DESCRIPTION:
Musica de los Pachucos / Mexico-Americanos en los 1940s y 1950s

1940's East L.A / Pachuco / Zoot Suit Music

Excerpt from Xispas online magazine's Chuy Varela essays on Chicano Music:

THE ROOTS OF RAZA ROCK: THE PACHUCO BOOGIE

In 1985 an obscure 78 rpm recording called "Pachuco Boogie" was put into the archives of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C. Recorded in Los Angeles in 1948 by a virtually unknown cast of young Mexican American musicians, it had a thumping eight-to-the-bar boogie woogie piano, a nonsense chorus that translated to "let the boogie burn" and a rap in Xicano jive that glorified the pachuco subculture of the zootsuit era. It struck a chord and became an underground anthem.

"Pachuco Boogie" (Discos Taxco 108) was written and recorded on the spot on January 28, 1948 at Radio Recorders in LA by a group of session players hired to accompany popular balladeer Ruben Reyes. The owner of Discos Taxco, William Castillo (the first to sign "Mexico's Sweetheart" Maria Victoria) had recently scored a local hit with a bolero titled "Vine Por Ti." Sung by Reyes and written by bassist Don Tosti (Edmundo Tostado Martinez) they were waiting to do a follow-up with Reyes.

As history would have it, the singer was a no show and Castillo asked Tosti if he had anything he wanted to record. A seasoned player who had gone on the road with legendary jazz great Jack Teagarden (and subsequently Charlie Barnet, Jimmy Dorsey and Les Brown), he was ready to expose his musical talents as a songwriter and bandleader.

"So Castillo wants Tosti to record something," recalled Raul Diaz, the original drummer on the date in 1991. "We got some blues together and put a little theme to it. We all came up with the chorus 'pachuco boogie.' Tosti was from El Paso, Texas and great at Calo (the Xicano street slang that also incorporated hispanicized English words with the gypsy slang words of Mexico and Spain). He had heard me scat and asked to scat on the record. Then the disc with 'Guisa Gacha' on the flipside goes out and it becomes a big hit.

It was in the late 1940s and jump blues pioneers like Louis Jordan, Earl Bostic, Joe Liggins and Johnny Otis were transitioning the big band sounds of the regional territory bands to a more compact combo setting. It was a sound that Tosti and his quartet of Raul Diaz (drums-vocal), Bob Hernandez (sax-flute) and Eddie Cano (piano) knew all too well from excursions into LA 's black community where it was all happening on Central Avenue. Add to that the tropical beats blowing from Cuba, Mexico and New York City these 24/25 year-old musicians were absorbing an interesting fusion of American and Latino sounds. The sessions were done and released under the pseudonym of Cuarteto Don Ramon, Sr., the name of Tosti's long lost father. It was during the years of the James C. Petrillo Ban when union musicians were prohibited from recording because of a dispute over radio and royalties. Yet for Tosti the timing couldn't have been better.

As American-born second and third generation Mexican Americans started reaping veterans' benefits serving in the U.S. military during World War II, they attended college, bought homes and advanced socially. This post-war prosperity gave rise to a generation of young bandleaders around Southern California like Freddy Rubio, Tilly Lopez, Sal Cervantez, Phil Carreon and Don Tosti who played at dance halls like the Avalon Ballroom and Million Dollar Theater. Tosti and his gang swung hard and captured the raw rebellious spirit of pachuco culture. It was Mexican American jazz with Raul Diaz scatting like a jazz singer, Hernandez blowing like a Xicano Lester Young and Tosti walking the bass like Duke Ellington's Jimmy Blanton. The affection for jazz and swing these twenty-something's developed gave approval to mixing American influences with Latin music.