Tucson, Arizona has a strong, growing independent music culture that focuses on locally grown and locally derived musical genres. The city is home to musical organizations that seek to nurture artists from the local music scene as well as introduce the community to other musical styles from beyond Southern Arizona.
Tucson is home to both home-grown and imported musical styles and influences, including:
The annual public-choice music awards – nicknamed the TAMMIES [4] – seeks to recognize local talent by highlighting Tucson's best musical performers. [5] The awards are held in the fall and are sponsored by Tucson Weekly magazine.
The following Tucson-based artists have been featured in a variety of local and national media.
A musical ensemble, also known as a music group, musical group, or a band is a group of people who perform instrumental and/or vocal music, with the ensemble typically known by a distinct name. Some music ensembles consist solely of instrumentalists, such as the jazz quartet or the orchestra. Other music ensembles consist solely of singers, such as choirs and doo-wop groups. In both popular music and classical music, there are ensembles in which both instrumentalists and singers perform, such as the rock band or the Baroque chamber group for basso continuo and one or more singers. In classical music, trios or quartets either blend the sounds of musical instrument families or group instruments from the same instrument family, such as string ensembles or wind ensembles. Some ensembles blend the sounds of a variety of instrument families, such as the orchestra, which uses a string section, brass instruments, woodwinds, and percussion instruments, or the concert band, which uses brass, woodwinds, and percussion. In jazz ensembles or combos, the instruments typically include wind instruments, one or two chordal "comping" instruments, a bass instrument, and a drummer or percussionist. Jazz ensembles may be solely instrumental, or they may consist of a group of instruments accompanying one or more singers. In rock and pop ensembles, usually called rock bands or pop bands, there are usually guitars and keyboards, one or more singers, and a rhythm section made up of a bass guitar and drum kit.
Tucson is a city in and the county seat of Pima County, Arizona, United States, and is home to the University of Arizona. It is the second-largest city in Arizona behind Phoenix, with a population of 542,629 in the 2020 United States census, while the population of the entire Tucson metropolitan statistical area (MSA) is 1,043,433. The Tucson MSA forms part of the larger Tucson-Nogales combined statistical area. Both Tucson and Phoenix anchor the Arizona Sun Corridor. The city is 108 miles (174 km) southeast of Phoenix and 60 mi (100 km) north of the United States–Mexico border.
The music of Mexico is highly diverse, featuring a wide range of musical genres and performance styles. It has been influenced by a variety of cultures, primarily deriving from Europeans, Indigenous, and Africans. Music became an expression of Mexican nationalism starting in the nineteenth century.
The music of Arizona began with Indigenous music of North America made by Indigenous peoples of Arizona. In the 20th century, Mexican immigrants popularized Banda, corridos, mariachi and conjunto. Other major influences come from styles popular throughout the rest of the United States.
Mariachi is an ensemble of musicians that typically play ranchera, the regional Mexican music dating back to at least the 18th century, evolving over time in the countryside of various regions of western Mexico. The usual mariachi group today consists of as many as eight violins, two trumpets and at least one guitar, including a high-pitched vihuela and an acoustic bass guitar called a guitarrón, and all players taking turns singing lead and doing backup vocals.
The Palm Desert Scene is a group of related bands and musicians from Palm Desert, California. Their hard rock sound – sometimes described as desert rock – contains elements of heavy metal, psychedelia, blues, punk, alternative, grunge, and other genres. It often features distinctive repetitive drum beats, a propensity for free-form jamming, and "trance-like" or "sludgy" grooves. The involved musicians often play in multiple bands simultaneously, and there is a high rate of collaboration between bands. The Palm Desert Scene is also notable for fostering stoner rock pioneers Kyuss. The term "stoner rock" is sometimes used interchangeably with the term "desert rock". However, not all Palm Desert scene bands are "stoner rock" and not all stoner rock bands sound exactly like those in Palm Desert. Palm Desert has been named by Blender magazine as "one of the top seven rock n' roll cities in America".
Calexico is an American indie rock band based in Tucson, Arizona. Founded in 1996, the band's two main members, Joey Burns and John Convertino, first played together in Los Angeles as part of the group Giant Sand. They have recorded a number of albums on Quarterstick Records and City Slang, and their 2005 EP, In the Reins, recorded with Iron & Wine, reached the Billboard 200 album charts. Their musical style is influenced by traditional Latin sounds of mariachi, conjunto, cumbia, and tejano mixed with country, jazz, and post-rock.
Mariachi Vargas De Tecalitlán is a Mexican folk ensemble of mariachi music founded in 1897 by Gaspar Vargas. Beginning in 1950 it was under the artistic guidance of the late Rubén Fuentes. The group's musical direction had been the responsibility of Don Jose "Pepe" Martínez from 1975 to around 2013-14. Now the ensemble is under the direction of Carlos Martínez.
