Research | Erin Bauer | Texas-Mexican Conjunto

Erin Bauer's research interests include the cross-cultural influence and mainstream assimilation of Latin American folk music within a contemporary, global society. Her current book project, tentatively titled The Globalization of Conjunto: Transnational Dissemination of Texas-Mexican Accordion Music, examines the recent worldwide spread of Texas-Mexican accordion music, called conjunto, a regional tradition historically forming a powerful symbol of cultural identity. Dr. Bauer's work considers the changing role of the genre outside of traditional cultural boundaries, bringing new perspectives to questions of transnational identity by shifting the typical emphasis on more commercially successful genres of popular music to embrace the unexpected creative connections between working-class communities around the world. Through new musical associations stimulated by electronic entertainment platforms and digital methods of communication, her research demonstrates that contemporary conjunto music is increasingly derived more from economic positionality- rich versus poor; mainstream versus minority- than historical categorization.

PUBLICATIONS

Books

The Globalization of Conjunto: Transnational Dissemination of Texas-Mexican Accordion Music. (Under Review)

Refereed Journal Articles

2019. “Blurring Boundaries in Rosedale Park: The Importance of the Tejano Conjunto Festival on the Transnational Dissemination of Traditional Texas-Mexican Accordion Music.” Latino Studies 17, no 2: 164-186. doi: 10.1057/s41276-019-00182-2.

Abstract: The contemporary transnational dissemination of Texas-Mexican accordion music has corresponded closely to the rise in prominence of the Tejano Conjunto Festival, sponsored by the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center in San Antonio and, since 1982, held annually at Rosedale Park. In modern popular culture, the ease of transnational mobilization – here characterized by global participation in a local music festival – effectively blurs traditional boundaries of class, ethnicity, language, and location. However, this notion of inclusivity masks problematic and long-lasting hegemonies. Simultaneously, it shifts the historiographic narrative of conjunto as cultural resistance (within a tightly constrained notion of Texas-Mexican culture).

2016. “Beyond the Border: Meaning and Authenticity in the Adoption of Texas-Mexican Conjunto Music by International Artists.” Latin American Music Review 37, no. 1: 34-64. doi: 10.7560/LAMR37102.

Abstract: Since the 1990s, Texas-Mexican conjunto music has been adopted around the world, raising contemporary considerations of sociological significance in newly widespread musical repertories. In an increasingly postnational world, regional cultural commodities and notions of musical authenticity are no longer confined to an individual race, class, language, or location. For international conjunto musicians, the capacity to create an individual identity based on common stylistic heritages, socioeconomic backgrounds, imagined familial connections, and simply aesthetic attraction demonstrates that popular music can serve to rearticulate a sense of belonging for musicians accessible only through new forms of electronic dissemination.

2014. “The Participation of Flaco Jiménez on Ry Cooder’s Chicken Skin Music: Cross-Cultural Collaboration and the (Inter)national Discovery of Texas-Mexican Accordion Music.” Rock Music Studies 1, no. 2: 148-169. doi: 10.1080/ 19401159.2014.908520.

Abstract: In the second half of the twentieth century, Texas-Mexican conjunto music changed from a highly localized and often stylistically stagnant regional genre to an innovative musical style increasingly popular among an international audience. This widespread artistic acknowledgement was largely stimulated by the participation of Flaco Jiménez on Ry Cooder’s Chicken Skin Music in 1976, drawing certain superficial parallels with the following world music movement through the underlying suggestion of inequitable cultural appropriation. However, this case instead demonstrates that the increasing contemporary mixture of cultures, even among socioeconomically inequitable groups, can alternatively produce a valuable and mutually advantageous cross-cultural consequence.

Book Chapters

“Movimiento Music as Nueva Canción: Conjunto Aztlán, the Chicano Movement, and the Mexican New Song.” In The Snake, the Roses, and the Thorns: Unfolding the Mexican New Song in the 60s-90s, edited by Claudio Palomares Salas. (Forthcoming)

Abstract: Cultural resistance to the hegemonic power of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) in Mexico during the 1960s-1990s parallels cultural resistance to Anglo-American hegemony in the United States through the Chicano Movement of roughly the same time period. Both movements connect with the social engagement of musicians in Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Cuba, and Spain in the second half of the twentieth century to create a Mexican/Mexican-American style of Nueva Canción, or New Song. Through traditional genres and instruments combined with politically and socially charged lyrics, the music of the Chicano Movement, or movimiento music, connects to the Nueva Canción movement throughout Latin America and, in particular, Mexico, to affirm a powerful sense of cultural identity and carve out a new musical space for the Mexican diaspora in the United States. Movimiento artists like Conjunto Aztlán, Daniel Valdez, Agustin Lira, Flor de Pueblo, Los Alacranes Mojados, Rumel Fuentes y Los Pingüinos, and Los Lobos in Texas and California draw from their indigenous, Spanish, and mestizo heritages to root an art in ethnic Mexican culture and society and thus contribute to Mexican-American activism alongside César Chavez, the National Farm Workers Association, and the general pursuit for bilingual education, integration in schooling and housing, and a more open job market in the United States during the 1960s-1990s. Using the movimiento music of Conjunto Aztlán, in particular, as a case study, this essay examines the work of Chicano/a musicians in the United States during the 1960s-1990s, drawing connections with the cultural resistance of artists in Mexico during the same time period and analyzing both regions with reference to the more widespread social engagement of Nueva Canción.

