversational, delivering the Spanish-language verses with the casual authority of master storytellers. (YouTube’s “closed captions” setting provides the lyrics in English.) No one’s credited for the women’s wardrobes, but with their matching traditional outfits, changing at every new location, they move through the landscape like spirits from a bygone age, personifying the struggles encountered on the voyage. “The history is amazing,” Rodriguez said. “What resonated for us was the poor people on this trip. When we think about Alta California we usually picture the fancy people with their parasols, but that came later. Half of the people on the Anza Expedition were 12 years and younger. Many were mixed race. They didn’t know what they were going to face and what was going to happen.” The story behind the making of “El Corrido de Anza” is an unfortunately rare example of a government agency teaming up with an arts organization. Over the past two decades Los Cenzontles Mexican Arts Center has earned international attention with a series of films documenting their studies with master musicians in Mexico. Familiar with the cultural center’s work, Naomi Torres, the longtime superintendent of the Juan Bautista de Anza National Trail, approached Rodriguez about a collaboration. Covering some 1,200 miles across Arizona and California, the trail is part of the National Park Service, but its expansive size requires constant efforts to raise awareness of the history it contains. Torres thought that a Los Cenzontles video would help publicize this little-known national treasure. “I approached him thinking it would be great if he did a song, something Los Cenzontles would write and perform,” said Torres, a longtime Berkeley resident. “The story is so rich and riveting and the music serves it so well. I couldn’t be more thrilled. People don’t even realize that part of the route runs through the East Bay.” Indeed, sharp-eyed motorists can spot signs for the Juan Bautista National Trial on Interstate 580 and in various East Bay Regional Parks, including Redwood and Tilden. It’s a coincidence that Los Cenzontles released the video in the midst of shelterin-place, a situation that makes the travelogue a sight for sore eyes. “We didn’t plan the timing, but it definitely makes it seem like something to be even more excited about,” Rodriguez said. “We’re not able to travel now, but we can see all these landscapes. It’s a great opportunity to share all this beauty.”