Once in a while I get the opportunity to sit down with one of Mexico’s most accomplished musicians and listen to his or her story. Last week I was able to spend a hour with Eleazar Soto listening to him spin out how he came to be a master saxophonist in jazz. Here is part of that interview.
Ten years ago, a 32-year old musician by the name of Eleazar “Chuco” Soto arrive in Ajijic. Neither he nor Ajijic have been the same since.
“I arrived in Ajijic August 14, 2014, to stay. I came to Ajijic the first time for the mountains, and then for the art. I studied music in Monterrey, but here I learned to follow my dreams,” Soto told Lakeside News in an interview in its downtown office.
Not only has Soto, now 42, learned to follow his dreams here, but he has created new dreams for the music communities in Ajijic. As a producer, saxophonist, organizer, composer, teacher and nonstop creator of music and music events and videos he has made a mark on Ajijic that will endure long after he has sounded his last note. He has also built a community of artists, listeners, and patrons of jazz, the least popular and least appreciated musical form in Mexico, but one that thrives in Ajijic, in part, thanks to Soto.
He has done this by bringing up and nurturing not only other musicians, but dancers and film makers and most important – audiences. The past ten years have seen him record albums, stream on Spotify, organize concerts with world-renowned jazz musicians, teach young artists and show them the ropes, score a film on Ajijic’s beloved Lake goddess Michi-Cihuali, and give innumerable performances in Ajijic and Guadalajara with his group Trialogo.
His story began in his hometown of Monterrey, where he first discovered music when his mother gave him a guitar. He played the guitar throughout secondario, but his life changed in 2003 when he picked up a saxophone and knew it was his future.
“The saxophone and I matched perfectly…I knew this was my instrument. The saxophone is me” I was in love,” he said when asked why he switched from guitar to the more difficult and expensive and less versatile saxophone.
He studied classical guitar in Monterrey, but he had spent years listening to his “heroes of jazz”, so he arrived in Ajijic with a wide knowledge of different music forms, a knowledge that supported in in the first few years after he fell in love with the sax
“When I was 20, I listed to the first cassettes and CDs of Pat Metheny, John Coltrane, Wayne Shorter, Miles Davis and jazz heroes. I am now 42 years old so I have listened to jazz for 28 yrs. But when I arrived in Ajijic, I played in many bands and many types of music,” he told Lakeside News, “cumbia, rock, oldies, bars, weddings. ..whatever I needed to earn a living. But I always had a dream and Ajijic gave me the freedom to pursue that dream of jazz…to play the music of my heroes, and now my original music.”
That freedom was not easy because he said there were very few jazz musicians here, or even in Mexico. But he found compadres – bassist Gilberto Rios. Drummer Miguel Soto, their first pianist Jorge Vedín, and now pianist Sofia Ramierez. They constitute the jazz group Trialogo, which has played dozens of concerts, recorded three albums together and will be playing Guadalajara’s Teatro Maria Teresa on February 15, one of the 100 concerts he is slated to play this year.
“Finding other musicians here was difficult at first but I found my jazz friends in Ajijic and I found even some in Guadalajara. Some I play with now, some I don’t. Trialogo is very special, “he said, “We have a very special bond – we are like brothers, even Sofia is a brother,” he added with a smile.
Finding his “band of brothers” was only part of what propelled his success. He cited four other important influences – Ajijic, La Cochera Cultural, Emelia Gálvez, and the Expat community.
“Ajijic changed my music,” he told Lakeside News,” it was a big change. Because of the support here and audiences here and the welcome here I could focus on and develop jazz. Why jazz? My teachers never played jazz, but it moves me. When I came here, I was able to work with important jazz musicians and to play my original music.”
As part of why Ajijic changed his music and enabled him to thrive, he cited La Cochera Cultural, the cultural center on Javier Minas in Ajiic.
“La Cochera is my home, but also my place where I can pour my creativity into music, composition, and where I can make my dreams come true in different facets from musician to producer,” he said. Emelia (Emelia Gálvez, his partner and the Director of La Cochera Cultura) helped me tremendously, and so did Jennifer and Tom (Jennifer Stanley and Tom Weeks the founders of La Cochera Cultura) and the other people at La Cochera.
Soto is the Music Curator at La Cochera, where he also plays concerts, teaches music, sound engineers other events, organizes tours by nationally-known artists, scores films, and helps Emelia with administration and logistics.
He had special praise for Gálvez. “Emelia is very organized. She teaches me all the time. Emelia has also learned a lot in Europe, during her years in Spain. I have learned a lot about production from Emelia,” he said, noting that Emelia brought the Spaish music and Flamenco to la Cochera and into his life.
Finally, he credited te Expat community s in Ajijic for part of his success.
“Expats have been very important to my career, for the appreciation of what I can share as an artist. It is not only the money from sponsors, but their dedication and their appreciation for what I do. This was not the case in Monterrey. In Monterrey I worked from 6 am to 2 am on other people’s projects. Here, with the support of La Cochera and the Expat community, I can work on my own projects. I found an audience, friends, support and a welcome here in the Expat Community that was not present in in Monterrey,” he said.
He also credited the Expats he has worked with in Ajijic for teaching him organization. He said that he has “learned from Expats about organization and the planning – its what they do…..the step by step way they do things and the planning. It is different for Mexicans” He said that he has noticed that in the past 10 years, his circle of friends in the Expat community has grown very large and that it continues to grow.
He is going to need those lessons in organizing and planning as he moves forward with his second ten years in Ajijic. “I like big challenges and they require organization and planning…and money,” he said.
Among the big challenges he has coming up are the “Festival Internacional de Jazz y Músicas Improvisadas Ajijic,” which he is organizing and has scheduled for late October of this year. He is planning a multi-day festival of the best local and world-famous jazz musicians in venues around Ajijc. This will be a larger version of the 2018 festival which was a major success ad elevated Ajijic as a center of jazz.
If that was not enough, he is planning on a Pan-America tour to jazz festivals in Panama and Costa Rica, along with productions and concerts in various venues along the way.
You can usually friend Eleazar “Chuco” Soto at concerts at La Cochera Cultural, like the one on Sunday , Feb 11, with the Son Jarocho Music of Veracruz, which he will sound engineer. For more information about the tour, the “Festival Internacional de Jazz y Músicas Improvisadas Ajijic,” and other activities of Eleazar Soto in 2024, please contact: rezzonante@gmail.com.
Photo: banner, Eleazar Soto on state at the CCAR Auditorium in Ajijic. Photo Patrick O’Heffernan
Patrick O’Heffernan
