Cuarteto Coculense

Hailing from Cocula in Jalisco, Cuarteto Coculense earned distinction as the earliest mariachi ensemble to commit performances to disc, cutting roughly sixty sides for Columbia, Edison, and Victor during sessions held in Mexico City across 1908 and 1909. Directed by Justo Villa, the musicians concentrated on sones abajenos, the rural songs native to the Bajio region of Jalisco, which they executed on fiddles and guitars while adding exuberant harmony vocals. For reasons that remain unclear, each of the three labels received essentially the same program of material; after those discs appeared, no further trace of the ensemble’s activities survives.