La Fiesta Dixielanda!

Fiesta!; Dallas Wind Symphony; Howard Dunn, conducting

When the SDSU Symphonic Band took a tour to Mexico in 1985, we did so with the objective to play for the common folk, the everyday people on the street. Instead of playing in a great concert hall, we performed a Sunday noon outdoor concert in the band gazebo at Mexico City’s Chapultepec Park. When we arrived, the immediate vicinity surrounding our concert venue was already populated with hundreds of people, some anxious to hear a concert, others, perhaps, just curious to see what would happen.

Our first encounter with the Mexicans started off with a bit of a disconnect. Only a few of the band members knew the Spanish language. And even bigger than that was the cultural barrier. I won’t deny the existence of even a bit of a music barrier, although, we weren’t concerned with that one very much. I recall sensing that, during our few selections, they were sizing us up and we were looking for some common ground on which to meet.

“Olympic Fanfare and Theme” from the 1984 Olympic Games by John Williams opened our concert, an opportunity for us to offer the hand of international friendship. Then we played a few pieces that I’m sure the audience enjoyed from a standpoint of simply beautiful music.

The piece that caught us, and our audience, off guard was our “throw away” piece. The “Original Dixieland Concerto” was a medley of three or four American Dixieland tunes that featured a Dixieland quintet up in front of the band – clarinet, trumpet, tenor saxophone, trombone and tuba. The audience went nuts over this piece and it threw us for a loop. Why this piece over the others?

The best explanation came from our conductor, Dr. W. He guessed that the audience was better able to relate to a smaller ensemble, possibly subconsciously associating it with the general size of a Mariachi band. I like that explanation. I like that they could see our music through their’s; or that they could see their music through our’s.

Certainly, we thought to ourselves, they’re gonna go mental over our “La Fiesta Mexicana” piece. But, you know what? It didn’t happen. They liked it, for sure. The applause was plentiful and sincere. But the response didn’t compare to what we got from our Dixieland piece. I suppose that what we played was too much like them. Maybe we held up a musical mirror to them and they didn’t know how to respond to it. Or perhaps they didn’t recognize themselves in the music we played.

Or, it could be that it was just too hot.

Credits: To the 1985 SDSU Symphonic Band, for letting me go to Mexico with them. Cervezas, yard beers, stuffed armadillos and foam clucking chickens. What more do you need?