The Cheech Marin Center For Chicano Art and Culture Museum celebrated its first anniversary this past weekend with a two-day celebration. The festivities kicked off with a major collaborative performance from Grammy Award winning bands Quetzal and La Santa Cecilia at the Riverside Municipal Auditorium on Saturday, June 17. The one-of-a-kind performance rendered tribute to a variety of Chicano and Mexican-American artists.
Award winning bands Quetzal and La Santa Cecilia joined forces on Saturday night to celebrate the first anniversary of The Cheech, a Chicano Art and Culture Museum located in Riverside, California. The museum is a partnership with comedian, musician, activist, and actor Cheech Marin, the Riverside Art Museum and the city of Riverside to share the history, culture and art of Chicanos. The museum has received over 137,000 visitors this past year gaining attraction from displays of some of Marin’s personal Chicano art collection and various original work from local artists.
To commemorate The Cheech’s first anniversary since its grand opening in June 2022, the Riverside Municipal Auditorium hosted Music From Below: A History and Future of Chicano Music with an epic combination of two Grammy Award-winning East LA-based groups La Santa Cecilia and Quetzal. The powerhouse artists shined a light on various unsung Chicano artists covering Los Lobos, Flaco Jiménez, Lydia Mendoza, Lalo Guerrero, Alice Bag, and more. Not only did they cover some of the greatest songs in Chicano history but also spoke about each artist’s contribution to the music scene and their fight for social justice for the Chicano community.
The night was filled with countless one-of-a-kind performances. The bands opened the night with an instrumental interlude of “We Belong Together” and a toast in support of The Cheech. Both bands shared the stage to surprise fans with a variety of covers from Chicano songs such as Los Lobos’ “A Matter of Time,” Flaco Jiménez’s “Un Mojado Sin Licencia,” Lalo Guerrero’s “Los Chucos Suaves,” El Chicano’s “Tell Her She’s Lovely,” Exposé’s “Point of No Return,” LA punk legend Alice Bag’s “Queen’s Quilt,” and more.
Every song was hand picked by the award winning bands due to their immense impact in Chicano history and social upbringing. La Santa Cecilia’s vocalist Marisol Hernandez covered Lydia Mendoza’s 1935 single “Sola.” Mendoza was the first Mexican-American star recorded within the Tejano and Norteño genre and was inducted into various Hall of Fames. In a great collaboration, the two bands covered Lalo Guerrero’s “Homenaje A Ruben Salazar” written in response to the questionable death of Ruben Salazar, an award-winning journalist and first Mexican-American journalist to cover the Chicano community, who was covering the events of the Chicano Moratorium protest in 1970.
The two band’s also performed some of their most significant songs. Quetzal performed their 2000’s single “Chicana Skies,” a song that inspired Hernandez. La Santa Cecilia performed “Ice El Hielo” from their Grammy winning album Treinta Días, which is an anthem for immigration reform providing an insight perspective of the day-to-day fears undocumented people face. La Santa Cecilia’s accordionist Jose “Pepe” Carlos reflected on his personal experience having been undocumented and dedicated the song to a Chicano counselor that impacted his life and the lives of many other DACA students. The groups closed out their stage performance with a rendition of San Diego’s Ramon “Chunky” Sanchez “Educate Not Incarcerate.” As a final surprise all artists made their way to the center of the floor to sing along with fans to the first Spanish song to reach No. 1 on the American charts “La Bamba.”
Quetzal and La Santa Cecilia did an incredible job capturing the various stages and overall history of Chicano music in just two hours. Quetzal will be making an appearance at the 7th Annual Boleros de Noche at The Ford on August 5. La Santa Cecilia is currently on tour and are set to be at Los Angeles’ Below at The Belasco on November 3. For more information on The Cheech visit riversideartmusuem.org.
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