“I compose my songs so that the people can sing them,” José Alfredo Jiménez once said, considered one of the best composers of all time.
The son of the people, that’s what many called him, because the man born in Dolores, Guanajuato, was an organic source of the creation of popular Mexican art.
The man from Guanajuato was a minstrel who with the country song, mariachi, universal… translated collective feelings into individual passions.
Dear José Alfredo will be celebrated his mournful anniversary, more than because of the sorrow of his departure, because of his perennial figure.
José Alfredo, who died on November 23, 1973 at the age of 47, will be remembered with the National Tribute program for the 50th anniversary of the death of José Alfredo Jiménez, which will be held in the singer’s hometown, Dolores Hidalgo, Guanajuato, on the 14th Festival José Alfredo Jiménez from November 22 to 26.
mexican emblem
The singer-songwriter bequeathed more than 300 songs that today are emblems of his love for Mexico, a country that now, five decades after his departure, celebrates him with 83 activities in 24 states. Although, essentially, the celebration will take place in Guanajuato and in Mexico City, at the Palacio de Bellas Artes, on September 2 and 3, when the National Symphony Orchestra will perform a program with 20 of his most emblematic melodies.
The artist will also be celebrated at the Cervantino Festival in its 51st edition.
Yesterday afternoon, at the Marble Palace, authorities such as the Secretary of Culture of the Mexican government, Alejandra Frausto; the governor of the state of Guanajuato, Diego Sinhue, as well as the heiress of José Alfredo, Paloma Jiménez offered the press a preview of the program (which can be seen in its entirety on the site mexicoescultura.com), which will shine in the merit of Dolores, with serenades in the mausoleum that houses his remains, as well as music, dance and gastronomy activities.
Paloma Jiménez explained during the presentation that, as others have said, “you cannot live a disappointment or celebration without listening to a song by José Alfredo.”
He affirmed that his father “was nourished by the effervescence of the feelings of the whole country” and for this reason we identified ourselves, we appropriated it to sing “.
Paloma considers that all Mexicans “need the apapacho of their songs.”
the son of the people
Alejandra Frausto was pleased to present this program at the national level of an “eternal author who lives in our hearts and in our memory. He is a universal Mexican that is celebrated here (in Bellas Artes), right where the art of the Mexican tradition should never have left. José Alfredo is a cultural institution and son of the people”.
Then, ranchera music, mariachis and a great cultural and gastronomic festival will await the visitor in Guanajuato.
After the presentation in the Manuel M. Ponce room of the Fine Arts, Paloma Jiménez and the organizers of the tribute, gathered the press in the traditional Tenampa Room, in Garibaldi, where the singer María del Sol, also from Guanajuato, ambassador of the events, He celebrated by singing If they leave us with Paloma and state authorities with a traditional Otomi meal and some drinks to quench his thirst… badly, as José Alfredo refers to in some of his songs.
“My dad considered the canteens as shelters,” Paloma said on the Plaza Garibaldi site. She even read a stanza that Dolores Hidalgo’s teacher dedicated to Tenampa.
José Alfredo’s work is very broad, it includes all the circumstances of human feeling and covers most of the genres of Mexican song, since he wrote boleros, waltzes and ranchera ballads.
Every fall the José Alfredo Jiménez International Festival is held in Dolores, Hidalgo. His city sings rancheras, corridos and huapangos by the singer-songwriter, there are open-air concerts, cultural activities, gastronomic shows, a guided tour of the canteens and, finally, Las Mañanitas is sung for him in front of his mausoleum.
A must-see is the José Alfredo Jiménez House Museum (one of the bodies in charge of the homage) and the tourist inn that bears his name, where you can savor handmade ice cream and other delicacies of traditional Otomi cuisine.
The national tribute will be the result of the collaboration of the federal Ministry of Culture, the National Institute of Fine Arts and Literature, as well as the cultural organizations of Guanajuato and Dolores Hidalgo. The book Cuando te habla de amor was recently presented, which deals with the life and work of José Alfredo.