April 7, 1985-San Antonio Express-News

Three friends make a fiesta

Saturday nights in San Antonio have a magical sense about them but then so do most nights for this city.

That is one of the reasons that arts oriented persons find the River City so enjoyable - its many layers of culture, tiered upon one another.

There is always something to do, a new ambience to explore. A bit of Texana, Americana or Chicanismo to attend at any given time. This is specially true when one has out-of-town guests such as I did last weekend.

What can a poet do when friends pop into town? Where can one take them for something different than the usual fare of Dallas, Denver, Albuquerque or North Carolina?

Paseo de Marzo

One stop can be the now traditional Paseo de Marzo festivities at El Mercado. The throngs of people merging into a cumbia/polka rhythm sway into a human rainbow. Vital human hues parade to conjunto music into the evening hours.

Children run and clamor, eating and enjoying a rich array of tacos, turkey legs, gorditas and love. A pungent aroma of condiments filters through the air.

Grandparents dance with a canorous lifebeat, parents undergird their children with a caring sensibility, and young adults guzzle up life in a deep embrace. Music intertwines its notes upon the canvas of life, its images accolade the city of multiple personalities.

Three friends find serenity amid their cultural differences - a Jew, a black and a Chicano. They stroll about the market, browsing through knick-knack curios. This could be Mexico. The feeling is there, just as visceral as in the mercados of Ciudad Juarez. We browse a good while.

Three friends

Wanting to share other bits of the city, we leave after a few hours. Walking away, Andrew Chino Goldsmith asks about clubs. Rob Martin wants a brew and I need to make some calls about books. The books acquired, we decide to just find a place to drink and talk. I recall a place not far from us. Our conversation on the way is about the arts, philosophy and the leisure in which to enjoy them. Just human/social things.

Just three friends who love and enjoy the art of being, we merely wish to drink and talk. Having witnessed a fiesta wherein all ages promenaded, we feel good about our camaraderie, and, like the fiesta, we also have no generation gap.

Walking into the Blanco Tavern hidden within a small shopping center, we sense the same diversity of cultures and ages commingling as one.

It is a typical bar with a small dancing area and a makeshift bandstand. It hums with conversation - not loud at all.

We can make out a few faces at the tables surrounding us in the semi-darkness. There is a distinct cross-generational grouping here, just as one would find at any fiesta.

The musicians are on break. The instruments stand mute.

We speak of musical tastes, recalling our youth when we would be uniformly selective about our peers and the preferences of our cliques. We also speak about other things we had secretly enjoyed but which had not been deemed popular then.

I had just finished saying that San Anto might just be called La Oreja - The Ear - for its ability to abstract the world and then reflect it in a way that imbues sound with fiesta. Places like LPs with its neo jazzy moods and its reggae nights, the power of Frank Rodarte and Clifford Scott and the supple strength of Tomás Ramirez, the jazzmanian saxophonist. This was another setting with that kind of mood magic.

A funky/moving rendition of early 1950s music filled the Blanco Tavern. Midway into the song, Roy Cantú - leader of Barrio Sound - announced his band and then the music washed over us. Transported, we flowed with rhythm and blues, oldies, rockabilly and combo jazz.

In that tiny space were we able to traverse the musical landscapes of our nation. With humorous transitions as Cantú would jivingly bellow that the next song comes directly to you from the heart of the West Side.

Danny Esquivel gave us a facsimile of Chuck Berry, while incessant drums energized us. We drank and forgot earlier conversations until we realized that here, in this fairly obscured tavern, there was still that merging of folks. A multi-hued audience participating in a cross-cultural drama where the music can take you to unexpected worlds.

Moving jukebox

We rode a jet-propelled music box that landed on many a world, from the strains of Stagger Lee to take offs of Little Joe, with inbetween dashes of polka, cumbia and norteño sounds. Funky and fluid sounds meshed into a cultural tour de force that embellished our night, friendship was shared in a friendly tavern.

Seeing and hearing my friends, I realized that we are in what can be called an American rebirth, the kind of rebirth where people respond to each other as humanized beings. That we could be where we are, appreciating the resilience and adaptability of the band, merging as they were the sounds of our nation into a cornucopia of dreams, does express the growth we have all gone through as a people.

Yes, the problems of modern society continue plaguing us, and discrimination still is a prevalent malady afflicting everyone, espcially those in the minority of this land. The struggle for equal rights will continue, but it is being undergirded daily by such innocuous acts as those played on the stages of clubs, taverns and social gatherings where peoples congregate to enjoy life.