Giant Sand is an American musical group from Tucson, Arizona, United States. Its most constant member is singer-songwriter Howe Gelb. The groups have developed idiosyncratic sound rooted in alternative country, but touching on a wide range of other styles and featuring Gelb's beatnik-influenced vocals and songwriting. Since about 2012, they have also performed as Giant Giant Sand when featuring a larger ensemble than their traditional four to six musicians.
Naked Prey was an American rock band from Tucson, Arizona. United States, which was formed in 1982 by the former Green on Red drummer Van Christian and David Seeger, who had been in the original line-up of the Giant Sandworms as well as The Pedestrians, a band credited with having performed the first punk rock show in Tucson. Other artists who recorded or performed with the band included members of Green on Red and the Sand Rubies, John Convertino and Joey Burns, later of Calexico, Chuck Prophet, Rainer Ptacek and longtime drummer Tommy Larkins, who currently plays with Jonathan Richman, famously appearing with him as half of the two-man Greek chorus in There's Something About Mary. Christian himself also performed with The Band of Blacky Ranchette and was in the original lineup of The Friends of Dean Martinez.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to music:
Thomas George Russell is an American singer-songwriter. Although most strongly identified with the Americana music tradition, his music also incorporates elements of folk, rock, and the cowboy music of the American West. Many of his songs have been recorded by other artists, including Johnny Cash, The Texas Tornados, k.d. lang, Guy Clark, Joe Ely, The Sir Douglas Quintet, Jason Boland, Nanci Griffith, Katy Moffatt, Ramblin' Jack Elliott, Sailcat, Iris Dement, Dave Alvin, and Suzy Bogguss.
The Tucson Symphony Orchestra, or TSO, is the primary professional orchestra of Tucson, Arizona. Founded in 1928, when the season consisted of just two concerts, the TSO is the oldest continuously running performing arts organization in the Southwest. The TSO's season now runs from September to May and consists of over 60 concerts, including a Classics Series of eight programs, a Pops Series of four programs, a Masterworks series of five chamber orchestra programs, a number of one-night only specials, and run-out concerts to surrounding areas, such as Oro Valley, Green Valley, Bisbee, Safford, Thatcher, and Nogales. The TSO also provides educational programming that reaches over 40,000 school children each season. Within the TSO are a number of standing chamber ensembles, including a string quartet, string quintet, piano trio, harp trio, brass quintet, and woodwind quintet. These ensembles help provide educational programming through school visits, perform recitals annually, and also perform at private and community events.
Sunnyside High School, opened in 1955, is home to two thousand students located on the south side of Tucson, Arizona. Sunnyside offers a variety of extracurricular programs, advanced placement courses, and specialized career and technical training programs. It is a part of the Sunnyside Unified School District.
For music from an individual year in the 1940s, go to 40 | 41 | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45 | 46 | 47 | 48 | 49
The Tucson Arizona Boys Chorus is a boys' choir based in Tucson, Arizona, which performs locally, nationally, and internationally. Founded in 1939 and incorporated as a non-profit educational organization in 1945, its mission is to facilitate music education and social development among Tucson youth ages 6 to 21. The chorus, presently numbering 150 members, sends out touring companies of 30 boys each who sing folk songs, Western ballads, Mexican songs, Christmas carols, spirituals, pop music, classical music, Broadway show tunes, and American patriotic songs. The boys also perform rope tricks. The chorus has performed in major venues around the world as well as on television and radio, and in collaboration with symphony orchestras and arts organizations. It has released albums both under its own label, TABC Records, and with Capitol Records, United Artists, and C.P. MacGregor.
The Symphonic Band and Chorus of the Secretariat of the Navy of Mexico is an ensemble of 120 musicians and singers whose members are professional musicians in the Mexican Navy. The band was founded by in 1941 and the chorus in 1993, to play music appropriate to the military mostly in Mexican venues but the ensemble has also played in various countries in North America and Europe. It gained international recognition in the late 1960s and early 1970s and participates in events for military bands.
Orkesta Mendoza is a Latin music band from Tucson, Arizona. It was founded by singer and guitarist Sergio Mendoza in 2009. Through the use of Latin percussion, accordion, brass, and steel guitars, the band's style, dubbed "indie mambo", is a combination of ranchera, cumbia, psychedelic and indie rock.
Brian Lopez is a Mexican-American singer-songwriter, guitarist, producer, and recording artist from Southern Arizona. His music is influenced by grunge rock, cross-border musical traditions and has come to epitomize the sound of the 21st-century American Southwest. A significant figure in the development of the Southwest psychedelic rock movement, Lopez has established a number of noted bands including Mostly Bears and Xixa, and played with internationally recognized artists Calexico, Giant Sand, KT Tunstall, and Nouvelle Vague. His solo albums include Ultra, Static Noise, and Prelude. Lopez's musical style has been compared to Nick Drake, Elliott Smith, Jeff Buckley, and Radiohead.