The Mexican Band

Encarnación Payén's Eight Cavalry Band generated a mania for Mexican danza and Cuban danzón following performances at the World's Cotton and Industrial Exposition in 1885-1885 (a sonic, cultural, and economic phenomenon promoted by music publisher Junius Hart) yet it was only one of numerous Mexican bands that visited New Orleans from 1884 to 1920, most of which were orquestas típicas, similar in instrumentation to jazz bands. Payén's musicians engaged in various extracurricular activities in New Orleans. One of Payén;s saxophonists, Florencio Ramos, remained in the city. Ramos went on to become a jazz musician and appears in a photograph of the Fishbein-Williams Syncopators at LaVida Dance Hall in 1923.