Suiting Up

For the first time in the 10-year history of this weekend’s Mariachi USA festival at the Hollywood Bowl, neither of the two featured soloists will be Mexican--or even Latino, for that matter.

As a testament both to the diversity of Los Angeles and to the growing worldwide appeal of Latin music in general--and of mariachi in particular--this year’s soloists will be Timothy Pollard, an African American from Long Beach, and Junko Seki, Japan’s premier--and some say first--mariachi singer.

The festival’s founder and organizer, Rodri Rodriguez, who is Cuban American, says she chose Pollard and Seki because they are “incredible singers” and because she hopes to show Mexicans and Mexican Americans how universally loved their music is.

“I’m looking toward the new millennium with diversity in mind,” said Rodriguez, who also hired two all-female bands for the show, and made sure the other groups had equal representation of women among their ranks. “It was a conscious effort to give all people a chance to perform the music they love.”

Seki, 28, has performed at Mariachi USA since 1995, invoking roars of approval from the crowd. She fell in love with mariachi when she was visiting Florida on vacation and heard it played at Epcot Center, and has since made a career of it.

While Pollard has performed in other festivals, this will be his first performance at Mariachi USA, which is widely regarded as one of the nation’s top mariachi festivals.

At a recent rehearsal for the show, Pollard, 32, spoke of his obsession with mariachi as the seven featured bands rehearsed a collective version of Ricky Martin’s “The Cup of Life,” arranged by composer Enrique Escolante, of Monterrey, Mexico.

“I grew up singing R&B;, Broadway show tunes and jazz,” Pollard said as he smoothed the creases out of his elaborate, traditional charro outfit in its plastic dry-cleaning bag. “But my voice was always too big. In R&B;, you have to have a certain kind of feel, which I didn’t have. So when I found mariachi, actually, the first time I heard Vicente Fernandez, it was all over.”

Pollard, who now says he was “born to be a mariachi,” remembers the first Mexican singer he ever heard was Luis Miguel, in 1989, at a friend’s house. He liked Miguel, and started flipping through the radio dial, where he discovered his favorite singers.

“Vicente, Alejandro [Fernandez], Javier Solis. I like Jorge Negreti. I like what Alejandro has done, he’s made mariachi popular again, modernized it. What I want to do is take mariachi, OK? Mix it with my African American ancestry, add some congas, saxophones, with the guitarron. I call it Afro-maria-bolero. Maybe I’ll add some drums and keyboards, make it eclectic, like a big pot of goulash. I want to take this music and bring our races together. . . . There’s so much media propaganda about how African Americans and Mexicans hate each other, but it’s really not true.”

Pollard, who also works as a substitute teacher for the Los Angeles Unified School District, said that after sensing tensions between black and Mexican kids, he once broke into song. “The Mexican kids were, like, wow, you respect who we are. And the African American kids were, like, that’s pretty cool. They started talking better after that.”

Pollard began singing mariachi exclusively in 1995. “It was almost like starting all over again,” he says. “I’d done English for 10 years before that.” He applied himself to learning Spanish, bought all the mariachi albums he could, memorized the songs and began asking to sit in with bands at local Mexican restaurants.

His mother, Forrest, remembers well the gigantic, dramatic Spanish tones that started bursting from her son’s bedroom.

“At first, I have to be honest and say it was annoying,” she says. “I didn’t speak Spanish, I didn’t understand the music. It was a different culture. I wasn’t so agreeable at first.”

Soon, news of the “big black guy from Long Beach who could sing mariachi” was spreading, and Pollard began competing on a local televised Spanish-language talent show, where he caught the eye of a producer for the internationally syndicated variety show “Sabado Gigante.” In 1995, Pollard flew to Miami to be a guest on the show.

Back in Long Beach, Pollard’s mother gathered all of her friends and family in the living room, and they watched the show. “I couldn’t wait,” she says. “The anticipation was killing me.”

That night, Forrest Pollard’s opinions of mariachi, and of her son’s new career, changed. “His performance was mesmerizing,” she says. “I was so proud.”

Pollard’s mother now confesses that she listens to mariachi all the time. She even requested that her son perform her favorite mariachi song at her daughter’s wedding.

Recently, a young African American woman who had seen Pollard on television stopped him in a 99-cent store, to tell him he had inspired her to be a mariachi singer. “That was a great feeling,” Pollard says.

Pollard says people should not be surprised if African Americans love mariachi, which he describes as Mexico’s equivalent to the blues. “Both speak of pain and loss, but with humor. Both cheer you up.”

BE THERE

Mariachi USA Festival, Hollywood Bowl, 2301 N. Highland Ave., 6 p.m. Saturday, $10-$20; Sunday $10-$77. (323) 850-2000.