Banda el Recodo


Banda Sinaloense El Recodo de Don Cruz Lizárraga, often referred to simply as Banda El Recodo, is a Mexican banda formed in Mazatlán, Sinaloa in 1938; it has been under the direction of the Lizárraga family. Banda El Recodo has recorded with popular artists such as José Alfredo Jiménez and Juan Gabriel.
The ensemble consists of four clarinets, three trumpets, a tambora, a snare drum set with cowbells & cymbals, a sousaphone, three trombones, two tenor horns, and two vocalists.

History

Banda El Recodo was founded by Cruz Lizárraga, a young musician who also gave it its current appearance, including the setting, style, shape and number of current members that associated it with the place of their origin, the State of Sinaloa on the Mexican Pacific. El Recodo was named after the town Lizárraga was born in.
In 1989, Banda El Recodo became the first Mexican brass banda to incorporate their own official vocalist into their line-up. Prior to this year, Banda El Recodo and other brass bandas recorded almost exclusively instrumentals. Banda El Recodo had previously provided the music on certain albums for solo artists such as José Alfredo Jiménez and Manolo Velarde.
They were the first Mexican brass banda to perform in Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, North and South America.
They were also the first Mexican band to play in the US State of Hawaii.
On June 17, 1995, Banda El Recodo’s founder, Cruz Lizárraga died in Mazatlán after a long illness, two weeks before his 77th birthday. Banda El Recodo was touring in Europe at the time of his death.
They are the only band to win the Latin Grammy nine times. In 2003, Banda El Recodo became the first Mexican band to be invited to perform at The Latin Grammy Awards, repeating their performance in 2008, 2010, 2015 and 2017, which made the Mexican band with the most participation in these awards.
They have received 12 "Premios Lo Nuestro" in their career, becoming the band with more awards in its genre.
They are winners of five Billboard Awards throughout their career in the categories "Album of the Year," "Song of the Year" and "Master Tone."
They are five-time winners of Premios Oye.
They are winners of Premios Bandamax, where they also received the special award "Productor y Visionario de La Música Regional."
In 1999, Banda El Recodo performed at the Plaza de Toros México in Mexico City, which was attended by over 50,000 fans. Tickets were sold out three days prior to the day of their performance.
In 2000, Banda El Recodo gathered 135,000 people at Mexico City’s Zócalo.
In 2003, Banda El Recodo performed three consecutive days with a total sold out at the Auditorio Nacional in Mexico City.
In 2004, Banda El Recodo became the first band to be invited to perform at the White House in front of United States President George W. Bush, during the festivities of Cinco De Mayo. That same year, they performed once again at the Zócalo of Mexico City before more than 100 thousand people that went to see them.
Banda El Recodo has been the only band that has attended three FIFA World Cups to support the Mexican national soccer team with their music during the official games.
In 2006, Banda El Recodo participated in Televisa's soap opera "La Fea Más Bella," where they also sang the opening theme song.
Banda El Recodo made a small appearance in Hollywood cinema for the very first time in the movie "Babel," which was directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu who decided to use their song "La Fea."
In 2007, Banda El Recodo’s music appeared again in a Hollywood film. Their song "Qué Te Ruegue Quien Te Quiera" was used in one of the scenes of the movie, “Rocky Balboa”.
October 9, 2008 was immortalized as the day of the Banda El Recodo and the day of Cruz Lizárraga, in the city of Las Vegas, Nevada. On this day, they were awarded with 2 stars on the Las Vegas Walk of Stars.
In 2013, Banda El Recodo released their production No. 200 "Haciendo Historia." On October 14, 2014, 50 year old trumpeter, Aldo Sarabia went missing over a week. Later on October 22, he was found dead. Authorities said, Sarabia was shot in the neck and had been punched several times. The Attorney General of Sinaloa, Marco Antonio Higuera Gómez, announced that Sarabia was murdered by his wife, Alma Delia Chávez Guerrero, and her lover, Jair Alfredo Sandoval Estrada.
Sarabia’s funeral was held on October 23, 2014 and he was cremated.
In 2015, Banda El Recodo’s single "Todo Tuyo” was the opening theme song for the soap opera "Mi Corazón Es Tuyo" which attained the highest ratings for El Canal de las Estrellas. Through this new single, the band created a great campaign in social media which no other band had ever done before. The campaign consisted of celebrities and thousands of fans posting a photo simulating he figure of a heart with their hands. This caused great commotion amongst social media users and thousands of retweets that made the band and its campaign a Twitter trend.
Banda El Recodo surprised once again on July 19, 2015, by performing in Madrid, Spain. Cruz Lizárraga once said: "I will not cease until the music of Banda El Recodo is heard throughout all the world," and this performance in Spain made that dream a reality once again. Two thousand people gathered at the Circo Price in Madrid to dance, sing and delight themselves with every song of Banda El Recodo. These were also the songs that several years prior had taken them to the Old Continent before any other banda. That eventful night was full of surprises, which included a duet with the famous David Bustamante, a prominent singer in Spain.
