Tune in: ‘The Big New-Mex Review’ at Tumbleroot celebrates New Mexico’s musical soul

What is New Mexican music? Like most aspects of New Mexican culture, it’s not just one thing but an ever-evolving medley of cross-cultural influences.

On Wednesday, Jan. 28, Tumbleroot Brewery and Distillery in Santa Fe will present “The Big New-Mex Review: A Musical Journey through the Land of Enchantment,” a free concert showcasing the rich diversity of music in New Mexico today. The concert is the brainchild of Lance Bendiksen, a longtime producer and composer, who moved to Santa Fe with his wife three years ago after coming to the area off and on for many years.

“When we moved here and started discovering some of the little gems — not just the up-and-coming artists who are packing rooms, but some of the artists that you hear in restaurants, small venues, back alleys and such — I was totally smitten,” Bendiksen said. “I started inviting these artists over to my studio to record music.”

The musicians spanned many genres: norteño, mariachi, Americana, hip-hop, country, jazz rock and even an Indigenous reggae band. Eventually, he got the idea to bring them all together under one roof.

“The Big New-Mex Review” will be hosted by Wes Studi (Cherokee), the first Indigenous actor to receive an Academy Award. Studi, who has appeared in such films as “Dances with Wolves,” “The Last of the Mohicans” and “Avatar,” will lead the audience through an evening of music and storytelling.

Studi and Bendiksen first collaborated on the 2018 music album, “Voices of the Guardians,” for which Studi voiced words by Chief Joseph, Sitting Bull and other historic Indigenous leaders over an instrumental soundscape.

“I love Wes Studi,” Bendiksen said. “I came to know Wes through making that album, and when we moved here, we became friends. So, I know Wes will set a nice mood (for the evening). I can’t give away the opening, because it’s a surprise … but it will be different.”

Musical reviews — often spelled “revues” — are a type of glitzy, music-centered variety show that had their heyday in the 1920s. Although financing such lavish productions became more challenging after the Great Depression, they continued to be staged, with less frequency, into the 1950s. Bendiksen said he was inspired to create an old-school revue after visiting the iconic Norman Petty Studios in Clovis and seeing a vintage poster for a revue starring Buddy Holly.

Bob Dylan revived the revue concept in 1975 with his “Rolling Thunder Revue” — a national concert tour that boasted a traveling caravan of well-known folk musicians. That tour inspired two experimental documentary films: his own, titled “Renaldo and Clara” (1978), and Martin Scorsese’s “Rolling Thunder Revue” (2019).

Bendiksen and cinematographer James Chressanthis plan to make their own film based on “The Big New-Mex Review,” which will combine concert footage from the Tumbleroot show with documentary segments about the musicians. 

Bendiksen named “Buena Vista Social Club” (1999) and “Muscle Shoals” (2013) as two music documentaries that are along the lines of what he wants to do with his film. More than just music films, those documentaries delved into the cultural geography of Cuba and Alabama, respectively, just as Bendiksen hopes to capture New Mexico’s unique multicultural landscape.

“I see this being the New Mexico version of how beautiful some of that ‘Muscle Shoals’ movie was, where they’re shooting along the Tennessee River,” Bendiksen said. “In that movie, you have many hit artists, so it leans into the music, probably more than our movie will. We may lean more into the story of the lives of these people, and the landscape, and how that shapes the music, and how the music fuses with the landscape and the culture. So, there may be back alley shots of adobe pergolas and entryways and passages mixed with food trucks and murals on walls.”

The Jan. 28 concert will feature performances by Nosotros, Hooks and the Huckleberries, Euforia, Southern Slam, Cali Shaw, Maura Studi, Innastate, DB Gomez and the Bosque Boys, James Raymond, Onist, and Danny T and the Stealing Thunder Band.

“The show is a little different, because it’s not just bands playing their own material,” Bendiksen said. “People will be sitting in with each other’s acts, so it’ll have this fusion.”

Beyond simply celebrating the music of New Mexico, Bendiksen hopes the concert and subsequent film will help break down social and cultural barriers and bring people together.

“We believe so strongly in the message that — in this difficult time of division that we’re going through — music transcends race, religion, politics and economic status,” he said. “That’s what it’s all about.”

Logan Royce Beitmen is an arts writer for the Albuquerque Journal. He covers visual art, music, fashion, theater and more. Reach him at lbeitmen@abqjournal.com or on Instagram at @loganroycebeitmen.