Mariachi Magic

Kevin Reynaga belts out Mexican love songs with the heartbreak of a grown man.

His lips quiver. His eyes squinch shut. He’s only 12, but a passion years ahead of his time thunders in his narrow chest for those few moments when the mike is in his hand and the trumpets blare behind him.

Tonight, like most school nights, Kevin and nine other kids rehearse for a mariachi performance. They’re part of a growing number of youth bands in L.A. that play mariachi, a music celebrating Mexican cowboy culture.

In a backyard that smells of fresh laundry, the children stand in a crescent, tickling guitars, stroking violins, their melodies drowning out other night-time sounds--the dogs barking, the neighbors chatting along chain-link fences, the thump-thump of lowriding cars booming hip-hop.

Tonight’s rehearsal, however routine, is an important one. Instead of a wedding, the opening of a new Mexican restaurant or a quinceanera party--typical mariachi venues-- Kevin’s group, called Cobras de Jalisco, will be playing at Disneyland, mainstream U.S.A. They have been invited to participate in the park’s first youth mariachi showcase this Sunday, and for a band that usually sticks to events within Mexican-American communities, the significance is not lost on them.

“I’ve been practicing a lot for this one,” Kevin says. “Maybe we’ll come out on TV.”

Mariachi bands are flourishing, especially for kids. There are more than 40 youth bands in L.A.--half of those in the San Fernando Valley--compared to just a handful 10 years ago, said Everto Ruiz, a Chicano studies professor at Cal State Northridge. Many kids are hired professionally, which helps put a little money in their pockets. The Cobras (which means the same in English and Spanish) just cut their first CD--something many adult mariachi bands haven’t done.

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It’s easy to see why more people are getting smitten by the mariachi kids. There’s an undeniable happiness to their music--the cheerful blare of trumpets, the harmony of 10 violins, the sound of a 12-year-old boy belting out love songs with miniature machismo. Their tight-fitting embroidered suits hark back to old westerns. The children, many of them on the doorstep of adulthood, shine with pride when they play.

Parents and teachers say that besides providing the camaraderie of a soccer team and some solid musical skills, mariachi touches something deeper.

“For kids from Mexico, this music gets them excited about who they are,” Ruiz said. “It impacts other parts of their life. They learn to have pride in themselves even when they don’t have the mariachi uniform on.”

At a rehearsal Monday night, music teacher Rudy Vasquez was the one wearing the proud grin on his face. Los Halcones, a mariachi band Vasquez formed for students at San Fernando Middle School, was the other Valley band chosen for the Disneyland event. The five-hour concert, which starts at noon in the Festival Arena, features eight bands, including some from La Puente, South Gate and East Los Angeles. The concert is part of Disneyland’s efforts to celebrate National Hispanic Heritage Month. It’s the culmination of a two-month competition in which 24 youth bands from Camarillo to Anaheim vied for eight spots.

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Los Halcones, which means falcons in Spanish, still have some kinks to iron out. In a classroom with a carpet spotted by bits of gum, 20 kids struck up a stirring version of “La Puno de Tierra” (A Mound of Dirt). Toward the end of the song, one girl dragged her bow across the strings of her violin, emitting an off-key squeak that sounded like fingernails on a chalkboard. Everybody giggled.

“Girl, you got to Midas-ize,” Vasquez joked. “Fix them brakes.”

A few minutes later, right before the band was about to fire up another number, 13-year-old Robert Diaz started rejiggering his guitar strap.

“Hold on, hold on,” Robert yelled to the teacher.

“Hey, guy, I’m not holding on for anybody. It’s a fine time to do that.”

Usually, Vasquez speaks in English to his students. But sometimes he barks out instructions in Spanish, the language of all the songs.

Which underscores another virtue of mariachi: language training. Many second- and third-generation children who didn’t speak Spanish before joining a mariachi band were turned on to the language through songs about horses, mountains and love-spurned cowboys. The blend of Spanish music and English instruction also helps bridge the gap between new immigrants and their English-speaking classmates, two groups that often don’t mix, Vasquez said.

Mariachi music has always brought together the old and new. The music was born around 1850 in the sugar cane fields of Jalisco state in western Mexico. Mestizo cowboys, themselves a Euro-Indian mix, took the rhythms of their native music and played them on Spanish-style instruments. Those ultimately evolved into such signature mariachi instruments as the guitarron, a six-string bass guitar, and vihuela, a mini-violin.

The distinctive mariachi get-up--tight-fitting pants, short jacket, hat and boots--was inspired by what mestizo cowboys wore around the ranch.

Parents of young mariachi players--the ages range from 7 to 18 years old--can’t say enough good things about youth mariachi and how it helps celebrate an often-neglected culture. In East L.A., mariachi is a bulwark against gangs, said Rebecca Martinez, mother of teenage guitar-strumming triplets.

“My boys are so busy they don’t have time to go out in the street,” Martinez said. “The mariachi kids are different than the others.”

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But what do their friends think of them? Is being in a mariachi band considered, well, geeky?

Aaron Reynaga, 11, said it was a fair question to ask.

“But I think mariachi is considered pretty cool,” said Aaron, Kevin’s cousin and also a member of Cobras de Jalisco in San Fernando. “And it’s better than soccer because you can make money.”

Most bands have a parent who plays manager, booking the group for weekends and setting rates--typically $200 per hour, a little less than the average adult group charges. That covers expenses, such as travel costs, music instruction and the outfits--which run $400 each. After all the expenses, a little is left over for the players.

Kids, though, don’t see mariachi as a job or even a future one. You don’t think like that when you’re 12 years old.

“I’m not sure what I want to be when I grow up,” Kevin said. “But I know that when you’re up onstage and playing with your friends and hearing people applaud, it’s fun.”