Mira Niñita – Los Jaivas

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Los Jaivas are a Chilean musical group who perform in folk, rock, and progressive rock styles.

History

Los Jaivas appeared in Chilean music in 1963 as a progressive-rock-andino group, mixing rock with South American ancestral music. The Parra brothers met Mario Mutis and Eduardo “Gato” Alquinta (gato is the Spanish word for cat) in their childhood and joined to play music. They acquired fame in Viña del Mar, by playing at diverse parties and shows.

The band took refuge in Argentina after the military dictatorship took over in Chile. In 1977, they headed to France, where they resided for a long time.

The first major change in the band occurred in 1988 when Gabriel died in Peru in a car crash. His daughter Juanita took his place behind the drums.

In January 2003, the main singer, Gato Alquinta, died in Coquimbo, Chile, of a heart attack while swimming in the sea. Gato’s three sons soon joined the band to replace him: Ankatu (guitar), Eloy (saxophone) and Aurora (vocals). Aurora left shortly after, and Eloy died of a heart attack in 2004. Ankatu, however, is still a member of the band.

Name
The former name of the band was High-bass, which related to their differences in height, although another source mentions that it was because the bass guitar played at a very high volume compared to the other instruments.

However, they quickly realized that an English-sounding name was not appropriate for a folk band, so they changed it to Jaivas (HIGH-BASS), a “Chileanized” pronunciation of “high bass” which ignores the fact that bass rhymes with base in English. The spelling of Jaivas is a misspelling of the word jaibas, which means crabs in Spanish.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia