Los californios� at the Pena Adobe in Vacaville, CA: Janet Martini, David Swarens, Vykki Mende Gray.

Photo by Jerry Bowen

From left: Janet Martini, David Swarens, Vykki Mende Gray
The Peña Adobe in Vacaville, CA.

Los californios^®, based in San Diego, California, play and sing the secular music of California from the days when our state was part of Spain and then Mexico. These sweet, melodic pieces include waltzes and polkas used for dancing, and songs about love and rancho life, often with comic lyrics. Although the music includes elements of Spanish music, it also includes influences from European and American folk music — as trading ships often visited the coast of Alta California, from the indigenous peoples of California, and from the diverse heritages of the early Mexican settlers.

Los californios^® is a self-supporting project of San Diego Friends of Old-Time Music, a California non-profit educational corporation. This project works to expose California audiences to their own historic musical heritage; to research, document and transcribe social music and dances from eighteenth and nineteenth century Spanish-speaking Californians; and to teach and distribute this information to a wide audience of musicians, dancers and enthusiasts through workshops, performances, articles and papers presented at educational conferences, and music classes at Sherman Heights Community Center.

For Bookings:

Please Contact David Swarens by Phone: (619)232-4475
Or Send an e-mail to info@loscalifornios.com

Los californios^® include:


	Janet Martini, Accordion and Vocals		David Swarens, Guitar		Vykki Mende Gray, Violín, Tambor, and Vocals

Los californios^® received a People in Preservation Award from Save Our Heritage Organization for these accomplishments.

Los californios^® is a registered service mark belonging to San Diego Friends of Old-Time Music, Inc.

Preserving Californio Social Music

In the era of Alta (Upper) California, the 5,000 or so settlers lived far apart, spread between San Diego and Sonoma. So when friends and relatives gathered at a rancho for a holiday or visit, it was an occasion for many days of singing, dancing and celebrating.

Historical photograph by Irene Welch Garner.

Padua Hills Theatre — The Mexican Players
Conchita Gallardo and Magrucio Jara
Los californios^® Collection

The californio music all but died out after the era of the ranchos ended, but songs performed by the last generations of californios were recorded on wax cylinders by journalist and folklorist Charles Fletcher Lummis, mostly between 1904 and 1907. Lummis published a portfolio of 14 pieces from his recordings in 1923. (For more information about these recordings, see .)

Over time a number of groups continued in efforts to preserve this California heritage: the Padua Hills Theatre (The Mexican Players) in Claremont, the José Arias Troubadours, Eugene Plummer with his dance group, the folk dance community with dance collectors and teachers like Lucille Czarnowski and Albert Pill, Gabriel Ruíz and his group of musicians and dancers, the A la California Club (later calling itself Los Californios), the Southwest Museum, now part of The Autry Center, and its adjunct the Casa de Adobe, Elisabeth Waldo with her creative compositions based on historic California music, Elizabeth Erro Hvolboll and Luis Moreno, Luis Goena and his dancers Los parientes, Yesteryears Dancers, Arnold Guerra and his dancers Tatalejos, The Alta California Dance Company, The Calicanto Associates, Los Arribeños de San Francisco, Baile de California [also on FaceBook at https://www.facebook.com/ BaileDeCalifornia/], Los Bailadores of Old Town San Diego, Los Califas in Petaluma, El coro hispano de San Francisco, The Alta California Orchestra (TACO), and descendants groups from all over the state.

In the late 1930s Sidney Robertson Cowell undertook a project to document Northern California Folk Music and included a number of recordings and photographs of people preserving this tradition of music, including informants like: Lottie Espinosa, Hilda Duarte Brown and Walter Sebree, and Jessie de Soto performing Spanish-language songs from California; and The Boys of St. Joseph’s Seminary, women from the Asistencia at Pala (Pala Indian Reservation), and the Choristers of St. Anthony’s Seminary performing music from California’s Spanish-era missions.

In the 1950s folk dance academia found itself to be part of the Physical Education curriculum. Two prominent collectors kept the music and dance alive during this period:

Lucille K. Czarnowski (1897-1985) was on the faculty of the University of California at Berkeley from 1923-1973. Her groundbreaking book, Dances of Early California Days, influenced, and continues to influence, generations of dancers.

Jessie and Tomás de Soto
Jessie de Soto (with guitar) and son Tomás in 1939

And many people who today know the 19th-century californio dances and dance music can credit Al Pill (1924-1998), who dedicated much of his life to keeping californio and Mexican traditional dance alive. He taught at California State University at Fullerton until 1988. Late in his life, he was acutely aware of the need to make sure that his dances did not die with him, and reached out to younger persons able to carry on the traditions.

Another of those links with the past was Luis Goena of Santa Barbara (1928-2014). A student at one time of Al Pill, Luis made folk music come alive in Santa Barbara for several generations of dancers, including a suite of californio dances with his group Los parientes.

