Mexican Music Fest Plans Eclectic Slate at Embassy

Imagine a concert series featuring the Populist folk music of a Woody Guthrie, the intriguing folk-pop blends of a Leonard Cohen and the aggressive punk rock of X.

In terms of Mexican music, that’s the level represented by such artists as Leon Chavez Teixeiro, Guillermo Briseno and La Raza, respectively. All will appear at El Primer Encuentro de Musica Popular Mexicana (“The First Festival of Mexican Music”), which begins a four-day run Thursday at Embassy Auditorium in downtown Los Angeles. The affair, which promises to be the most significant gathering of Latin folk musicians ever staged in the United States, will feature a dozen acclaimed acts, all but three from Mexico.

Performers range from actor-musician-songwriter Oscar Chavez, one of the pillars of Mexican folk music for almost a quarter century, to folk singer Teixeiro, whose music parallels the spirit of such socially conscious U.S. artists as Guthrie and Joe Hill.

The festival is sponsored by Macondo, a nonprofit organization that for the last four years has helped promote awareness of Latino arts and culture, from poetry readings to art exhibits.

But this festival, part of the larger “Artes De Mexico” festival taking place in Los Angeles through December, is Macondo’s most ambitious undertaking. Director Paula Ramirez said that the series represents a reawakening of interest in traditional Mexican folk styles as well as a recognition of the contributions that many young artists are making to that tradition.

“Unfortunately (many of the singers and stars from Mexico) who perform in Los Angeles couldn’t care less about communicating the (social) reality of Mexico,” said Ramirez. “The people whom we have invited to the festival are artists who are able to communicate how people really live in Mexico.”

Among the attractions rounding out the program are:

* Two groups--Guillermo Velazquez & Los Leones de la Sierra Xichu and Xoxocapa Trio--who maintain a close link with original Mexican folk music forms, including the huapango . They’ll perform Friday.

* Briseno, who has experimented assiduously with rock, jazz and blues for 30 years, combining rock music with native Mexican musical sounds. Despite his long career, he continues to be a part of the underground circuit in Mexico. He will perform Oct. 13.

* Qual, a rock group that gained recognition in Mexico as the backup band for the late Rocdrigo Gonzalez, who has been called the Mexican Bob Dylan, and La Raza, one of the newer Los Angeles rock groups who sing in Spanish. They’ll also perform Oct. 13.

Though all four evenings offer artists with individuality and passion, Oscar Chavez best symbolizes the spirit behind the festival. Among his vast repertoire are songs drawn from the early 19th-Century War of Reforma in Mexico, as well as corridos (epic story songs) dating from the Mexican Revolution and compositions from other contemporary songwriters.

In addition, he has written music for the works of many well-known Latin American poets, such as the Chilean Pablo Neruda, the Cuban statesman Jose Marti and the Mexican writer Jose Emilio Pacheco.