May 36, 1985-San Antonio Express-News

A special night of music in S.A.

Popular festivals are a joy, for they regenerate us. Good, easy entertainment that helps us escape the daily toil of simple societal survival.

Yes, a surcease of stress does wonders, if only for a few hours, and I welcome such respites, as all people must surely do.

I relish an occasional relief via popular and commercial music and crafts. Thus do I attend festivals.

Beyond such momentary escapes though, I also have an insatiable need for insightfully deeper sounds and images.

Sometimes I am fortunate and an opportunity will present itself that is an excellent bargain.

Such was the case last Monday, when Frank Rodarte came by my place and invited me for a drink and jam session.

Jam session

The afternoon began at Ramon Ayala's Tacoland on West Grayson - a not-so-typical beer hall where some musicians had gathered.

Not just some musicians, but the very renowned Estevan Jordán of conjuntdo fame. The camaraderie was pure down home jazz-jiving at its best.

Jordán told us with pride that he is "from Elsa, Tejas, the belly button of Texas."

"Yeah, Steve is from the belly button of Tejas." Rodarte laughed. "and that's why he plays the button accordion so well."

The setting was ideal for a bit of beer and a lot of talk about music and aesthetics. The need for places to just celebrate one's own art is important.

"I was asked about where I want to take my music in the '80s," Jordán continued, "and I told them that I am taking it to the '90s" and beyond."

That step beyond is a transportive blend of sounds. A powerful montage effect that transcends popular music, interweaving as it does the sounds of the late '40s and '50s with the nuances of an accordion played by a visionary master.

Special treat

Having just performed the previous night for a popular audience, Jordán was primed for playing with his colleagues the music that does not get recorded.

We were all in for a treat - one that I wanted my son, Rikárd-Sergei, just arrived from the University of California at Berkeley - to taste. And taste he did!

Frank and I picked him up and then proceeded to the jam session at the 90 West Lounge - a hastily, arranged and unpublicized event for and by the musicians. A slate of some of the best local talent was there, raring to jam with one another. The mood was up tempo.

Jordán lived up to his image for he manipulated the accordion and made it do things that no one can expect.

It was a night of reverberating rhythms, a fusion of sax, accordion, bajo, trumpet, guitar and drums - with frequent congazos (conga drum percussion) along with the regeneration of energy so needed by musicians.

The interchange among the musicians was, in itself, a statement. Though most of them seldom, if ever, play together, their timing was poetical.

They were, after all, musical artists who appreciate each other's abilities, and they were experimenting with their idioms. There was a sense of sharing for the sake of creating the purity of sound. Never a question or statement about money.

Not commerce, just art. A contagious feeling culminating in clarity and transcendence.

Blending his harmonica with sax and accordion, Mando Piñera took us into a bluesiness that counterpointed with Cris Alaniz's drum beat.

Singer and guitarist J.J. Martinez brought us into the spiritual power of the songs of Billy Holiday's era, while key boardist Arturo Gonzáles rocked us with elements of early Fats and Earl Gardner.

Felix Villarreal, El Compadrito, regaled us with what he calls "just the blues - low down, dirty East Side blues," and the plaintiveness was all there.

Al Gómez launched into a trumpet number that was electric in its power.

It was pure and unadorned art created spontaneously, and its message came from that special place within our human need to communicate as thinking and feeling beings.

New Dimension

It was more than just an enjoyable time. To be sure, I took my son for a couple of reasons.

I felt that it would be a new dimension of music for him, one that moved the world before his birth. Additionally, as he is a photographer, I felt the need to document a transcultural art event that might otherwise go unrecorded.

As mentioned earlier, it was to be a moment of regeneration and experimentation. The kind of space that is vital for artistic growth and development.

Its non-commercial power needed that freedom, for many of us already know the impact of conjunto and rock on a commercial level.

The sadness that I realized is the lack of facilities solely existing to provide such a space for all the arts. That raw art of spontaneity undergirded by honed talent prevailed, and it created a new idiom if only for the moment.

Any serious artist would welcome such a possiblity - be it in music, poetry, theater or dance.

The opportunity to jam with one's peers in order to further one's understanding of art, and its magic has to be important, and it is always a pressing need if there is to be artistic growth.

Aside from enjoying the session, it was an excellent opportunity to experience first hand the multiple layers of knowledge and ability possessed by other artists.