Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-dh8gc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-03T05:29:13.988Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Tejano Music in the Urbanizing Midwest: The Musical Story of Conjunto Master Jesse Ponce

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 May 2009

DAVID HARNISH
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article explores the story and agency of conjunto master musician Jesse Ponce from his early life in San Antonio to his migration to northwest Ohio as an “authentic” Tejano (Texas-Mexican) musician. Although Ponce used this status as a form of cultural capital to construct his identity, integrate into local Latino communities, and interface with Latino cultural institutions, three outside agents, including the author, worked to publicize his expertise in Ohio, which, in turn, led to new acknowledgment and self-identification. The recent history of the “traditional” conjunto style is revealed as paralleling Ponce's career and aesthetic preferences. Both are in slight decline: Ponce, because of his failing health and resulting fewer performance opportunities; traditional conjunto, because of the rise of a more virtuosic “progressive” style

Bourdieu's notion of cultural capital and Loza's concept of enculturation are utilized to explicate Ponce's experience and self-construction in urbanizing northwest Ohio. The author's experiences with Ponce (as promoter and musician) are included to demonstrate the constant negotiations between Ponce, his musical identity and authority, and the outside world

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of the Society for American Music , Volume 3 , Issue 2 , May 2009 , pp. 195 - 219
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for American Music 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Alvarado, Rudolph, and Alvarado, Sonya. Mexicans and Mexican Americans in Michigan. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 2003.Google Scholar
Bendix, Regina. In Search of Authenticity: The Formation of Folklore Studies. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1997.Google Scholar
Biddle, Ian, and Jarman-Ivens, Freya. “Introduction: Oh Boy! Making Masculinity in Popular Music.” In Oh Boy! Masculinities in Popular Music, ed. Jarman-Ivens, Freya, 1–20. New York: Routledge, 2007.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, Pierre. Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste, trans. Nice, Richard. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1984.Google Scholar
Broyles-González, Yolanda. Lydia Mendoza's Life in Music. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001.Google Scholar
Burr, Ramiro. The Billboard Guide to Tejano and Regional Mexican Music. New York: Billboard Books, 1999.Google Scholar
Chapa, Jorge, Saenz, Rogelio, Rochín, Refugio, and McConnell, Eileen Diaz. “Latinos and the Changing Demographic Fabric of the Rural Midwest.” In Apple Pie and Enchiladas: Latino Newcomers in the Rural Midwest, ed. Millard, Ann and Chapa, Jorge, 47–73. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2004.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Finnegan, Ruth. The Hidden Musicians: Music-Making in an English Town. Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press, 2007.Google Scholar
Harnish, David. “A Hermeneutical Arc in the Life of Balinese Musician, I Made Lebah.” World of Music 43/1 (2001): 21–42.Google Scholar
Harnish, David, Long, Lucy, and O'Hagin, Barbara. A Celebration of Latino Music Culture in Toledo, Ohio. Bowling Green, Ohio: Partnerships for Community Action, 2002.Google Scholar
Loza, Steven. Barrio Rhythms: Mexican American Music in Los Angeles. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1993.Google Scholar
Alejandro, Madrid-González. Nor-tec Rifa! Electronic Dance Music from Tijuana to the World. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008.Google Scholar
McFarland, Pancho. “Chicano Hip-Hop as Interethnic Contact Zone.” Aztlán 33/1 (2008): 173–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mendez, Frank. You Can't Be Mexican: You Talk Just like Me. Kent, Ohio: Kent State Press, 2005.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Millard, Ann, and Chapa, Jorge. “Aquí in the Midwest [Here in the Midwest].” In Apple Pie and Enchiladas: Latino Newcomers in the Rural Midwest, ed. Millard, Ann and Chapa, Jorge, 1–21. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2004.Google Scholar
Peña, Manuel H. “From Ranchero to Jaitón: Ethnicity and Class in Texas-Mexican Music (Two Styles in the Form of a Pair).” Ethnomusicology 29/1 (1985): 29–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Peña, Manuel H. The Mexican American Orquesta: Music, Culture, and the Dialectic of Conflict. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1999.Google Scholar
Peña, Manuel H. Música Tejana: The Cultural Economy of Artistic Transformation. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1999.Google Scholar
Peña, Manuel H. The Texas-Mexican Conjunto: History of a Working-Class Music. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1985.Google Scholar
Reyna, José. “Latino Music.” In Music Cultures of the United States: An Introduction, ed. Koskoff, Ellen, 245–54. New York: Routledge, 2005.Google Scholar
San Miguel, Guadalupe Jr., Nuestra Music–Our Music: Música Tejana in the Twentieth Century. College Station: Texas A&M Press, 2001.Google Scholar
San Miguel, Guadalupe Jr., Tejano Proud: Tex-Mex Music in the Twentieth Century. College Station: Texas A&M Press, 2002.Google Scholar
Simonett, Helena. Banda: Mexican Musical Life across Borders. Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press, 2001.Google Scholar
Slobin, Mark. Subcultural Sounds: Micromusics of the West. Hanover, N.H.: University Press of New England, 1993.Google Scholar
Stock Jonathan, P. J.. “Toward an Ethnomusicology of the Individual.” World of Music 43/1 (2001): 5–20.Google Scholar
Stokes, Martin. “Introduction: Ethnicity, Identity and Music.” In Ethnicity, Identity and Music: The Musical Construction of Place, ed. Stokes, Martin, 1–27. Oxford: Berg, 1994.Google Scholar
Tejeda, Juan. “Introduction.” In Conjunto, Puro, ed. Guerra, Victor and Valdez, Avelardo, xiii–xxiv. Austin: Center for Mexican American Studies, University of Texas at Austin, 2001.Google Scholar
Valdez, Avelardo, and Halley, Jeffrey. “The Popular in Conjunto Tejano Music.” In Puro Conjunto, ed. Guerra, Victor and Valdez, Avelardo, 199–209. Austin: Center for Mexican American Studies, University of Texas at Austin, 2001 (orig. 1991).Google Scholar
Valdez, Avelardo, and Halley, Jeffrey. “Why Are There So Few Women Conjunto Artists?” In Puro Conjunto, ed. Guerra, Victor and Valdez, Avelardo, 229–40. Austin: Center for Mexican American Studies, University of Texas at Austin, 2001 (orig. 1994).Google Scholar
Vargas, Zaragosa. Proletarians of the North: A History of Mexican Industrial Workers in Detroit and the Midwest, 1917–1933. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993.Google Scholar
Wilbert, Johannes. “Introduction.” In Enculturation in Latin America: An Anthology, ed. Wilbert, Johannes, 1–27. Los Angeles: UCLA Latin American Center, University of California, 1976.Google Scholar