2019. “Native American Vocal Music: Tohono O’odham Songs.” In So You Want to Sing World Music, edited by Matthew Hoch, 101-125. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield.

Abstract: Previously known as Papago, a derogatory term from the Spanish for "bean eaters," the Tohono O'odham ("desert people") are a Native American people from the Sonoran Desert, spanning the often-contentious border between southern Arizona and northern Mexico. Traditional songs of the Tohono O'odham comprise an oral tradition initiated through the inspiration of dreams and subsequently passed down from generation to generation. Songs are concise, descriptive, evocative of an event, often repetitive, and typically correspond to a specific social or ceremonial purpose. These vocal works are accompanied by hard wood rasps, drumming on overturned baskets, and a shuffling style of dance. In contrast, Tohono O'odham waila (or chicken scratch) music draws from Mexican norteño music (itself an interpretation of German polka music) through the use of saxophone, accordion, bass, guitar, and drums and rarely incorporates the singing voice. In recent years, the younger generation of Tohono O'odham have combined elements of American popular music with traditional songs, creating a hybridized form of folk/hip-hop. This essay explores the traditional songs of the Tohono O'odham people and compare these works with the vocal elements (and lack of vocal elements) in contemporary waila music and other related forms.

2019. “Criticism and Confusion in the Spiritual Transformation of Matisyahu.” In Finding God in the Devil's Music: Critical Essays on Rock and Religion, edited by Alex C. DiBlasi and Robert P. McParland, 105-116. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc.

Abstract: Matthew Paul Miller, best known by his Hebrew name and stage name, Matisyahu, achieved fame in the first decade of the twenty-first century as a Hasidic, reggae rapper and alternative rock musician. The most notable part of that equation, at least within the Jewish community and momentarily disregarding the equally inimitable combination of reggae, rap, and rock (not to mention the incorporation of beat-boxing, scat singing, and Jewish hazzan style of songful prayer), was the distinctively religious aspect to Matisyahu's public identity as well as his music, particularly given the musician's positionality within the more mainstream world of American popular culture. Yet, in December of 2011, Matisyahu posted a picture of himself on Twitter without a beard, explaining, "No more Chassidic reggae superstar. Sorry folks, all you get is me...no alias," and creating confusion and controversy among his Jewish (and other) fans. In June of 2012, the musician appeared without a yarmulke, adding fuel to the already blazing media frenzy. This essay traces the spiritual journey, musical evolution, and complicated public reactions to the Hasidic reggae superstar, considering the meaning of religious identity within the modern rock community and the dichotomous commitment of fans to music and meaning alike.

2018. “Reinterpreting the American Western in Ry Cooder’s Soundtrack to Paris, Texas (1984).” In Re-Locating the Sounds of the Western, edited by Kendra Preston Leonard and Mariana Whitmer, 57-73. Aldershot, United Kingdom: Ashgate Publishing.

Abstract: Ry Cooder's haunting score for Paris, Texas (1984), consisting of a single, unaccomanied acoustic guitar, sets the stage for a sonic reinterpretation of the classic American Western. Through the evocative music used throughout this contemporary film, the typical struggle of the new frontier becomes a personal struggle of identity, loneliness, and regret. The geography of the frontier itself is represented not only by the desolate, Western landscape, but also through the disintegration of familial relationships and the associated desolation of a single, tormented soul. In this modern interpretation, the expected wandering gunslinger is replaced by a silent, alcoholic amnesiac, a desperate man fighting a battle not with rustlers or Indians, but within himself. Evoking the Hollywood Western through the sparseness of its geographic setting and classic devices of its iconic soundtrack, Paris, Texas suggests the prototypical male protagonist through the tortured character of Travis Henderson, but twists the "classic" formula to comment on the complexities of relationships in contemporary American life.

2015. “Cross-Cultural, ‘Oompah-Rock’ Identities: Stylistic Unification and Common Background in the Music of Rowwen Hèze and Los Lobos.” In Het dorp en de wereld: dertig jaar Rowwen Hèze, edited by Barbara Beckers and Leonie Cornips, 172-179. Nijmegen, Netherlands: Vantilt Publishers.

Abstract: Faced with too many cultural possibilities in the chaos of modern life, musicians around the world are often drawn to what is familiar, although perhaps not historically typical, to form a personal sense of belonging outside of traditional positional boundaries. In the case of Rowwen Hèze, the socioeconomic background, counter-hegemonic symbolism, and accordion-based musical characteristics of Los Lobos create a familiar sense of cultural community, despite dramatic differences of geographical circumstance.

