Mexican cumbia

Mexican cumbia is a type of cumbia, a music which originated in Colombia but was reinvented and adapted in Mexico.

Origins

The cumbia started in Colombia in the 1800s. In the 1940s Colombian singer Luis Carlos Meyer Castandet emigrated to Mexico where he worked with the Mexican orchestra director Rafael de Paz. In the 1950s he recorded what many believe to be the first cumbia recorded outside of Colombia, "La Cumbia Cienaguera". He recorded other hits like "La historia". This is when Cumbia began to be popularized in Mexico.

In the 1970s Aniceto Molina also emigrated to Mexico, where he joined the group from Guerrero, La Luz Roja de San Marcos, and recorded many popular tropical cumbias like "El Gallo Mojado", "El Peluquero", and "La Mariscada". Also in the 1970s Rigo Tovar became very popular with his fusion of cumbia with ballad and rock.

Definitions and Variations of Mexican Cumbia

Mexican cumbia is like its similar adaptations of Colombian music such as Salvadorian cumbia, Peruvian cumbia or Argentinian cumbia among others. It is not a unification of a single genre which identifies it as seeing those styles that are very diverse and wide ranging, from province to province, from era to era.  They have styles that once they are assimilated by the public and the musicians of Colombian cumbia, have the consequence of marking a trend to follow new groupings, such as northern cumbia, southern cumbia, mariachi cumbia or Sonidera cumbia. By giving credit to some of their nationalist variations, it is in turn, a fusion of adapted Colombian folk tales with the nationalists like northern music, mariachi, band music, romantic music, huapango, Son Huasteco,  and of course with ancient and modern rhythms from abroad like Son Cuban, salsa, merengue, reggae, ska among the Afro-Caribbean rhythms , as well as the Bolivian, Ecuadorian, Vals and Peruvian folklore, along with the rock & roll, hip-hop, rap, disco, dance, and electronica. In addition to that, these trends have varied according to the popularity of every one of the rhythms and era with what has merged, it has also varied its diffusion range, commonly Central American is the main foreign listening of Mexican cumbia.

Subgenres and variations

The Mexican cumbia has adapted versions of Colombian music like Peruvian cumbia or Argentine cumbia, among others. This diversity has appeared in different ways. For example, originally the northern cumbia (''cumbia norteña'') was usually played with accordion and consists of tunes with few chords and slower speed than original cumbia. This musical subset of cumbia is featured by artists, such as Ramón Ayala, Acapulco Tropical, Bronco, Límite, and Los Barón de Apodaca. In southern cumbia, however, the accordion is replaced by piano or organ, and the pace is faster and more elaborated both harmonically and instrumentally than in the original cumbia. Notable artists of this style include names such as Los Sonnors, Socios del Ritmo, and Chico Che.

Other subgenres of Mexican cumbia include Cumbia Mariachi, Cumbia Andina Mexicana, and Cumbia Sonidera. The Orchestral Cumbia is another variant represented by big orchestras, like Pablo Beltrán Ruiz, Orquesta Tampico, Orquesta Coatzacoalcos, Roy Luis among others, that popularized many cumbias with full big band sound.

1950s

Back in the 1940s and 1950s, and until the mid-1960s, Colombia experienced what was called the “Golden Age of Cumbia'' which reflected on a global scale the folklore of South American country, with various  successes that gave the country its identity for decades with the most famous cumbia in Colombia, La pollera colorá (equivalent to the saying in Mexico, “the red skirt”). But due to the various social factors, cumbia was losing popularity due to the invasion in Colombia by the rhythms and music from abroad, mainly from the north of the continent, making Mexican music in all of its variants (in Spanish) and American (English) coupled with the frenzy of Afro-Caribbean rhythms like salsa and merengue among others and the seizure of Vallenato as folk music that would displace almost until its extinction, which the Colombian national rhythm was for a long time cumbia. Currently in Colombia, it is almost in the recording and the emergence of groups dedicated to it, a void, and whereas the Vallenato has become the symbol of Colombian national music, relegating cumbia only to nationalist events and the historical past of the southern country.  

In its era of magnificence in the 1940s and 1950s, Colombian cumbia was spread to several Latin American countries and was more or less popular in different countries, mainly three countries,  Peru, Mexico, and Argentina, were and are to date, the ones that were most rooted in popularity to this Colombian rhythm.