In February 2016, Banda El Recodo made history once again by touring in Guatemala. Thousands of Guatemalans awaited anxiously to sing and dance with the sound of the ‘tambora.’
In April 2016, Banda El Recodo broke a record of attendance at the "Semana Internacional de La Moto." They proved that their music has no barriers or borders, and that it goes beyond trends, by having a great acceptance from the 'bikers.'
Banda El Recodo made it to Nicaragua in 2016, with two large shows in "La Plaza Taurina Humberto E Isabel Mungrio" in Juigalpa and another one in the "Estadio Noel Gamez" in the city of Estelí. More than 16 thousand people gathered to once again make the dream of their founder, Cruz Lizárraga a reality to continue touring to take their music to every possible place in the world.
Also in 2016, Banda El Recodo presented their record production "Raíces," an album of nostalgia in which Poncho and Joel Lizárraga, along with the rest of the members of Banda El Recodo, tried with all their pride to bring to the new generations the old notes that their father directed for several years. These notes were brought to life with new musical arrangements, maintaining the essence that lead Cruz Lizárraga to position himself as the leader of the genre. Cruz Lizárraga started his career playing in fairs, and then joined international artists who already had a name in the musical industry. These artists saw Banda El Recodo as the way to become known within the banda's music.
In August 2016, their record production "Raíces" took over the #1 position of the Regional Mexican chart of the Billboard magazine and #2 of Latin album charts.
In September 2016, Banda El Recodo had great success by transcending borders thanks to their great effort and work to look for innovative ways to present new music. Proof of it was their song "Las Fresas" featuring the singer Wisin. This song placed for many consecutive weeks in the first place of Chile's important popularity charts.
In November 2016, Banda El Recodo takes for the very first time their music to Chile. They stayed in Santiago de Chile for four days where they visited several radio stations: Radio Corazón and Radio Carolina, where they were very excited and anxious to have in their facilities for the very first time a Mexican band visiting Chile. Banda El Recodo also made a Facebook Live with the newspaper La Cuarta, where they played a couple of hits, among them "Las Fresas." Banda El Recodo also performed at the television program "Mucho Gusto," the most important morning show in the country. The band was an absolute success with the audience. The production received so many calls from the audience that they ended up performing four songs instead of only one total, which no artist had ever gotten to do in that program.
The magazine "Lideres Mexicanos" celebrates its 25th anniversary, and in their special edition of November, this renowned magazine dedicated for the very first time six pages to a worthy representative of Sinaloa's music: Alfonso Lizárraga. People had the opportunity to know more about Alfonso’s background story, which also served an opportunity for him to share a message of leadership, promoting the culture and effort, work, trust of ideals and the highest human values. Alfonso is very clear on these and has them very present in his daily life, which has led him to be both one of the leaders of Banda El Recodo and a great Mexican leader.
Banda El Recodo closed 2016 with great news. The band recorded a song composed by Mario Quintero Lara, which was used as the main song of the Telemundo series "El Chema." The soundtrack tells the story of this controversial character in recent times and who better than Banda El Recodo to give it life.
2016 was a big year for Banda El Recodo, the band was once again nominated for the sixth time for an American Grammy. Their successful album "Raíces" took them to their 9th Latin Grammy. In 2016, they also achieved enormous popularity with the songs "Mujer Mujer" and "Vale la Pena."
Banda El Recodo started off 2017 with the release of the single "Me Prometí Olvidarte," a ‘ranchera’ song that talks about deception, anger and lack of love.
To close off 2017, Banda El Recodo was nominated once again for the Latin Grammy in the “Best Banda Album” category for their album Ayer y Hoy. The band ended up winning the award, which summed their 10th Latin Grammy. Aside from celebrating their winning success, the band performed completely live on stage at the Latin Grammy 2017, a medley that included the songs "En Mi Viejo San Juan" and "Viva Mexico." This was a tribute to both Puerto Rico and Mexico, who had been recently affected by severe natural disasters. For this medley, the band was joined by the Mexican singer Lila Downs, who, like Banda El Recodo, has been a precursor of Mexican music and culture throughout the world.
On top of continuing weekly with their tour of shows throughout Mexico and the United States, Banda El Recodo created the festivities that mark the 80th anniversary of the creation of "La Madre de Todas Las Bandas," which was celebrated in mid-2018.
On July 2020, Banda el Recodo inaugurates the new Estadio de Mazatlán, home of the soccer team Mazatlán F.C. that plays in the Primera División de México and it became one of the team's sponsors, portraying the band's name in the game uniforms.

Current Lineup (2018-Present)