Son calentano

Son calentano is the fiddle-led traditional music of Mexico's Tierra Caliente, the hot lowlands where Guerrero, Michoacán and the State of Mexico meet. A violin states fast, ornamented melodies over the strummed guitarra de golpe, jarana and the struck tamborita drum, in sones, gustos, valses and pasodobles played for dancing on wooden platforms. Its modern emblem is *Juan Reynoso Portillo*, the self-taught violinist called the 'Paganini de la Tierra Caliente', whose recordings carried a fiercely local repertory to national attention in his old age.