The justification for the adoption of the Colombian cumbia rhythm in various countries corresponds to various reasons, for example, in Argentina the rhythm was adopted transparently because tango music utilized the accordion, so that for Argentinian groups their adoption was direct. The same happens with Mexico which uses in its northern music as the main performer to the accordion, so it also directed the fusion with the Colombian rhythm in its music that occurred naturally.  Later also in cumbia, throughout the continent, would be adopted from the northern music, the “accompaniment” of the bajo sexto, that in turn was taken from the accompaniment of Carmen Rivero’s conga drum, which would be replaced by the guitar and in orchestrated cumbias, would be replaced by the synthesized piano, mainly by the Venezuelan orchestras such as Nelson Henríquez and his Combo.

In the mid-1950s in Mexico, the group called “Los Cometas”, enjoyed a singular hit, which musicalized various rhythms of bolero music, Cuban tropical music, among other Cuban rhythms and the foxtrot in their songs. This group recorded for the company CBS (today Sony Music) various classical hits.

Their particularity lies in using the accordion in all of their songs as the basis of its rhythm. Thus they remain in the memory of the Mexican people of the time. The hits that mix bolero and tropical with an accordion like “Jugando poker,” “Chupando caña,” “¿En dónde está mi saxofón?”, “Que se mueran los feos,” among others that would bring precedent to the taste of music. Joined with the northern national, by that of accordion, so that the future assimilation of cumbia that contained by nature the accordion, was not an impediment to its adoption.

The first Colombian musician to venture to the north of the continent was Luis Carlos Meyer who decided after having a huge success in Colombia, to take a tour of different neighboring countries and go back to the north of the continent arriving for the first time in Mexico.  He was one of the first introducers of cumbia in the country, leaving that sample of the new “tropical” music in Mexico. Recording next to the orchestra of Rafael de Paz and Tony Camargo, and in turn what Lucho Bermúdez contributed that introduces other Colombian rhythms like the porro. Therefore, other musicians a few years later would assimilate to the new Colombian rhythm. Meyer continues his climb to the United States where he would finally reside.

The origins of Mexican cumbia dance and instrument composition

The emergence of the original Mexican ensemble for performing cumbia emerged from the early 1940s in the orchestras of Rafael de Paz and Tony Camargo. Rafael de Paz and Tony Camargo added the metallic sounds from Cuban music, which predominated in the country, into cumbia music when Luis Carlos Meyer (native of Colombia) migrated to Mexico carrying the cumbias (dances) and porros (folk dances) of his country. Cumbia originates from Colombia, and variations have been made in various countries based on the original Colombian style. There have been various writers who have analyzed the cross-country spread of Cumbia and both its positive and negative effects on listeners. Both styles of ensembles were merged due to Meyers not having the traditional Colombian instrumentation. This is shown in the recordings of RCA Víctor Mexico by 1945 when they were already popular.

The traditional Bolero music in Mexico of the Cuban and Puerto Rican trios included maracas, and the predominant Cuban music of the time as shown in the national cinematography gave account of the adoption of these instruments.
In Colombia, Lucho Bermúdez already was playing cumbias starting in 1940. He used an orchestra with a greater number of instruments that differed with the ones used in Mexico, being based mainly on saxophones and clarinets that are used to play the melody, along with an orchestral base. His music was shown in national film, but in the Mexican style. One reason why Lucho Bermúdez decided to leave Colombia was because there were not many quality recording studios, so he was invited to Argentina to record in studios of superior quality (RCA Víctor). It was not until 1963 that his works were truly dispersed at the inauguration of Inravisión. Carmen Rivero in 1962, integrated not only these instruments but also the timpani (drum), marking the stops, starts, and exits of the orchestra within the same musical theme. This was a style not seen in the Colombian recordings.Archived a
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This conductor is supported by the musical arrangements of the renowned and international Mexican author Fernando Z. Maldonado who accentuated the use of trumpets as well as the musical stops of the Cuban dances derived from the Danzón.

Notes

References

History of Mexican Cumbia (spanish)Los Carnales De Fuego (spanish)

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Regional styles of Mexican music
Cumbia music by country
Latin American folk dances
Mexican styles of music
1970s in Latin music
1980s in Latin music
1990s in Latin music
2000s in Latin music
2010s in Latin music