User:SMUDGE RECORDS/sandbox

= Louie Jade = Louie Kuauhtlatoa Jade, or Louie Speaking Eagle, is an Indigenous American musician, drummer, and physical culturist. He is originally from El Paso, Texas and made his home in New Mexico. He is a Zacatec Indian ceremonial leader, long-time community advocate, and is responsible for the revitalization of Jade Mysticism which helped establish the Chalchihuitl culture by his direct ancestors ca. 100 CE. [1]

Jade is also a physical culturist, revitalizing a Zacatec movement art (akin to yoga) that he's taught secularly since 2010, and who's secrets are being passed to his three sons as the foremost authorities in Zacatec Indian culture.

Family Life
Jade was born on November 5, 1971 to Zacatec Indian parents. He has three children: Balam Sarellano, Kinam Sarellano, and Itsin Sarellano with his ex-wife Eldelisa R. Nava(Mayo-Yaqui).

Jade grew up on the streets of El Paso, Texas immersed in the challenges of barrio life. He gained respect from gang leaders who failed to recruit him into gang life at an early age, and navigated a dysfunctional and codependent life, along with other forms of abuse, leading him to ceremonial life in which he embarked as a teen. He began conducting ceremonies in his late teens, and would become a Roadman in [a traditional form of] the Native American Church specific to his people at the age of 26.

Music
Jade began playing the cornet in the 6th grade after all drum spots were taken in the school band. He started playing the drums at the age of 13 when he joined his first group (The Kindergarten Dropouts, later The Dropouts), playing local parties, events, and clubs.

In 1991 he joined Tejano group Rio The Wild Side Boyz who would later become Tormenta, making history as the first group from El Paso to sign a record deal with a major record label (Capitol EMI). Jade left Tormenta in 1994 in order to dedicate more time to his ceremonial practice. He moved to Austin, Texas where he joined Sour Mash Jack, an original blues-rock group, with two former high school classmates. He recorded one C.D. with the group entitled Loud Mouth Soup and together with the band, would head the El Paso original music scene when the group relocated to their hometown.

Having reached a threshold in his playing, Jade decided to take lessons for the first time in 1999 with soon to be music educator Art Avila Jr. Lessons gave Jade the technique he'd been lacking and opened the door to other styles of music. In 2000, Jade met master drummer/musician, Ricky Malichi, who would forever change his life. Malichi began referring private students to Jade, as well as other musicians to hire him when Malichi was unavailable. Before long, Jade was a freelance musician and became known as a jazz drummer despite the fact that he specialized in all American art forms.

In 2005, Jade hired legendary jazz bassist John Heard, whom Jade met while living in Los Angeles, to play a concert with him in El Paso, one of Jade's musical high points. In 2007 another high point of Jade's career was cemented when he performed with bassist and living legend Carlitos Del Puerto at the Burbank Jazz Cafe for a Jazz For Peace event.

Jade has since made notable contributions to various artists and groups throughout the U.S. southwest. Jade was a member of legendary El Paso groups Border Roots, Fuga, and Frontera Bugal ú where he helped etch and develop each group's unique, Indigenous border style.

In 1999, Louie Jade moved to New Mexico where he lived in Anthony, Belen, and Albuquerque establishing himself as a sought after musician, lending his unique approach to such legendary groups as Alex And The Rockets, The Rudy Boy Experiment, The Gatos, Tobias Rene, and The Albuquerque Jazz Orchestra.

In 2009, Jade made history again when he, Steve Figueroa (Laguna Pueblo), and Milo Jaramillo (Isleta Pueblo) formed [https://www.rockwired.com/jazzedandblue9.html#:~:text=Formed%20in%202009%20in%20Albuquerque,Pettiford%20to%20name%20a%20few. Red Hot and Red], which became the world's first all-Indigenous jazz trio in history. Since its inception, the group has performed concerts for events such as the Taos Jazz Festival, Jazz Under The Stars events, and other concert venues and theaters. In 2020, legendary saxophonist Doug Lawrence sent word to Jade to get in touch with master jazz drummer Joe Farnsworth to help (Farnsworth) document the Indigenous root to jazz music.

Jade currently resides in El Paso, Texas pursuing a commitment made over 30 years ago to complete his undergraduate studies. He graduates in May 2024 with a degree in Multidisciplinary Studies with an emphasis in sociology and global health. While in El Paso, he serves as a musician/advocate for The Jazz Exchange, performing around the area, recording, and giving private lessons. His lifelong dream of connecting the musicians from El Paso to the musicians of New Mexico in a cultural exchange is forthcoming. Jade also advocates for the dissemination of New Mexico's own Monk Drums founded, designed, and built by Jacob Neria (Apache).

Advocacy
Louie marched with his father, a U.S. combat veteran and activist, during the tail end of the civil rights movement in the late 70s. This planted the seed for Jade's involvement in social justice and community advocacy. In 1990 Louie joined the Guardian Angels which patterned itself after Indigenous warrior communities of the American Indian Movement. Jade became the chapter leader of the Guardian Angels ca. 1992 where he turned a dwindling membership into a thriving, more organized group.

In 1991, while attending UT El Paso for the first time, he met Chicano activist brothers Gabriel and Manuel Velez. With no American Indian movement at the university, or in the area, Jade joined Chicano student organization MEChA where he was in charge of the Quincentenary Committee and helped lead a successful protest against Spanish colonial dominance in the region when the city brought a direct descendant of child sex trafficker and invader Christopher Columbus to commemorate the genocide that landed on the shores of Indigenous lands. Manuel Velez later asked Jade if he would consider joining the local chapter of the Brown Berets as its Minister of Defense. Jade agreed and was successful at bringing the organization the discipline and security protocols it needed.

Jade has taken short-term contract jobs in fields outside of music that are important to him. He has been a community educator, program coordinator, case manager and health promoter, usually targeting teen pregnancy, gang, and drug abuse prevention with the arts as a diversion. Jade was also named an Honorary Citizen of the City of El Paso by mayor Larry Francis in 1993.

Jade Mysticism
Louie Jade's Indigenous connection to both Mexico and New Mexico is a key principal in his work in higher consciousness. With direct ancestral and familial connections to both Alta Vista (center of Chalchihuitl Culture), and Mount Chalchihuitl (trade and cultural meeting point for his [and other] Indigenous cultures), his calling to revive Jade Mysticism as [both] an esoteric discipline specific to his people, and a secular philosophy for the masses, is the legacy he leaves his children (and the proceeding seven generations), and the world at large.