Pardon the pun, but mariachi and Old Spanish Days have long enjoyed a happy cultural marriage. This is the time when the great American Mexican regional music with roots dating back 150 years in Jalisco, often heard on a small scale at weddings, parties, and in roaming revelry, takes the big stage of the Santa Barbara Bowl for the much-heralded Santa Barbara Mariachi Festival. It’s a fundraising event, benefitting scholarships for Latino students, on the Saturday of Fiesta for 27 years and counting.
Although mariachi music comes out to play, in a general public way, in small bands roving the streets and stages during Fiesta festivities, the music actually has a strong stake in Santa Barbara’s musical culture. Not only is the city’s Mariachi Festival one of the more respected showcase events in the mariachi world at large, but mariachi concert life periodically lands in the area through such avenues as UCSB Arts & Lectures–sponsored “¡Viva el Arte de Santa Bárbara!” and the Chumash Casino.
For a compact encounter with — or even introduction to — some of the finer mariachi bands and musicians anywhere, the Bowl festival offers five solid hours of music, from 5 to 10 p.m. This year’s roster kicks off with one of a growing tradition of all-female Mariachi groups, Mariachi Las Catrinas, Mariachi Los Galleros de Danny Rey, and the headlining Leyendas del Mariachi.
A special spot is reserved for well-known singers at the festival, a list that has included Vicki Carr, Beatrice Adriana, and crossover star Lila Downs. This year, the vocalist in the spotlight is the young and fast emerging Camila Fernández, a singer who studied at Berklee School of Music and who works across genre borders, from mariachi to pop and R&B, and back.
The Jalisco-born and San Diego–raised singer belongs to a veritable Mexican musical dynasty; her father is famed singer Alejandro (Alex) Fernández — also on the festival bill— and her grandfather was the ranchera legend Vicente Fernández. She has made a splash, commercially, with her 2002 debut album Vulnerable and last year’s eponymously titled album (listen here).
Consider the festival a break from the festive hustle of State Street and other Mercado goings-on. It can also be considered a valuable and more deeply cultured addition to the “Old Spanish Days” lore, genuine Mexican division.
See sbbowl.com.
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