VERACRUZ, Mexico — The historic port city of Veracruz, facing the Gulf of Mexico, sounds its civic pride every hour on the hour when the clock tower bells in the central plaza play “La Bamba.” This is not Ritchie Valens’ 1958 rock ‘n’ roll adaptation, but the centuries-old folk hymn of a sultry, moldering Gulf Coast port.
“It’s our hymn,” a longtime local musician said of the tune, which serves as the most famous song of a regional genre known as son jarocho—the music of Veracruz.
The style was born from a multiethnic population that emerged along the Mexican coast after conquistador Hernán Cortés dropped anchor and established the nation’s first port in the early 1500s. Blending European, Caribbean, and Indigenous traditions, the syncopated and jubilant folk music is traditionally performed at community celebrations called fandangos.
Saturday Night Fandangos and the Rhythm of the Tarima
During a mid-August Saturday night fandango in Veracruz, the coastal heat lingers while a couple dances atop a wooden platform known as a taríma. The female dancer wears a floral dress that fans out with each heel strike, while her partner wears a traditional jarocho straw hat and a tropical shirt soaked through with sweat.
Nearby, a musician plays a quijada—the jawbone of a donkey—scraping its teeth and striking the mandible to generate a rattling percussion. Attendees gather around to drink ice-cold Mexican beer and eat banana leaf-wrapped tamales as the gathering transitions into a massive jam session.
Musicians strum diminutive, eight-string guitars native to the region called jaranas. As audience members join in, the performance swells to include two dozen jaraneros strumming simultaneously. The three-chord progression of “La Bamba” stretches into a hypnotic, 15-minute continuous performance.
“Para bailar La Bamba, se necesita una poca de gracia,” the participants sing, keeping a steady rhythm that can stretch far longer.
From Low-Brow Stigma to Global Revival
Grammy-winning jarocho musician and instrument maker Tacho Utrera noted that shorter jams are just the beginning. In Tlacotalpan, where he has seen the biggest fandangos, ensembles can swell to 80 musicians, keeping “La Bamba” and its accompanying dances going for an uninterrupted hour as dancers rotate on and off the platform.
“You play and play and the dancers keep changing and changing, and it’s interminable!” Utrera said.
The eight-string instruments used in these sessions are still carved from single blocks of Spanish cedar, adhering to centuries-old luthier traditions.
This enduring popularity marks a stark turnaround from the 1960s and 1970s, when son jarocho fell out of favor and faced cultural stigma. Gilberto Gutierrez, a prominent figure in the genre and founding member of the band Mono Blanco, recalled that the music was dismissed as low-brow.
“When they spoke of son jarocho they said it was the music of drunken people,” Gutierrez said, noting that musicians either put away their instruments or relocated to Mexico City to find work.
A Thriving Global Community
Today, as listeners worldwide seek out acoustic authenticity and cultural roots, son jarocho is experiencing a resurgence. Weekend fandangos in Veracruz mark baptisms, birthdays, wakes, saints’ days, and community milestones.
The caSon Cultural Center, founded by Gutierrez, hosts a monthly Saturday night fandango in the old city of Veracruz, marking its 25th anniversary. Beyond Mexico, the genre’s footprint has expanded to cities across Argentina, Spain, Finland, Germany, Switzerland, Denmark, France, Tokyo, Canada, and U.S. metropolitan areas with large Latino populations, including Los Angeles and New York.
“Fandangos happen because there’s a community around the musicians, dancers, singers, and the cooks who bring the food,” Gutierrez said. “Humanity needs this coming together. We all need to belong to something.”
Central to these gatherings is el zapateo, the tap-dancing style that doubles as percussion to anchor the string players’ rhythm.
“To step onto a taríma is an act of respect and skill—that you know how to dance,” said Ada Veronica, a high school teacher from Puebla who has practiced the discipline for two decades.