Dissertation

2014. “The Spanish Diferencia: Stylistic Analysis and Compositional Influence of the Keyboard Variation from Antonio de Cabezón to Juan Bautista José Cabanilles.” PhD diss., Claremont Graduate University.

Abstract: Representative examples of the Spanish keyboard variation appear initially in the works of the early vihuelists, with the dominant stylistic foundation subsequently realized through the keyboard music of Antonio de Cabezón (c.1510-1566) and similarly continued in the later compositions of Juan Bautista José Cabanilles (1644-1712). Comparable techniques of variation emerge in the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century keyboard music of southern Italy, England, Germany, and the Netherlands, suggesting the creative influence of the preceding Spanish tradition. Corresponding methods of publication, notation, thematic material, and structural organization, as well as recurrent musical figures demonstrate that the Iberian diferencia tradition begins with the sixteenth-century vihuela compositions, reaches a mature style in the keyboard variations of Cabezón, gains additional stylistic characteristics through widespread European adoption, and ultimately returns to Spain in the seventeenth century as an amalgamation of earlier techniques.

CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS

2019. “Texas-Mexican Conjunto as Cultural Folklore: Stylistic Consolidation in the Transnational and Commercial Spread of Regional Accordion Music.” Annual Meeting of the Society for American Music (SAM), New Orleans, LA, March 20-24.

2018. “Movimiento Music as Nueva Canción: Conjunto Aztlán, the Chicano Movement, and the Mexican New Song.” Annual Meeting of the Society for Ethnomusicology (SEM), Albuquerque, NM, November 15-18.

2018. “The Hybridity of the San Antonio Sound: Cross-Cultural Amalgamations in the Texas-Mexican Accordion Music of Flaco Jiménez, Mingo Saldivar, Esteban Jordan, and Piñata Protest.” Annual Meeting of the American Musicology Society (AMS) and Society for Music Theory (SMT), San Antonio, TX, November 1-4.

2017. “The Wizard and the Cowboy: Genre and Reception in the Texas-Mexican Accordion Music of Esteban Jordan and Mingo Saldívar.” Annual Meeting of the Society for Ethnomusicology (SEM), Denver, CO, October 26-29.

2016. “San Antonio’s Piñata Protest as Cultural Renegade: The (Self-Described) ‘Mojado-Punk’ Convergence of Punk Rock and Texas-Mexican Accordion Music.” Annual Conference of the International Association for the Study of Popular Music, US and Canada Branches (IASPM-US/Canada), University of Calgary, Canada, May 28-30.

2016. “Stylistic Unification through Common Socioeconomic Background in the Case of Rowwen Hèze and Los Lobos.” Intercultural Music Conference (IcM), University of California, San Diego, February 26-28.

2015. “Blurring Boundaries in Rosedale Park: The Tejano Conjunto Festival in San Antonio and the Transnational Dissemination of Texas-Mexican Accordion Music.” Annual Meeting of the Society for Ethnomusicology (SEM), Austin, TX, December 3-6.

2015. “New Techniques in Digital Musicology: Localizing Texas-Mexican Conjunto Music through Social Network Analysis.” Joint Congress of the International Association of Music Libraries, Archives, and Documentation Centres (IAML) and the International Musicological Society (IMS), New York, June 21-26.

2015. “Juanito Castillo, Los Nahuatlatos, and Piñata Protest: Artistry and Identity at the Margins of Texas-Mexican Conjunto Music.” Embracing the Margins: Counter-Mainstream Sensibilities in Popular Music, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, March 27-28.

2015. “Religious Identity and Public Reception in the Spiritual Transformation of Matisyahu.” Religion & Politics: Governance, Power, and the Sacred, Eighth Annual Religions in Conversation Conference, Claremont Graduate University, February 27-28.

2015. “The Story of a Neighborhood: Popular Music and Cultural Advocacy in Ry Cooder’s Chávez Ravine (2005).” Annual Conference of the International Association for the Study of Popular Music (IASPM-US), University of Louisville, February 19-22.

2014. “The Legacy of Lead Belly: Song Choice as Working-Class Association in Ry Cooder’s Chicken Skin Music.” International Conference on the Blues, Delta State University, October 6-7.

2014. “The Digital Network as Modern Cultural Community: Electronic Modes of Personal Belonging for International Conjunto Musicians.” Digital Humanities Forum, Nodes & Networks in the Humanities: Geometries, Relationships, Processes, University of Kansas, September 13.

2014. “Chicken Skin Music as ‘World Music’: Questions of Chronology, Authority, and Appropriation in the Cross-Cultural Collaboration of Ry Cooder and Flaco Jiménez.” Visual Communities: Struggles and Resistance Conference, Claremont Graduate University, April 11.