Mexican music

[Bapopik at AOL.COM]

    Greetings once again from Morelia, Mexico.  Tomorrow is the big Day of the Dead.  Too bad you can't buy a Cherry Garcia around here.
    Latin music is more than Ricky Martin.  This is from THE NEWS, 28 October 1999, pg. 2, col. 2, an interview with Tino Contreras, the grand old man of Meican jazz:

_Are you talking about the high-pitched promotion of the so-called _grupero_ music?_ (Note: Highly popular Grupero music is a mix of northern Mexican ranchero, Tex-Mex jive and a taint of rock.)
   All the television stations are now into the _grupero_ music, and to tell the truth, and you know, it is a type of music that does not bring anything extra to popular music.

_Maybe it's a little advance for _ranchero_ music?
   It's very easy to learn to play a dominant tune on an instrument like a guitar and put on a ten-gallon hat, Texas boots, and there you are.

_But they are selling a lot._
     They are selling like crazy.  But now that we are into this, recently I found out that the _gruperos_ are giving away late-model cars.  This sheer payola, or what I call musical drug trafficking.  Can you imagine a jazz player giving out presents like fancy cars or vans?  We'd be broke for life.

(Contreras calls his music "bolero-jazz."  Does Barnhart have _ranchero_ and _grupero_?--ed.)