A Celebration of Eduardo Llerenas

by Anna Bruce

On the 29th of April, we celebrated the life and work of ethnomusicologist Eduardo Llerenas, with a beautiful ‘homenaje’ at the Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City. Friends and family, as well as musicians such as Los Camperos de Valles, gave moving speeches and performances in memory of their experiences with Eduardo. Dedicated to the preservation and dissemination of musical heritage, he is described by the Ministry of Culture in Mexico as a “promoter and defender of traditional music.”

Eduardo began to record Mexican music in the 1970s with the engineer Enrique Ramírez de Arellano, which he released under the label Música Tradicional. The recordings of the huapango, huasteco son and istmeño son became the hero of a series called “Antología del Son Mexicano.” This work caught the attention of journalist and fellow ethnomusicologist, Mary Farquharson. Through a shared love of music they became a couple and married.

I am lucky to have known Mary and Eduardo for most of my life. When I moved to Mexico, they welcomed me into their home and included me in some amazing experiences with musicians from Mexico and other parts of the world. I know these are memories I share with many others, as Eduardo and Mary are renowned for their generosity and hospitality. This was evident at the homenaje and following celebrations, where the spirit of their musical life together shined brightly. 

Their friend Hermann Bellinghausen said “Those who knew Eduardo Llerenas have one, ten or one hundred stories to tell, but at the time of his final passing I believe that the best way to remember him is by listening to the collection of music he made during his half century as a hunter and fisherman of sounds.” 

Together, Eduardo and Mary created Discos Corason, gathering over fifteen thousand songs and producing more than ninety albums. This collection preserves generations of traditional music and is the product of tireless tours, through different parts of Mexico. The collection is one of the most valuable of its kind, due to the diversity of expressions of regional music and Mexican lyric poetry. It was recognized in 2016 as part of UNESCO's Memory of the World Program, considered an important legacy of traditional Mexican music. 

As well as Mexican music, research also led Eduardo and Mary to travel through Belize, Guatemala, the Caribbean, West Africa, and Eastern Europe. Eduardo commented in the publication Desinformemonos: "At Discos Corason we never record an artist thinking about success. Rather, we listen to many artists from different genres – Mexican, Cuban and beyond – and when we find music that surprises us with its beauty, its technique, its spirit, its vitality, we suggest recording its creators in order to share this fascination.” 

Prior to meeting Eduardo, Mary had co-founded the British record label World Circuit with trumpeter Nick Gold. In 1996 Gold proposed a project to the couple that would change their history and that of the Discos Corason. This was the recording of a group of musicians in Santiago de Cuba that led to the album “Buena Vista Social Club.” In his column in Desinformemonos, De él El vocho blanco, Llerenas captures moments that led to creating this iconic record.

One night, Eduardo was with Gold and guitarist Juan de Marcos González (of Cuban group Sierra Maestra) a passionate defender of the traditional son and bolero. Eduardo describes how “Juan de Marcos didn't let go of Nick Gold throughout the night, determined to convince him to make a tribute album to the old soneros and bolero singers who still lived, some somewhat forgotten, on the island.”

According to Llerenas, Gold wanted to reproduce the sound of Eastern Cuba: the son, bolero and guaracha from musicians like Eliades Ochoa whom he knew from previous Discos Corason recordings. Eduardo had hoped to visit Mali and incorporate musicians that could speak to the roots of Afrocuban music in the recording. Unfortunately, visa constraints prevented this from happening.

“In the end, the album, called Buena Vista Social Club, was made only with musicians born and raised in Santiago, plus some Havanans such as Omara Portuondo, Cachaito López, Guajiro Mirabal, Miguel Angá Díaz and others, achieving a combination of the oriental and the habanero, which is one of the indisputable qualities of this record.” said Eduardo.

Buena Vista Social Club was recorded live in three days in central Havana, with an analogue console achieving “a vintage sound naturally, without forcing or pretending.” Despite the success of this choice, old machinery led to technical issues. These challenges fortunately gave Eduardo and the other producers more time with the musicians, who shared their stories and a broader repertoire, songs from which made their way onto the final record.

Getting deeper into the music from Cuba and parts of Mexico directs the gaze to Africa. These musical traditions were not formed in a void, and the work of Eduardo and Discos Corason explores some of these ties. Eduardo wrote, “the rise of Cuban music allowed us to go to Mali to record the griot singer, Kasse Mady Diabate, in his hometown, Kela. This experience helped fulfill our desire to know the deep roots of so much Latin American music that we have recorded.” 

Antonio Garcia de Leon remembers meeting Eduardo in the 1970s, “with a heavy tape recorder on his shoulder to make his passionate field recordings in rural Mexico at the time, ending up years later in Mali, Senegal and Cuba.” Garcia de Leon describes how “world music is all mixed music and products of different fusions distributed over time.” Therefore it is “necessary to have a historical vision, open to these complexities…a great musical archive – that of Discos Corasón.” 

In 2010, World Circuit/Discos Corason released Afrocubism in Mexico. Eliades Ochoa sang alongside Kasse Mady with several other Malian musicians that would have contributed to Buena Vista Social Club if visas had gone through. Llerenas described how Kasse Mady has his part in this story, “just like the inseparable relationship between Cuba and Africa.”

Discos Corason have continued to work with Malian musicians, including the stunning Fatoumata Diawera whom they invited to take part in the Centro Historico Festival in Mexico City, 2015. This festival was the first time I had the honor of taking pictures on behalf of Discos Corason. It was eye opening to get a glimpse behind the curtain of the incredible work brought together by Eduardo and Mary. 

Since then a highlight was traveling with Discos Corason to the Afro-Mexican town of Santiago Llano Grande la Banda in the region of Costa Chica, Oaxaca. There we stayed with the musician and teacher, Chogo Prudente. Prudente actively supports his community by making music a key component in education, positively motivating young people in the community. 

This trip was in the lead up to releasing Como un Lunar-Boleros de la Costa Chica. An anthology of beautiful music that was compiled for the Cervantino festival, celebrating the poet Álvaro Carrillo who came from the region.

The Mexican Ministry of Culture described Como un Lunar as a project “showing that the region's reputation for violence and marginalization is only part of its reality and that the bolero created and performed by its musicians enjoys a vitality and relevance, unmatched in other parts of the country.” This speaks to the ability of music to transform and elevate, something that is clear as you step into the world of Discos Corason.

Ethnomusicologist Bruno Bartra writes, “Llerenas’s work connected communities, creating an audience eager for that lively traditional music.” Although his style of research and recording did not always fall within academic guidelines, according to Bartra, “his writings and recordings are now required references for musicologists studying the regions through which he passed with his recording equipment.”

Bartra’s words reflect the weekend of celebrations for Eduardo, which were presented as Para Ti Llerenas. A weekend that wove together musical presentations between the academic echelons of the Palacio de Bellas Artes, public dancing in the cultural center of Coyoacan and intimate performances in the garden of Eduardo and Mary’s home. 

During the homenaje, Nick Gold described Eduardo as a man who was innovative, with a sharp ear for talented musicians. A man with serious focus, yet able to move freely between the matter at hand, a joke and a dance. This definitely rings true to the friend I remember. The overwhelming sentiment throughout the weekend however, was that of a spirit still with us, ever present in the music shared by Discos Corason, played by his family, friends and music lovers around the world.

All photos by Anna Bruce.