Street musicians fill downtown streets with sweet sounds without fear of police interference

Alma York heard music as she walked toward the corner of Don Gaspar Avenue and East Alameda Street. When the Amarillo, Texas, resident and her husband, Sonny, reached the corner, where a half-dozen street musicians had set up shop, she broke into a dance.

“It’s just the Latin music. Mexican music gets you going,” Alma York said.

On a stone banco at the corner of a city parking lot, Friona, Texas, resident Jim Bob Jones lounged while he waited for his wife, who was interviewing a subject for a book she is writing. Why did he pick this corner?

“How do I count the ways? It’s a beautiful day, it’s Santa Fe, the music is great and these guys are having fun,” Jones said.

There on the corner, Michael Combs played a button accordion, backed by friends playing a fiddle, a three-string bass fiddle, guitars and a banjo. Clogger Ruth Alpert added some percussion to the mix with the folk-music version of a tap-dance.

This was Combs’ second weekend this year on the downtown corner. His April gigs are the first springtime Santa Fe street performances he has played in 20 years without worrying about being chased away, he said.

For most of the musicians and passers-by, the impromptu concert was all good fun. For Combs, it’s a profession.

“I play music in the streets of Santa Fe for a living,” Combs said.

Until last year, Combs’ profession was effectively outlawed in Santa Fe. He said for the past 20 years, city police have stopped musicians from playing in the street for tips.

Then Combs turned to a professional association for information. From a Web site operated by the Massachusetts-based Community Arts Advocates Inc., he learned that musicians in other cities had successfully fought municipal efforts to ban street music. Public performances are protected by the Bill of Rights, Combs said.

In August, Combs, Gary Schiffmiller and other musicians threatened to go to court to enforce what they see as a constitutional right. Santa Fe City Attorney Frank Katz persuaded city councilors that the buskers have case law on their side. The city backed down.

“I’m gonna take on Taos and Albuquerque next, but this time, I’m going to settle,” Combs said.

Buskers in other cities have won settlements in excess of $100,000 after their right to speak — or sing or play an instrument — in public was violated, Combs said.
“We were here in April (2006) and we missed the music,” said Peggy Suarez, who came from Virginia with her husband, Gene Suarez, to visit displaced friends from New Orleans.

In Alexandria, Va., she said, she seldom leaves the house without hearing music played in the streets. “You’re disappointed if you don’t,” Suarez said.

Suarez said she planned to drop $10 or $15 in Combs’ tip jar. He said he would like to make $300 or $400 a week, but sometimes only nets around $100.

Along with a tip jar and a vase of wilted daffodils, Combs displayed on his impromptu table made of two suitcases a Santa Fe business permit, but the permit — for temporary businesses that operate on private property — is not a perfect fit.

Combs and his fellow buskers last year adopted their own informal rules, which include agreements to stay away from certain downtown locations and from each other — and to not stay in any one place for more than two hours.

Contact David Collins at 995-3893 or dcollins@sfnewmexican.com.

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ON THE WEB

• www.communityartsadvocates.org

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