The Soul of ConjuntoI

I was lucky, man," says Flaco Jimenez, reclining against a picnic table under the afternoon shade in a Southside San Antonio back yard. "People knew my father, Don Santiago Jimenez, Sr. And when they started taking an interest in the accordion, they came around looking for the roots. For them, I was an extension of my father, or a product of that traditional sound." Around him are seated a number of world-class conjunto kings. It's a rare reunion, a legendary collection of Tex-Mex troubadors.

Numbering among them are: Mingo Saldivar, an accordion legend in his own right; Henry Zimmerle, leader of his own conjunto; strings virtuoso Chucho Perales, and drummer Richard Herrera. These are Jimenez's friends, the "Conjunto Dream Team," according to Jaime Borrego, a Southside San Antonio native now living in Austin who's along to shoot pictures at what has suddenly become an extraordinary gathering. Even perched on the back yard bench, it's obvious that the reigning proponent of conjunto accordion towers above his compadres, somehow reiterating his stature as a musical hero.

Borrego is a fledgling filmmaker. His older brother, Jesse, is a well-known actor (glimpsed recently in John Sayles' Lone Star). But equally important today, is the fact that his father, Jesse Borrego, Sr., a conjunto accordion player himself, is being recognized and lauded as a colleague and peer by none other than Leonardo "Flaco" Jimenez. "Jesse Borrego is a few years younger than I am, but he's part of a generation that started what I call the `progressions' on the accordion," says Jimenez with admiration.

Assembled at 206 Robert E. Lee -- home of Richard Herrera -- the "Conjunto Dream Team" are all veterans of Los Caminantes, the seminal San Antonio conjunto established during the Fifties. While another conjunto, Los Caporales, featured a teenaged Flaco Jimenez on accordion, it was with Los Caminantes that the young heir to his father's accordion legacy gained his first professional experience.

"San Antonio is to conjunto what Chicago is to the blues, and the (Rio Grande) Valley is like the Delta," says 30-year-old Roger Herrera, a friend who served as consultant on Hector Galan's acclaimed Tejano music documentary,Songs of the Homeland. He explains how Chucho Perales and Armando Armendariz were rock & roll forerunners when they recorded a conjunto version of Clifton Chenier's "Rockin' the Bop" in 1955. "San Antonio conjunto has always been more `alegre,' happier, faster, more up-tempo. It was dance music for big-city Mexicanos."

The younger Herrera has room to talk. His father has maintained warm contact with scores of musicians, many of whom are now universally regarded as leading conjunto pioneers. And it's Flaco Jimenez and Henry Zimmerle who hold a special place in his heart and home because they were and remain the two youngsters he brought in from off the Westside streets to complete an unforgettable quartet, Los Caminantes, a group which also included the late Mike Garza on tololoche, the upright bass.

"Richard [Herrera], along with Mike Garza, were the ones who introduced me to music as a steady profession," says Jimenez. "I mean, I'd started playing when I was about seven, and then I was around 12 and 13 when I had enough practice to begin playing professionally. But it wasn't until I was 14 and 15 that Richard and Mike took me out of the Radio Club over there on the Westside."

Warming up to the exchange, the elder Herrera shares an archival collection of promotional photos which picture members of the band in white tux jackets, silk bow ties, and pleated trousers. Jimenez, meanwhile, has taken my beat-up old Hohner Corona II accordion and cuts loose an impromptu version of "Viva Seguin," an instrumental conjunto classic composed by his late father. The late Don Santiago Jimenez, Sr., Flaco notes, was the kind of father who listened.

"When I was little, he noticed that I was more interested in following him around and listening to music than in going school," he explains. After handing his son a bajo sexto and asking him to tune it up by ear alone, Santiago Sr., was finally convinced that his child had an ear and might make it as a musician. "After that, he started taking me all over, gigs, recording studios, beer joints. He realized that school wasn't for me, and he encouraged me to play the bajo sexto backing him up on several recordings."

When the senior Jimenez heard Flaco and the rest of Los Caminantes, claims Richard Herrera, he voiced his approval. "Flaco's father saw us play, and he liked it," remembers Herrera. "He said that we should stick together because we had a good sound." Prophetic words from a musical visionary. "When we started in the Fifties, there were already a lot of conjuntos, the old-timers," explains Flaco. "My father, for example, began around 1936. Then came guys like Fred Zimmerle and Valerio Longoria. Conjunto Algere, Conjunto Monterrey... It's hard to remember, there were so many. It'd take three hours to recall them all.

"Papa told me that our music, this type of music, conjunto de accordion y bajo sexto, was going to last -- that it was like the country music being made by cowboys and hillbillies. It had soul and because it had that feel he could predict that it was going to be around for a long time."

According to both Flaco and Richard Herrera, Los Caminantes were not immediately well-received. At one of their very first gigs, a well-known San Antonio club owner was angry when the two newest members, Zimmerle (Fred Zimmerle's nephew on bajo sexto) and Flaco on accordion, turned up in the standard Westside homeboy pachuco get-up: khaki pants and an undershirt for Flaco, jeans and a t-shirt for Henry, who also assumed duties as the lead vocalist.

