Listen & Be Heard Weekly Archives

“Chavez Ravine” by Ry Cooder

During a recent conversation, I listened while one of the participants described the process of choosing a restaurant specializing in food of a particular ethnic group. It began with a description of always checking the clientele and staff to determine whether to eat the food (large numbers of both elements had to ethnically match the food) and, after others’ comments were made to disagree with this premise, adjusted it to a position of checking the food on the plates as a measure of authenticity and not revised to meet certain palates. Only then would a restaurant be worthy of patronage.

I wondered whether, should anyone else follow this line of reasoning in choosing where to eat, this person’s mere presence in ethnic restaurants would serve as a deterrent in their choice of meal. I kept this thought to myself: the fate of so many eating establishments could have been at stake.

I do not know whether this person has ever heard the music of Ry Cooder. Cooder has built a career of decades of recordings created from various aspects of musical cultures: a little Tex-Mex here, some Hawaiian slide guitar there, add a pinch of gospel, a dash of 1950s Sun Records-era rock and roll (emphasis on the “and roll” part), season with as many of the originators and true believers of musical genres, heat and serve. His is not the music of some ethnic accountability but the music of unity and mutual respect. The results are self-explanatory.

Consider a few of Cooder’s accomplishments: the first digital rock recording (“Bop Till You Drop”), a retrospective of nearly-forgotten and obscure early 20th Century American jazz (“Jazz”), anything with the legendary Mexican accordion player Flaco Jimenez (“Chicken Skin Music” and “Showtime,” to name two great ones), his immersion into different cultures (“Buena Vista Social Club”) and his brilliant film scores (“Paris, Texas”). Not bad stuff. Definitely worthy of patronage by any standards.

Cooder’s most recent work is 2005′s “Chavez Ravine,” a cycle of songs formatted around the building of Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles during the early 1950s. This ballpark’s construction, unfortunately, resulted in the eviction of the mostly Mexican, not-yet-called Mexican-American, and other Hispanic families in the area, all to please the local power elite and especially the O’Malley family, who owned the Brooklyn Dodgers and planned to move to the West Coast. Which they did. This eviction is a dirty secret in Dodger history, one rarely mentioned alongside the team’s integration of the Major Leagues with the signing of Jackie Robinson. Which they don’t.

Cooder’s songs present the points of view of all sides in this scenario: along with the displaced residents, there are narratives from the mayor of Los Angeles, construction workers, Pachucos, Frank Wilkinson and Richard Neutra (originally hired by the federal government to design and build low-rent housing in Chavez Ravine; Wilkinson was later imprisoned for refusing to testify during McCarthy HUAC hearings and the housing project was abandoned), the period’s singers like Little Willie G. and Lalo Guerrero (who reprises some of those numbers on this CD), and what Cooder calls a “Space Vato” in a UFO to serve as an extraterrestrial Greek chorus.

As always, the musicianship is top-notch. Cooder contributes his usual outstanding guitar work, although very little slide work on this recording. Jimenez once again turns his fingers loose on the buttons of his accordion in songs like “Corrido de Boxeo,” which features an emotional vocal turn from Guerrero. Trumpeter Jon Hassell adds an unearthly solo in “Don’t Call Me Red,” the saga of the above-mentioned Wilkinson, which also features samples of Jack Webb’s voice from “Dragnet” episodes. Jim Keltner handles most of the drumwork, with additional percussion from Cooder’s son Joachim. There is even a guitar quote of the main theme from “Tequila” in “El UFO Cayo.”

The overall result of the musical sequencing, the spoken word passages, and the oddly psychedelic feel of the songs is reminiscent of Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side Of The Moon.” Only with this CD, the impulse is to either dance or get in the car and drive, not sit and wait for the alarm clocks to ring.

“Corrido de Boxeo” sums up the narrative tone of this recording. A song about two brothers named Chavez, both born in Chavez Ravine, both boxers who believed “if you fight clean, you’ll always win, never lose,” both unable to win the fight for Chavez Ravine. Guerrero, who died shortly after the making of this CD, sings like this song is the only one that matters: a song about living with honor in an environment without it, “nunca hiceron enemigos/peleaban honoradamente” (“they made no enemies/fighting honorably”).

Honor. Love to see it make a comeback. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m hungry. Gotta go.

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