El Recodo: Aldo Sarabia's body found, wife and alledged boyfriend arrested

Borderland Beat  

Alma Delia Chavez Guerrero, the wife of Aldo Sarabia, and  and Alfredo Yahir Sandoval, have been arrested, as suspects in the murder.  The reports say there was a love triangle involving  the two men  and Sarabia's wife.

Aldo Sarabia, a member of fabled Mexican Banda El Recodo de Don Cruz Lizárraga, who had been missing since Oct. 13, has been found dead on a rural road in  Mazatlan, Mexico. News reports from Mexico indicated that he had been beaten  and shot in the neck.

Authorities report that  Chavez Guerrero, took Sarabia out on Octomber 13th on the pretense of dining at a seafood restaurant, but in reality he was taken to his murderer, Yahir Sandoval.

“He was our partner and inspiration in a thousand battles and all those moments we shared will live in the heart of those who knew him,” reads a statement released today by El Recodo on Twitter. 

 "Aldo Sarabia García was a great friend and family man. A person with a great sense of humor, a musician who mastered harmony and percussion and a human being of exceptional qualities.”

Sarabia was last seen Oct. 12, after the group played a show in San Jose, CA, and returned to Mazatlan. “Once everybody gets home, everyone gets on with their lives and with their families,” said Poncho Lizarraga in an interview. “But on Tuesday, my cousin asked me to call Aldo because he hadn’t heard from him at all.”

Sarabia was a trumpet player with El Recodo, the 18-man troupe that’s long been referred to as “the mother of all bands.” Those “bands” are the traditional banda sinaloense -- or band from the state of Sinaloa -- which are fully acoustic and brass and percussion-based. Although today’s Mexican music landscape is chock-full of bandas, El Recodo led the pack as the first such group with commercial appeal, the first group to modernize the banda sound, the first banda to experiment with genres like pop and tropical and the first banda to gain international recognition.

"In the history of El Recodo, we have never been threatened or intimidated anywhere and not anywhere inside Mexico,” bandleader Poncho Lizárraga told Diario Basta in Mexico yesterday, before the body was found. “On the contrary, we have already received unwavering support and affection."

Founded 76 years ago by Don Cruz Lizárraga, the group today is led by his sons, and was honored last year with Billboard’s Legado Musical -- Musical Legacy Award -- at the third annual Billboard Mexican Music Awards. El Recodo have placed more than 25 singles on the Top 20 of Billboard’s regional Mexican airplay charts.

Used material from Billboard, Borderland Beat Archives and SDP