In 1989 a group of San Diego folk musicians, organized by Lee Birch and calling itself Los californios^®, began playing this music and learning these dances. David Swarens knew of Lummis’ original recordings housed at the Southwest Museum in Los Angeles (a museum that Lummis had helped to found in 1914) and the group was able to obtain funding through San Diego’s Old Town State Park in order to obtain tape recordings from those original wax cylinder recordings.

Since those humble beginnings, these San Diego musicians have been privileged to conduct original research in this field, and to meet and interview a number of the people who have made contributions to preserving this heritage. The group’s educational mission continues to be extended in many different ways. Their original transcriptions from the Lummis recordings and other recorded sources are a source of joy for many a Californian rediscovering Mexican California, their delightful performances at historic sites and museums on both sides of the border with Mexico enchant people of all ages, their scholarly presentations at universities and for historic academicians are widely applauded, and their popular recordings, ¡Qué viva la ronda! and Flowers of Our Lost Romance, are available at a growing number of venues.

For more information about the preservation of Spanish-Language Social Music of the 19^th Century in Southern California, go to loscalifornios.info.

Recordings

¡Qué viva la ronda!

This energetic new CD recording by Los californios^® features the songs collected at Rancho Camulos by Charles Fletcher Lummis from members of the del Valle family household. Click here to see the cover, and to read the album notes and words to songs.

Item Number: CD-020 CAM $15.00

Flowers of Our Lost Romance

This album fromLos californios^® includes 60 minutes of beautiful early California dances and songs sung in the original archaic Spanish. Click here to see the cover, and to read the album notes and words to songs. Picture of Remuda DVD

Two pieces from this CD are also part of the music used in The Remuda, a DVD film by J & S Productions about the evolution of the buckaroo beginning in California over 200 years ago. Other musicians featured in this movie include Pedro Marquez, Ian Tyson and Dave Stamey.

Music from this CD was used for a Latino USA program reporting on the descendants of Spanish and Mexican-era Californians and their efforts to preserve a genealogical identity.

For a video clip produced by the Lively Arts History Association using this recording for the audio, click here.

Click here for an order form.

CD Item Number: CD-010 FLO $15.00
Cassette Item Number: CAS-010 FLO $10.00

Music Books of Sheet Music Transcriptions

Music of Early California | El ciego Melquíades Rodríguez

Music of Early California — Songs and Dance Tunes

Research by Los californios^® has resulted in a growing number of original transcriptions and arrangements of songs and dance tunes, many from the Edison wax cylinders recorded by Charles Fletcher Lummis. This is available as a comb-bound book containing 402 pages of music transcribed over a period of ten years, mostly from primary sources, and arranged with chord indications in common folk music keys. Lead and harmony lines (segunda) are included for most pieces in the traditional style, and an index to the pieces is included. Most of these pieces have not been readily available to a general audience for over a hundred years. These transcriptions finally make this music once again accessible and available for performers and scholars.Click here for additional details.

The Big Book: All the early California material in one giant book		Item Number: BK-110 CAL $85.00
Volume 1: 1999 Supplement — 38 pages Volume 2: 2000 Supplement — 32 pages Volume 3: 2001 Supplement — 40 pages Volume 4: 2002 Supplement — 44 pages Volume 5: 2003 Supplement — 44 pages Volume 6: 2004 Supplement — 44 pages Volume 7: 2005 Supplement — 44 pages Volume 8: 2006 Supplement — 56 pages Volume 9: 2007 Supplement — 60 pages Volume 10: 2008 Supplement — 62 pages		Item Number: BK-001 CAL $10.00 Item Number: BK-002 CAL $10.00 Item Number: BK-003 CAL $10.00 Item Number: BK-004 CAL $10.00 Item Number: BK-005 CAL $10.00 Item Number: BK-006 CAL $10.00 Item Number: BK-007 CAL $10.00 Item Number: BK-008 CAL $15.00 Item Number: BK-009 CAL $15.00 Item Number: BK-010 CAL $15.00

Songs from Rancho Camulos

Traditions of the del Valle Family Household

This publication focuses on the repertoire of the del Valle family of Rancho Camulos, located near Magic Mountain, north of Los Angeles. This is the first segment of the tunes in our larger work to be broken out by area or informant.

Item Number: BK-201 CAL $10.00

Click on book cover illustration (right) for further description and specific titles.

Recording available separately: see above.

Songs from the California Traditions of the Villa Family

This publication focuses on the repertoire of the Villa family of Los Angeles. This is the second segment of the tunes in our larger work to be broken out by area or informant.

Item Number: BK-202 CAL $10.00

Click on book cover illustration (left) for further description and specific titles.

Songs from Francisco Amate

A Spanish vagamundo in California

This publication focuses on the repertoire of Songs from Francisco Amate. This is the third segment of the tunes in our larger work to be broken out by area or informant.