"He told me they were going to have to leave," says the elder Herrera, "because they hadn't met the formal dress code." So the teenaged pair were given the boot. Herrera, who served as the publicist and spokesperson for Los Caminantes, refused to perform without his accordion and bajo sexto players.

"I told the guy, who was pretty well known, that if one or two of us were going to have to leave, we would all go," says Herrera. "And so we did. We walked right out of there. But I told the promoter, `You're going to be hearing about us. And believe me, we won't ever be playing for you again.' It was a little bit later that we got our own show on KCOR. We were the first conjunto to perform on San Antonio TV."

Jimenez seconds him, saying, "I give credit to Richard for showing me how to put the knot on a tie. He taught us about style, how to make ourselves presentable. I didn't know any better. I was just a kid from the Westside."

The house on Robert E. Lee echoes with the nuances of a distinguished musical history. Los Caminantes, in the short space of five years, went on to become one of the most sought-after conjuntos and this even in the face of a growing stigma that relegated conjunto to the cantinas. Middle- and upper-middle-class Mexican Americans had begun to favor the big-band orchestra sound that swept South Texas from the Fifties onward. They were determined to leave their Mexican roots behind and ape what they considered the high-tone superiority of ballroom brass.

Organizations like the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) would host small dances all year long with bajo sexto and accordion-based conjuntos to raise money. At the end of the year, says Herrera with serious irritation, LULAC would use that money to throw a fancy ballroom affair, a private, membership-only party, hiring a 20-piece orchestra and leaving the conjuntos out in the cold. "We always had to fight to earn respect for conjunto music," says Herrera.

As Los Caminantes, Herrera, Jimenez, Zimmerle, and Garza were successful in doing just that, creating a sharper image, an uptown conjunto. They were able to raise the status of conjunto music and did so as a popular group unit until Flaco was drafted in 1961. "It got to where we were recording a new 45 every Tuesday," says Herrera sincerely.

Moving into Richard Her- rera's righteous backyard shade for a beer and a smoke, our gang has grown to include a few erstwhile visitors, among them are Chucho Perales and Henry Zimmerle. We are engaging in a favored past time, reminiscing about the old conjuntos, as Herrera puts it. Jimenez and Mingo Saldivar, after his unexpected arrival, are the two most high-profile accordion slingers present.

Based on the stellar rendezvous, I learn that while Jimenez did his time in the service, Saldivar, originally a stand-up bass player, was invited to fill in on accordion for Los Caminantes. It was a post he held for almost a year. So with the exception of Mike Garza, deceased, the afternoon interview has become a bona fide Caminantes reunion. The stories are animated and bright.

"One time we were driving out of Enis, on our way to a gig in Dallas in Flaco's 1950 Mercury with all our gear packed in the trunk and on the roof. Remember, Flaco?" asks Herrera.

"Oh yeah, do I. We didn't have buses or vans in those days. I was driving and I look in the rear-view mirror. `A la chingada,' I said. I hit the brake and told the boys to take a look. There was the bass, spinning in the middle of the highway." says Flaco, still amazed 40 years later.

According to Zimmerle, Jimenez, and Herrera, all of whom were in the car, the up-right bass remained intact without a single serious crack, while Herrera's drum kit went skeedaddle across the countryside.

Saldivar, in the middle of planning his next tour through northern Mexico (Monterrey, specifically), is happy to participate in the recollections. "It's great when we get together like this to talk about the old times, no?" he asks. He, much like Jimenez, has crossed over, recording with Tish Hinojosa, doing Johnny Cash in Spanish on the accordion, and traveling to Africa and Israel. Together, Saldivar and Jimenez have restored the accordion to its proper due, garnering respect and bringing conjunto to audiences world-wide.

Jimenez himself has recorded with Ry Cooder, Emmylou Harris, Bob Dylan, Dwight Yoakam, and, yes, even the Rolling Stones. His deal at Arista Texas, regular tours through Europe, and a featured slot in the war-horse unit known as the Texas Tornados are the stuff of accordion lore.

"Sometimes I hear from folks here, close to home, that I'm not doing conjunto anymore," says Jimenez. "But I tell them that it doesn't matter who you play with or what kind of styles you play in as long as you keep the feel. You don't have be fancy or all over the keys. Just make sure you never lose the feel, the soul of conjunto music."

Remaining true to that spirit of alegria -- pure, unbridled joy -- is what makes Jimenez's latest effort, Buena Suerte, Señorita one of the finest offerings of his career. The album is a return to his roots with the kind of confidence that can only come from having taken his hometown heritage to unimagined heights.

"Being accordion or bajo sexto, it has to be San Antonio Westside," says Jimenez with genuinely sly grin. He may move around in limousines now, fly to the south of Spain for yet another international festival, or appear on The Late Show with David Letterman to push the newest Texas Tornado record, but Flaco is at home here, shooting the shit under a wooden swing set on the Southside with his longtime compadres, all musical heroes if you ask me, and all just as proud of how far Flaco Jimenez has come. n