written on my last night in Oaxaca…posted upon my return

At first all I noticed about Oaxaca was the beauty and the culture, but the poverty here became more obvious to me after a few days. It’s less in-your-face than in many of the places in Guatemala I’ve been, but that’s also because I came straight to the city and didn’t leave for the first few days. I have had an increasingly difficult time feeling OK about drinking cafe con leches on the Zocalo while malnourished nine-year-olds come up selling scarves to support their families, and then get chased away by the restaurant managers. I don’t know yet just what to think about it exactly (am I helping the local economy by buying the cafe con leche, and giving the little girl a few pesos, or am I implicitly supporting an unjust system, or both?). Even less do I know what I can do, especially because I am leaving in a couple days. For now I am drinking coffee, giving out change and committing to educating myself more and trying to be open to opportunities for action as they arise, especially when I am back in New York.

And yet music happens in the middle of it all and has nothing (and something) to do with money. I have been overwhelmed by the number, skill, and generosity of Oaxacan musicians I have met in these ten days. By far my closest friends have been the Andean band I met my second night here, who play Bolivian and Peruvian music though they’re from here. The four of them – Manuel, Marcelino, Re, and Carlos – have been true friends and guides this past week to me and my friend Corrie, who came down a few days after I did. Corrie’s first night here, we sat on the Alcala, a pedestrian street, and (at her suggestion) played songs for each other. Manuel, who has the voice of a Latin pop star, sang a song he wrote. Corrie sang Will The Circle Be Unbroken, to their delight. I played an old time tune and Re played a Mixe song on the guitar and panflute, and then a song he had written in memory of the tsunami victims.

When we asked about the first song he had played, Re told us about his heritage as a Mixe ("mi-hay") Indian. Apparently the Mixes were the only group in Mexico that the Spaniards did not conquer because they lived in such mountainous terrain. Re grew up there, speaking Mixe (he’s 26) and Spanish too. But he said “We say we weren’t conquered, but here I am speaking Spanish… little by little we conquered ourselves.” He said that he loves playing Andean music because according to legend, some Peruvian exiles settled in the Mixe community and brought their instruments, which is why the Mixe people also have similar pan flutes. I played them a klezmer tune and Re and I talked about our relationships to the traditional music of our ancestors and cultures, and how important it is to both of us to carry that on.

Besides Andean music, the boys also introduced me to the joys of mezcal, a delicious and powerful liquor made from the maguey cactus. I liked it so much that they very kindly offered to take me and Corrie on a expedition to the town of Matatlan, where mezcal is the local industry (in fact when you enter Matatlan, the “Welcome” sign on the highway has a small sculpture of the distillery apparatus sitting right on top of it!) On the bus out, we talked about why we all play music. In the States, the decision to be a musician often involves less security than most other jobs. Here, I learned, workers make so little that unless you are upper class, music actually pays MORE than most other jobs. It’s not necessarily that music pays so much, but that other jobs (if you can find them) pay so little. I have noticed that musicians here always call it “working", never playing. Not that they are not passionate about the music—they are—but decent-paying jobs are hard to find here, 2 of the people in the band have ex wives and children to support… and this is how they do it.

There’s more… ancient ruins, a 2000 year old tree named El Tule, mariachis, a marimba jazz band, a 20 year old local guitar prodigy. But one amazing thing about being here is how much it makes me miss my band. So I am excited to get back to New York…to see how the Golem album is coming along and play a show with the Dresden Dolls on Sunday and think more about all these political and economic questions. I feel my eyes have been opened here in many ways, and I am grateful for that. More to come I’m sure.

(written last week in Oaxaca…posted upon my return)

Golem has a couple weeks off because our album is being mixed, and our Curtis (our trombonist)’s wife is due to have a baby in a week!!! So I took the opportunity to fly down to Mexico, learn more Spanish, and investigate the music scene here in Oaxaca, which I have heard so much about. And I have not been disappointed. So far, my first two days of musical adventures in Oaxaca, Mexico have included hearing Simon and Garfunkel played on Andean instruments, playing a Strauss waltz with a youth orchestra, and hearing Cielito Lindo about 15 times from three different mariachi bands.

The first thing I noticed about Oaxaca is how much it resembles La Antigua, Guatemala, a place close to my heart. Both are Spanish colonial cities, and the conquistadors organized their cities around central plazas (here it is called the Zocalo) and in both places, the central plaza is surrounded by the Palacio del Gobierno on one side, a big cathedral on the other, and cafes in between. So being here makes me miss Antigua and I keep thinking “my favorite bar should be right around the corner” or expecting to run into someone I know.

Also like Antigua, this is a town full of art and culture; as people I meet keep telling me, “We are poor in money, but rich in culture.” When people ask why I came here, I tell them I want to learn about the musical traditions here, and everyone directed me to the Casa de la Cultura. It’s a center dedicated to art and education… an amazing place full of happy children, art galleries, music classes, and dance classes all happening around a cenral courtyard. There’s also a recording library with cd’s of traditional music from around here, I haven’t been able to find the person who has the key to unlock the case.

When he saw my violin, the guy working at the desk asked if I read music, and when I said yes he marshalled me into a large room at the back where an orchestra of middle school-aged kids was rehearsing. The conductor motioned for me to sit down in the second chair first violin seat, so I did, and before I knew it I was deep in rehearsal. I kept wondering “How did I end up in a youth orchestra during my first day in Mexico?” It was surreal on many levels and very much reminded me of my own days as a twelve-year-old violinist in orchestra, except that this one was being conducted in Spanish!

The Zocalo (the lovely and rather tourist-y central square, ringed with sidewalk cafes) is full of musicians who play in front of the cafes and then go around asking for change from the people listening. The exceptions to this rule are the mariachi bands, who charge 50 pesos ($5) for a song before they play it instead of asking for donations afterward. There are a few different mariachi bands, and they each wear matching outfits with fancy silver decorations down the sides of their pants. The only women musicians I have seen in the Zocalo are in these mariachi bands. The good thing is that when a table nearby “orders” a song, everyone around them gets to hear it as well, hence my opportunity to hear Cielito Lindo for free over and over.

Among the groups of wandering musicians, I was a bit surprised to see a band playing Andean music (quite well) when I first sat down for a cafe con leche. To be precise, they were playing “The Sound of Silence” on Andean instruments, just like many groups in the subways of New York. I assumed they were from Peru, but later I met them and it turns out they are a bunch of guys from here, in their mid-twenties, who just got into Andean music and have formed this wonderful band with charangos and handmade pan-flutes. Their group is called “Amistad Andina"—"Andean Friendship.” It strikes me that these young Mexicans with their passionate interest in Bolivian and Peruvian music are not unlike a girl from, say, the Northeast who develops an obsession with Appalachian music!