INTERVIEW: Trio Ellas honor mariachi’s history, and make it their own
Photo: Trio Ellas feature Suemy Gonzalez, Nelly Cortez and Stephanie Amaro. Photo courtesy of the band / Provided by Vesper Public Relations with permission.
When Trio Ellas take the stage tonight, Sept. 15, at the Ford Theatres in Los Angeles, they will bring with them the historical significance of mariachi music, but they are also very much of the minute, fusing the traditional Mexican sounds of the art form with a newer, fresher vibe. They are on a cultural exploration, learning and absorbing, but also producing and modifying to their unique tastes.
Trio Ellas are made up of Suemy Gonzalez on violin and vocals, Nelly Cortez on guitarron and vocals, and Stephanie Amaro on guitar and vocals. They are performing at the Ford Theatres with Los Panchos as part of the fourth-annual Boleros de Noche concert series.
The band has been together for approximately a dozen years, and they continue to amass more fans each time they take the stage.
“We had many years of traditional mariachi experience, and we knew each other through the whole mariachi circuit,” Gonzalez said in a recent phone interview. “And one evening during the week we thought, hey, let’s make some extra money. Why don’t we go down to the local Mexican restaurant and play table to table for chips? So we started doing that at a restaurant in Pasadena, and we dressed as traditional mariachis. And we’d go table to table taking requests, and then from there, people started asking us for different music aside from traditional mariachi. That’s how we started getting the blend of our sound, of playing a fusion sound of Mexican and American music, so pretty much from there we started passing out cards to people and started taking gigs. And then the next thing you know we’re playing at the Hollywood Bowl years later.”
The meteoric rise of Trio Ellas has been phenomenal. One only has to look at their recording output, which consists of singles “O Holy Night,” “Los Peces en el Rio,” “Somos Novios” and “California en Sueños.” Their albums also showcase their unique style: Noches Angelinas and Con Ustedes.
Their Mariachi Origins
“Nelly and myself, our parents were first-generation here in the U.S.,” Gonzalez said. “Our parents are from Mexico, and definitely I grew up listening to it. My mom was home cleaning and blasting the music. I’d hear a variety of mariachi music or other Latin music as well, but for me, myself, that was the majority of what I would listen to growing up. … Very little exposure to American music — I knew who the Beatles were, but I didn’t get into the nitty-gritty of their music until college.”
When Gonzalez was 5 years old, she used to perform traditional Mexican folk dances. One of her friends in the dance class would also bring a violin case along, and that got Gonzalez’s mother thinking.
“My mom saw the violin case and said, ‘Hey, where do you take lessons,’” Gonzalez remembers. “She got the information, and then she asked me, ‘Do you want to go and take violin lessons?’ At that time, I really didn’t know what I was getting myself into, and I just said, ‘OK, sure.’ She took me to a violin lesson, and I decided the violin was easier than dancing since dancing made my feet hurt. So I continued playing the violin starting at the age of 5.”
Gonzalez started learning classical music, and then she transitioned into the mariachi sound. Eventually, she helped form Trio Ellas, and since the band came together, there has been an explosion of younger, newer groups exploring this traditional art form. Trio Ellas have been at the forefront of this cultural shift.
“From what I remember there weren’t a lot of groups like us in L.A.,” she said. “There was usually just big mariachi groups, and now I notice there’s a lot of smaller trio groups that kind of blend the whole fusion of mariachi with that L.A. sound.”
Today the members of Trio Ellas pick and choose where to play their concerts. They keep their gigging close to the Los Angeles area because of other commitments.
“For example, Nelly, our bass player, she works at an airport, and she’s a pilot,” Gonzalez said. “She’s trying to catch up on her hours of flying, so that’s another passion of hers. And then I’m working on some of my own music and working on some different projects and playing for other artists, so we like to pick and choose where we go, where we play. We go to Mexico here and there, and that’s always fun. It was a little bit nerve-wracking the first time we went because we didn’t know how they would react to our take on Mexican music, but from what we perceived from them, they like it. And we keep going back.”
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Trio Ellas will play with Los Panchos as part of the fourth-annual Boleros de Noche concert series at the Ford Theatres in Los Angeles. Click here for more information and tickets.
