Dancing in the Dust

Native American “Chicken Scratch” from the Tohono O’odam reservation of S. Arizona. Chicken Scratch, or Waila, is party, dance music played on special events that last all night, 12 hours at a time. Borrowing heavily from Norteno/Tejano, this is guitar/bass/drum music that features distinctive tenor sax and accordian leads and melodies. This CD is a record of the 10th Annual Waila Festival held in Tucson in 1998. The festival serves to expose this form of music to uniniated anglos, for the most part, and this CD is an excellent intro, educational, covering several bands, improv jams, and representing the main music styles used in Chicken Scratch:

Waila=2/4 upbeat polka, Chote=2/4 with heaaavy sexy deeeeeep backbeat, Cumbia=traditional multistep mid paced dance ubiquitous in mexico, Mazurka=heavy ¾ waltz

1) CD intro
2,4,7,12,14,16,21,22) MC
3) upbeat fun representative waila
5) heavy backbeat chote, the shit!
6) upbeat waila
8) minor keyed cumbia
9) waila with great chicken sax
10) MC speaks in Tohono at first then gives an excellent intro to the next song
11) very old sounding, very early form of chicken scratch, out of tune dissonant charm
13) waila jam
15) heavy chote
17) beautiful traditional polka done waila style
18) oh yeah! Drunken feel chote, heavy bad ass stuff
19) nice outro by band
20) good cumbia, great drums
23) mazurka
24) waila