Under the “big tent”

Huayucaltia’s 25-year odyssey, Part 1

Ford Director of Communications Linda Chiavaroli chatted with the five members of Huayucaltia — Antonio Ezkauriatza, Cindy Harding, Ciro Hurtado, Julio Ledezma and Hernan Pinilla — after a rehearsal for the band’s upcoming 25th anniversary concert at the Ford on May 29. The conversation was so rich, it warrants two-part treatment. Part 2 will appear May 26.

“This is what’s kept us together,” said guitarist Antonio Ezkauriatza as he made a sweeping gesture echoing the oval shape of the dining room table in Ciro Hurtado’s and Cindy Harding’s house in the Hollywood Hills. The band and musical comrades were snacking, making jokes, sipping tequila and stepping on each other’s lines like an extended family. One of the meanings of the group’s name — pronounced why-you-cal-tee-ah — is “big tent,” as in big enough for everyone to fit in.

The story of how Huayucaltia wove the strands of their Peruvian, Mexican, Colombian, Argentinean and North American roots begins with Hernan Pinilla. They created a musical fabric that resonates with Latin American natives and world music fans alike

“It all started with Café Cultural and KPFK,” says Pinilla. “It was 1984. I had been here from Colombia about 5 months and spoke no English but listened to Latin American music on KPFK.” Through musical festivals announced on the radio and gatherings at the café — a center for traditional music, poetry and political discussion — he became connected to the music scene. His expertise on the pan pipes was his entrée. “There were maybe a handful of pan pipe players in L.A. at the time.” Pinilla’s presence at a 1985 music festival at UCLA was fateful.

Enter Cindy Harding. She was born in Palo Alto, California, but grew up in Latin America (“my first language was Portuguese”). Her father, Tim Harding, made recordings of indigenous music and her mother performed Mexican folk dances. “My sister and I were dragged to concerts and dance practices and a friend said, ‘It’s amazing your parents know all this stuff and you guys can’t dance or play an instrument.’ Well, that’s all I needed to hear. Don’t tell me I can’t do something.”

At Brown University she, her sister Libby and other women formed Sabiá, a musical group that was touring full time by the 1980s and recording for Redwood and Rounder Records. “There was a lot of solidarity with El Salvador and Nicaragua at the time. A lot of our songs were about Latin America and Latin American women.”

Antonio Ezkauriatza knew Cindy through a Latin American music course taught by Tim Harding at Cal State LA. “I‘m Mexican but most of my friends were South American so I was listening to their music. To me it was part of everything that came together.” He also knew the musician with whom Ciro Hurtado was partnered at the time.

Hurtado, a guitarist who came to L.A. from the jungles of Peru, was playing in a duo with a Bolivian musician at the UCLA festival. “Jackson Browne and Daryl Hannah were there. They were an item then and Daryl Hannah has just made ‘Splash.’ I couldn’t believe I was seeing them live. I thought ‘This is Hollywood.’ It’s my third major gig and I’m seeing these people.”

He was also star struck meeting Cindy: “Sabiá was just huge.”

Ezkauriatza describes himself as a “Huayucaltia groupie. I did sound, carried instruments.” Hurtado smiles, “He was just waiting for us to invite him to play.”

Drummer Julio Ledezma’s introduction to the band came as a knock on the door of his home — then a boat in Venice — at 9 am one morning. “This guy’s carrying a guitar and a bomba and says, ‘I want to take lessons from you. I’ve gotta play tonight.’ Hours later we’re in West Hollywood and I met the band.’” The earnest young wannabe didn’t make it with Huayucaltia but Ledezma ultimately did.

“I came here from Argentina to play rock and roll. I wanted to be the drummer with Deep Purple. But I discovered that what we do, going back to our roots, is so much richer. Well known musicians would say, ‘Show me how you do that.’ Why am I trying to play like them when they want to play like me?”

Says Hurtado, “We don’t follow trends. We are a success story, I think. We can play what we want. We can choose our gigs.”

All this in spite of what Harding calls their “cursed name. Nobody can spell it. Nobody can pronounce it. Cheech Marin introduced us once as ‘Why-why-why don’t you change your name?’ But Huayucaltia is absolutely what we are.”

Photo by David L. Rosenbloom

For more information about this particular event, click here.

Huayucaltia’s show is one of seven events in the Ford’s Global Soundscape series celebrating music from around the world.


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