39 YEARS TO THE DAY, WE REMEMBER DON NARCISO MARTINEZ

By Juan Montoya
It was exactly 39 years ago, on June 9, 1983, coincidentally also a Thursday, when I was working for the Brownsville Herald that I received a call from my friend Ernie Avalos, then director of the Brownsville Urban System (BUS). 

Previously, Avalos had worked at the city planning department where we had collaborated on a number of articles on issues facing the city. He used to own the Xochitl Bar, named after his daughter, and currently owns the Sportsman Lounge in downtown Brownsville.

Would I be interested to hear Narciso Martinez, El Huracan del Valle, play with his bajo sexto fellow musician Pedro "La Pata" Juarez at the BUS offices where he worked as a bus driver?

I jumped at the chance. 

Who wouldn't have? 

Martinez, who is credited with inventing the conjunto by pairing the accordion with the bajo sexto and drums, was a legend. Juarez, who also held a real job, had traveled the valley playing with "Don Chicho" at bailes under trees like at El Mesquiton in Olmito and throughout the Rio Grande Delta and northern Mexico. 

He was called El Huracan del Valle for his wizardry on the push-button accordion and because the 1933 hurricane was still fresh in the minds of Valley residents.

I peeked inside the darkroom and told photographer Mickey Torres that I was going to cover Martinez, who had just been named as a recipient of a $5,000 National Heritage Fellowship by the Smithsonian Institution and the National Endowment for the Arts and that he was waiting for us at the BUS main office. 

Did he have the time to make the shoot?

At that time, the Herald was an afternoon newspaper and 11 a.m. was the deadline. It was almost 10 a.m. and Torres was developing some photos for cover art.

He didn't think twice, grabbed his camera stuff, and told editor Lavise Laney he had some art but that this was even better. 

We took off to the BUS office by the airport and arrived just in time to see and hear Martinez – Don Chicho – and Juarez play some of the classics that had earned him the moniker of the inventor of the conjunto. They gave us a taste of what the pair would play later that month (June 23-27) at the Smithsonian's Annual Festival of American Folklore at the National Mall in Washington D.C.

Bus drivers, mechanics, and office clerks tapped their feet and looked on as the pair breezed through classics like "Las Brisas", "La Paloma," and "La Gloria."

Martinez said he picked up the accordion around 1927 (he was then 15) and took a liking to it. Self-taught, he never learned to read or write music, preferring instead to let his audience guide him and by adapting to popular tastes.

And – even more precious – he shared some of his memories.

"I used to play in this area before there were any radio stations around," said Martinez, who lived at La Paloma, near San Benito. "In those days, if you had a quarter in your pocket, you had some money."

And...

"I started the first conjunto band in Brownsville," he said. "At that time I had an Italian accordion, and we used to play all over South Texas and in Mexico."

The multicultural aspect of  Martinez's music is in the very nature of the instrument he played. The accordion, an early 1800s German invention, was brought to Texas by German, Polish, Italian and Czech immigrants. Like their customs, the instrument soon blended with South Texas and northern Mexico culture and – through Martinez's adaptation with the bajo sexto and drums – the norteño conjunto was born. 

"Listen to Polish polkas, or Hungarian music, or even Italian songs, and you will see that it's all the same," he told us then. "I've played before those audiences and they like it. It's the same feeling."