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DAN OLSON: We Minnesotans have bounced to polkas--

[MUSIC PLAYING]

--wriggled and writhed to rock and roll. And after surviving all that, we deserve mariachi. And what, you might ask, is mariachi music about?

PEDRO TORRES: Life, love, work-- everything about life, they express them in such a joyful way.

[SINGING IN SPANISH]

DAN OLSON: Pedro Torres is a founder of Mariachi Flor y Canto. He and the six other band members have families and day jobs, but they grab every chance to play and sing.

PEDRO TORRES: (SIGHS) It's a great need that is coming from within me, and I have the necessity to express my feelings, my culture, my happiness, my sadness.

DAN OLSON: This song, performed by Mariachi Flor y Canto is happy. The rancher is joyous over his abundance and is saying, come on, let's have a party.

[SINGING IN SPANISH]

Mariachi music is old, but not ancient. It was born in Mexico's Jalisco region. Dr. Daniel Sheehy, Curator of the Smithsonian's Folkways Recordings in Washington, DC says one of the first written mentions of mariachi is from the pen of a cleric. 151 years ago, a dyspeptic parish priest in rural Mexico wrote his superior that he was peeved with members of his flock for falling under the spell of local musicians.

DANIEL SHEEHY: He was complaining because on Holy Saturday, there were these musicians and people making music and playing cards and carrying on out in the town plaza, and they called this mariachi.

DAN OLSON: Mariachi music's popularity rocketed into orbit in the 1930s, propelled by movies and radio. The music spread like wildfire across the border into the southwestern United States. Now, there are dozens of festivals, high school, and even college music programs featuring mariachi music.

[SINGING IN SPANISH]

The music style has changed dramatically from the old days when it was played on harp and drum. One thing for sure is the Saturday night revelry part of the tradition is holding up just fine. Every month on the fourth Saturday, Pedro Torres and his fellow Mariachi Flor y Canto members serenade diners at Boca Chica. The West Side of Saint Paul Restaurant is a teeming blend of Spanish speakers, cheek by jowl with Anglos, all chowing down on the eatery's famous Mexican cuisine.

Dressed in traditional mariachi attire-- elegant black suits, white shirts and belts with elaborate buckles-- Torres and the band-- five men and two women-- stroll, strum, and sing. Pedro Torres's soulful brown eyes gleam at Mariachi's bright future in Minnesota. There's a steady stream of new residents with the music in their blood spreading the mariachi tradition.

PEDRO TORRES: We are going to have much, much greater opportunities to play and to develop mariachi music, maybe someday schools. These people are bringing culture, too, to us.

DAN OLSON: Mariachi Flor y Canto plays Saturday afternoon at Saint Paul's West Side Cinco de Mayo celebration. The group plays Sunday at noon at the Mall of America in Bloomington. Dan Olson, Minnesota Public Radio.

[SINGING IN SPANISH]

[CHEERS, APPLAUSE]