Felix Y Los Gatos stirs up some green chile gumbo

Aug. 30—Felix Peralta could not have avoided the musical life even if he had fought it with all his might.

His grandfather, Adán Aragón, was a shepherd in Tome, south of Albuquerque. Aragón, Peralta says, was also a musician: He played the accordion and performed with his band in church and at backyard parties.

Until sixth or seventh grade, Peralta — or Gato, as his relatives call him — played traditional Spanish music and more "modern" New Mexican songs, like Aragón. "And then, in eighth grade, I heard Jimi Hendrix," says the 46-year-old musician. He didn't stop there.

Peralta is the co-founder and lead member of Felix Y Los Gatos, a nationally touring act from Albuquerque's South Valley. He formed the band 20 years ago with D.B. Gomez (on the accordion). Today, Felix Y Los Gatos includes Peralta on vocals, the guitar, and accordion; Justin Bransford on the bass and contrabass; and Andrés Ramírez on drums.

Felix Y Los Gatos will wrap up the Los Alamos Summer Concert Series on Friday, August 30, at Ashley Pond.

Their style? Hard to pin down. The songs the band performs are a mix of original tracks and covers, on a 60/40 ratio, says Peralta, also the group's songwriter. The sounds have inflections of cumbia, Cajun, Norteño, New Mexico ranchera, zydeco chicano, blues, western swing, New Orleans swing, and outlaw country. The band is billed as "Zydeco/Blues/Tejano" for the Los Alamos performance, but even the three bandmates themselves struggle to come up with an apt description of their music. Maybe "green chile gumbo?" Peralta suggests.

details

Los Alamos Summer Concert Series: Felix Y Los Gatos

* 6 p.m. Friday, August 30

* Ashley Pond Park (blankets and chairs allowed)

* 2200 Trinity Drive, Los Alamos

* Free

* losalamossummerconcertseries.com; felixylosgatos.com

"Green chile gumbo sounds about right," Bransford says when he is presented with the genre. Ramírez adds, "When we play cumbias, we call them green chile cumbia."

It's about the music, no matter what they call it, Peralta says.

"Some musicians tend to be purists," he says. "But I'm kind of open to anything nowadays. I've even played with Carlos Núñez [Muñoz] in Galicia, who's a very big smash. He plays the bagpipes and the flute."

Like Núñez, a poster boy for Galician music (named for a small community in Spain), Peralta enjoys pushing the boundaries of the genre. He has an agent in Europe and a global manager. This fall, Peralta will play and take Irish accordion lessons in Ireland; he'll attend the Womex Global Music Festival in Manchester in the U.K.; and he'll participate in the Songs of Santiago: Contemplative Songwriting Retreat, a movable workshop along the Camino de Santiago in Spain led by musician Kristina Jacobsen, a University of New Mexico ethnomusicologist and anthropologist.

Back at home, the group's fans are dedicated, no matter the genre. When Felix Y Los Gatos performed earlier this month at Sawmill Market in Albuquerque, it got the audience going. Near the end of the gig, the crowd formed a conga line, with cowboy boots and sandals kicking up pebbles and dust.

Wooden string instruments are especially sensitive to direct sunlight, so that day, Bransford chose not to use his upright bass — or contrabass — for fear of damaging it. "I didn't know if we were going to have shade, so I brought the electric bass," he says. For the Los Alamos performance, Bransford will play his doghouse bass, weather permitting.

Bransford has been playing with the Gatos for three years, and he, too, owes his musical beginnings in part to a grandparent. "When I was a little kid, we would go visit my grandmother, and I would sit down at her piano and play melodies, and they [relatives] were like, 'Oh, he's musical,'" he says. "So they gave me piano lessons. I played piano until I was 14."

He learned the guitar and discovered the bass at age 19. "The bass is in the center of the music," says the musician and bass teacher. "It plays rhythm, and it plays harmony. It's not a spotlight instrument. It's a support instrument and a supportive role, and I feel very comfortable in supportive roles. I'm a team player. So, I want to be in the center of the music, but I want to support the other musicians, and the bass is a great way to do that."

The grandparent theme is a recurrent one among the Gatos. Ramírez was born in Guadalajara, Mexico, and has been playing with the Gatos for about a year. He became a drummer and percussionist due in part to his grandmother's iron fist with her own daughters.

"One of my aunts, she was dating this guy who invited her to a wedding," Ramírez says. "So my grandma says, 'You want to go with that guy? You have to take one of the kids.' And so they took me to the wedding. I was my aunt's chaperone. I was 8.

"It was the very first time I saw a band," he adds. "There are no musicians in my family, so I had never seen music performed. I remember going there and just looking at the drummer. And the whole wedding, I didn't move from my seat. I was just staring at the drummer the whole time."

His family had reservations, but Ramírez was determined. "I told my family that I wanted to be a drummer, but they said, 'You're crazy. Pick something cheaper, like a flute or something like that,'" he says. "So I played the air drums until I was 14, when I was able to buy my first drum set with the help of my aunt, who had married that guy from the wedding. They both co-signed and I bought my drum set on credit, and I paid for it by playing the guitar on public transportation. On buses. That's how I was able to pay for my drums."

He toured Mexico with his first band at age 15 and later moved to the U.S. to learn other percussion styles. Today, Ramírez spends his rare free time trying to perfect his drum kit. Peralta says he was looking for a percussionist who was versatile and could play as quietly or as loudly as a venue required.

Ramírez is nothing if not adaptable; he also plays for another band, Proyecto Cumbion, which performed at the Water Tower in the Railyard recently with Cimafunk, a Grammy-nominated Cuban musician.

With the Gatos, Ramírez gets to be creative. He sits on a cajón and beats it with a pedal with his right foot. On his left foot, he has a hi-hat cymbal and a foot cowbell. To his right is a ride/hand crash cymbal and in front, bongos and a piccolo snare.

Just like Bransford, Ramírez has a blast on stage with the Gato from southwest Albuquerque. Safe to say, Adán Aragón — and all the grandparents — should be proud.