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La Polka Suazo / Chot​í​s de la Burra Orejona (Polka​/​Chot​í​s)

from Nuevas Acequias, Rio Viejo: traditional music of Northern New Mexico by Lone Piñon

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about

Available for free download in celebration of the life and legacy of Antonia Apodaca (November 1, 1923 – January 25, 2020).

This is a medley of a polka and chotís, both learned from accordionist Antonia Apodaca of Rociada, New Mexico. Antonia was born in 1923 into a musical family. We met her through Ken Keppeler and Jeanie McLerie, who met Antonia in the 1980’s at a point in her life when she had given up music. They encouraged her to begin playing again, and then played with her for many years, touring together to share her music across New Mexico and the US.

Antonia started playing her mom’s diatonic accordion as a child and took after her mother’s style, which is characteristic of Northern New Mexico: the accordion is played like a one-row instrument, with lots of chord clusters in the melody and strong bass chords that don’t follow the melody in the way we’re used to nowadays, creating a percussive and drone effect. This style of playing has more in common with old Midwestern and Scandinavian styles than the neighboring Tejano styles that have become more popular in New Mexico today. Antonia recalls meeting conjunto tejano accordion pioneer Santiago Jiménez Sr., who loved her playing and encouraged her to “keep up her old style”.

When Antonia was just 9 years old, she won her first accordion by taking first place in an accordion contest in Santa Fe. It was this tune, “La Polka Suazo”, which she played, having learned it from her mother’s family. We combine this tune with another we learned from her, a chotís that some people call “La Burra Orejona”. The chotís (also called the chote and shotís in New Mexico) is a popular partner dance (it originated in Bohemia as the šotyš and then spread throughout Europe and the New World.) This particular chotís inherits the first part from an American square dance tune called “Flop-Eared Mule”. In the territorial period many Midwestern and Southern hoedown melodies were incorporated in New Mexico music as chotíses, cuadrillas and marchas, with the melodies altered and ‘New-Mexicanized’ by new melodic and rhythmic interpretations. Sometimes half of a back-East hoedown ended up combined with half of a local tune to make a new creation, as is the case with this chotís.

You can find a recording of Antonia's playing here:
bayouseco.com/product/antonia-apodaca-recuerdos-de-rociada/

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from Nuevas Acequias, Rio Viejo: traditional music of Northern New Mexico, released December 15, 2019

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Lone Piñon Albuquerque, New Mexico

Lone Piñon is an acoustic conjunto from New Mexico whose music celebrates the diversity and integrity of their region's cultural roots.

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