Item Number: BK-203 CAL $10.00

Click on book cover illustration (right) for further description and specific titles.

Music of the García Family of Los Angeles

Song Traditions of Manuela García & her Family

This publication focuses on the repertoire of the García family of Los Angeles. This is the fourth segment of the tunes in our larger work to be broken out by area or informant.

Item Number: BK-204 CAL $15.00

Dance tunes from Mexican and Spanish California

This book of dance tunes is the fifth segment of the tunes in our larger work to be broken out by area or informant. Unlike our previous collections, seventeen of the forty-one pieces included in this collection are not included in our ten-volume Music of Early California collection.

Item Number: BK-205 CAL $10.00

Click on book cover illustration (right) for further description and specific titles.

Dance Tunes from the Joseph Mar�a Garc�a Manuscript:
Volume 1: Contradanzas

From the Eleanor Hague Collection
at the Braun Research Library, Gene Autry Center

A Mexican dance masters fake book from 1772.

This sixth specialized book of californio music includes 168 seventeenth- and eighteenth-century contradanza tunes. A few of these tunes are found in our ten-volume Music of Early California collection, but the vast majority are new to our collections.

Item Number: BK-206 CAL $15.00

Click on book cover illustration (left) for further description.

Dance Tunes from the Joseph Mar�a Garc�a Manuscript:
Volume 2: Piezas de Danza, Minuets, y Otras Cosas

From the Eleanor Hague Collection
at the Braun Research Library, Gene Autry Center

A Mexican dance master’s fake book from 1772.

This seventh specialized volume of californio music includes paspies, bureas, rigodones, and a great many minuets.

Item Number: BK-207 CAL $15.00

Click on book cover illustration (right) for further description.

Traditions from Adalaida Cordero Higuera Kamp and Jos� de la Rosa

Songs from San Buenaventura:

Traditions from Adalaida Cordero Higuera Kamp
and José de la Rosa

This eighth book in the series concentrates on some of the oldest material collected on Lummis’ cylinders.

Adalaida Cordero Higuera Kamp of Ventura recorded not only her own songs, but also recorded a great many pieces that she learned from Jos� de la Rosa. This 94-page book contains 75 pages of music, an introduction, and extensive indices making it easier to located particular songs. And there are a great many pieces that have not been previously available. It has taken 20 years to finally figure some of them out, and that only happened with lots of help. The results are worth it! These archaic songs help to open a new window on the californio society of that time.

Item Number: BK-208 CAL $15.00

Click on book cover illustration (left) for further description.

El ciego Melquíades

The Fiddle Tunes of Melquíades Rodríguez,
a tejano fiddler of yesterday

This Texas-Mexican fiddler recorded in San Antonio, Texas from 1935 until about 1950. His popular and lively style of fiddle-based dance music was about to succumb to the post World War II trend for louder and flashier sounds. As the fiddle was replaced by the accordion in Tex-Mex music, these fiddle tunes faded from the popular scene.

Discover for yourself the delights of playing the repertoire of this Mexican and tejano heritage. Click on book cover illustration (right) for further description and specific titles.

Item Number: BK-301 TEJ $15.00

Charles Fletcher Lummis

Original autographed photo by Charles Fletcher Lummis,
of Charles Fletcher Lummis

“Always your friend
Chas. F. Lummis — Happy New Year 1910”
Los californios^® Collection

Charles Fletcher Lummis (1859-1928) was born in Massachusetts, but came to be an avid promoter of the American Southwest. He walked from Ohio to Los Angeles in 143 days, and published a journal of his trip, A Tramp Across the Continent, in 1892. In addition to the celebrated Edison wax cylinder recordings that he made to preserve historic Spanish-language secular songs of California and Native American music of the Southwest, Lummis helped found the Landmarks Club in 1897 to restore the California missions, founded the Sequoia League in 1901 to protect America’s native people, and helped create the Southwest Museum in 1914. Lummis was an editor for the Los Angeles Times and wrote many other books including The Land of Poco Tiempo (1893). El Alisal, Lummis’ Los Angeles home and gardens, is now the headquarters of the Historical Society of Southern California and is open to the public.

For more information about Lummis and his Edison wax cylinder recordings, go to http://loscalifornios.info

Mariachi Sherman

Mariachi Sherman, out of Sherman Heights Community Center in San Diego, was a special project of Los californios^®. These enthusiastic young musicians learned music and performing skills, and in turn providing community service through their enchanting performances both in Sherman Heights and in the larger San Diego community. The program is currently suspended due Vykki’s health proplems.

Los californios^® is a registered service mark belonging to San Diego Friends of Old-Time Music, Inc.,
a California non-profit corporation.

Contact Los californios^® at info@loscalifornios.com

Find Los californios^® on Facebook.