'Mariachi Masses' return at Arizona cathedral

TUCSON, Ariz. -- After more than a year of silence because of the pandemic, mariachis are again playing Sunday services at Tucson's St. Augustine Cathedral, where the colorful and sonorous tradition dates back a half-century and fuses Roman Catholicism with Mexican American pride.

For the hundreds of worshippers gathered in the Spanish colonial church, and for other congregations across the Southwest, the unique sound of mariachi liturgy is more than just another version of choir. It evokes a borderlands identity where spirituality and folk music have blended for centuries.

"Syncretism is the reality of this land, the 'ambos' reality," said the Rev. Alan Valencia, the cathedral's rector, who grew up attending mariachi Mass in "ambos Nogales," or "both Nogales," as those in the area refer to the two cities of the same name straddling the U.S.-Mexican border about 60 miles to the south.

"And that's what we see in these mariachi Masses," he added. "Faith and culture come together and grow."

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Mariachi forms the soundtrack to daily life in the borderlands, accompanying everything from backyard barbecues and quinceanera coming-of-age parties to weddings and funerals.

Yet while mariachi is a popular genre at its core, musicians and parishioners alike say its emotional interplay of trumpet, violin, guitar, vihuela and guitarron is a natural complement to the holy rites.

"The Mass itself is a reminder that you don't just have mariachis you tip at tableside in a cantina," said Alberto Ranjel, who has been playing at the cathedral since he was 9 and who now leads the ensemble his father founded, Mariachi Tapatio. "It is a representation of my culture."

Worshipper Leilani Gomez echoed that sentiment, saying: "They bring to Mass culture and art, together with the presence of God. They make you feel the presence of God."

The first canon of mariachi Mass was composed in Cuernavaca, Mexico, after the Vatican encouraged the incorporation of regional musical traditions into services in the 1960s. Called the Misa Panamericana, or Pan-American Mass, it features a specific order of instrumental arrangements, sung prayers and hymns, according to Dan Sheehy, director and curator of the Smithsonian Folkways Recordings.

At that time in the U.S., the Chicano civil-rights movement was blossoming, and mariachi musicians morphed from folksy troubadours to cultural heroes, "symbols of Mexican identity heightened here because of multiculturalism," Sheehy added.

Hundreds of mariachi school programs followed in the 1970s, when the music began to be written down instead of taught by lyrical training, said George Bejarano, who in 1973 started playing with the youth group Los Changuitos Feos, or "the ugly little monkeys," and whose family has been in the borderlands "since before there were borders." Also, female musicians began joining the traditionally male ensembles.

Mainstays of mariachi Mass include the joyful "Pescador de Hombres," or "fisher of men" -- the Spanish-speaking faithful's equivalent of "Amazing Grace" for its popularity and ubiquity -- and a rendition of Franz Schubert's 19th-century classic "Ave Maria."