The Mariachi Range of Los Camperos

Vocals showing off flashy vibrato and melodramatic notes, staccato trumpets and strenuously bowed strings--the trademark sounds of mariachi music--filled UCLA’s Royce Hall on Saturday night.

As host Ricardo Montalban recited anecdotes about mariachi history, Southland mariachi heroes Los Camperos played a variety of mariachi styles, ranging from pure folk to shades of classical.

Los Camperos--the house mariachi band of Los Angeles’ La Fonda restaurant--has been together for almost a quarter century and is often compared favorably with Mexico’s undisputed leaders, Mariachi Vargas. For anyone who thinks all mariachi music sounds the same, Los Camperos is a revelation.

The concert, billed as a tribute to composing great Ruben Fuentes (whose songs were interpreted in the ‘30s and ‘40s by such legendary mariachi performers as Pedro Infante and Miguel Aceves Mejia), showed off the music’s expansiveness: Fuentes’ arrangements often spiked traditional huapangos and huastecas with various modern references.

Even as one listened to a traditional bolero love ballad, there were hints of Gershwin, not to mention plenty of symphonic finales. Chiefly missing from the program (which also featured UCLA’s own mariachi group, which is notable for its multicultural personnel but sounds very “student-ish”) was the kind of supercharged vocal emotion of, say, Lola Beltran but, then again, there’s only one Beltran.