Gertie Lopez couldn’t have been much older than 10 or 11 when her violinist father Augustine B. Lopez Sr. bought an accordion.
“He put it in the living room and wanted to see which of his nine children would pick it up,” Lopez recalled. “My brother and I did.”
Fifty years later, Lopez is still playing that accordion, championing the waila music of her Tohono O’odham people and inspiring generations of young musicians to carry on the tradition.
That music and the success of her lifelong mission will be on full display Saturday, May 18, when Desert Diamond Casino in Sahuarita hosts the fifth annual Waila Celebration.
Lopez and her business partner Faith Liston curated the one-day festival, recruiting waila bands from the Tohono O’odham nation to perform from 4 to 10 p.m. at the Desert Diamond Casino plaza, 1100 W. Pima Mine Road in Sahuarita.
This is the third year that Lopez has coordinated the festival, which celebrates the culture and history of waila and it future.
“We were just thrilled when they asked us to help,” Lopez said earlier this week.
Lopez recruited several bands whose members likely grew up listening to Lopez and her Gertie and the T.O. Boyz band, which has been playing throughout Tucson, the state and beyond for 25 years.
The band’s supporting cast is ever-evolving — “I roll with whoever wants to roll with me on the weekend,” Lopez joked — but you will always find Lopez behind the mic, accordion in hand.
“The love that Gertie has for the music and to continue the legacy of the Tohono O’odham waila music,” Liston said. “She is leaving a mark for (the next generation) that there is something positive with music that can help them change their lives and become resilient. There are so many things that reservation children go through with historical trauma; music is such a positive release (that teaches them) to be proud of who they are as Tohono O’odham.”
Lopez’s paycheck job is working in early childhood education as a learning resource coordinator for the nation’s San Xavier District. But her soul-check job comes when she shares waila with the world.
“Waila music consists of polkas and mazurkas and schottisches, which are a two-step kind of dance,” she explained.
The music also borrows from regional cumbia and the traditional Tohono O’odham Kwayla square dance. Put it altogether and you have the very definition of happy music, Lopez will tell you.
“It is really, really precious to keep that kind of music going,” said Lopez.
Today’s generation of waila bands have taken the tradition and added onto it, bringing in brass, keyboards and percussion to the mix of guitars, violin and accordion. That evolution, Lopez said, will only help the music continue.
But it also sends a message, said Liston, whose daughter Musiq, a member of the University of Arizona marching band, sometimes plays alto sax in Lopez’s band.
“It’s exposure for Tohono O’odham because some people think of native people as extinct. ...,” Liston said. “When Gertie is out there sharing, she is sharing a positive light that we are still here and where our aboriginal lands were before they were ceded. It gives people perspective when they come in.”
The festival will open with a traditional blessing at 4 p.m. The music lineup kicks off with T.O. Mumsigo WailaBand at 6 p.m., followed by T.O. Legacy, which adds a little cumbia to its set, at 7. The Pick-Up Kings take the stage at 8 followed by Lopez and here T.O. Boyz at 9.
In addition to the music, the festival will include arts and crafts booths and food. Admission is free; ddcaz.com.
