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Flaco Jimenez
Squeeze Box King
Compadre Records 6-16892-54802-7
By Marianne Ebertowski
 "The accordion
is not a good instrument. It is a rather stupid instrument.
Polacks play it. Tomorrow I'll bring in some good music
for you to listen to." This is the learned Miss Wing speaking,
schoolteacher from Chicago stranded in Hornet, Texas when the
Relámpago brothers bring their accordion to school. The
young Relámpagos wonder what a "Polack" is.
One kid suggests that it might be "A white bear that lives
on the ice." If you want to know the rest of the story,
read the very brilliant E. Annie Proulx's Accordion Crimes,
a moving and unsettling story about a green, two-row button
accordion made by a Sicilian maker, that travels with its changing
owners to and then through the United States playing the music
of just about any ethnic group that uses an accordion.
I was a "Polack" born and raised in "Hohner
country" which is a very kind and charming way to refer
to my native country, Germany. Most people tend to use another
H-word to refer to it. But this is Flaco Jimenez talking. It's
July 1999, Flaco has just released "Said and Done"
(which will earn him another Grammy, bringing his total to five)
and he's on his way to Stuttgart, accordion capital of "Hohner
country."
"Don't they build accordions in Texas?" I wonder.
Flaco shakes his head sadly, "No. They make some in Chicago,
but they still don't have that touch of the real thing."
He laughs. I rest my case.
When I was a little kid, I found an accordion hidden in a
cupboard. That discovery caused me great joy. I crawled around
it, gave it a push and a pull, and it moved and talked back like
a living creature. The discovery of black and white keys and
buttons was even greater cause for delight. Unfortunately, my
parents and neighbors were less enthusiastic. The accordion
was locked away and that little toy squeezebox I was given for
my birthday, was not much of a comfort. I ignored it and forgot
about accordions for quite a while.
When I got older, I started to loathe accordions. They were
used for anything I disliked from Bavarian "oompa music"
to German sailor songs and carnival ditties. As a teenager I
discovered cajun and zydeco and conjunto and, then, there was
Chicken Skin Music, my first encounter with Ry Cooder
and Flaco Jimenez and Flaco, for whatever reason - hearing some
"Polacks" playing Warsaw street music might have been
one - became one of my musical heroes.
I had seen him play before in 1989 in my old university town
of Nijmegen, Netherlands, but it had taken another ten years
to have a chance to talk to him. Finally, there he is, all smiles,
all 'flaco' (Spanish for "skinny" or "thin").
With his young band soundchecking in the background, we try to
have a meaningful conversation.
Flaco grew up in San Antonio and learned to play the accordion
when he was seven years old. He followed his dad Santiago's
footsteps and his grandfather Patricio had been accordion player
as well.
"I started to play as a professional musician when I
was 14. I really dropped out of school because of the music.
My dad wanted me to go to school. He wanted me to have an education,
but my grades used to be so low! (laughs) My main interest was
in music. At that time there was no law that you had to go to
school, so in the end my dad said, "Okay, I'm not gonna
torture you: I think you can pull it through. You can do it."
He knew I had the musical instinct."
When Santiago Jimenez died in 1984, he had seen two sons becoming
accordion stars: Flaco and Santiago.
"My dad is the one who really inspired me to how to play
the traditional conjunto. My brother Santiago still plays the
same traditional old style as my father, he keeps the tradition
going. I can do the same, but I decided to progress it, to make
it more up to date. I made my first recordings in the end of
the fifties when I started to listen to rock'n'roll and country
music. A combination of country and "oompa music and rock'n'roll
- that's what I like (he laughs) I like to be versatile. I started
with Cconjunto, which basically just means "more than two
people playing." The traditional instruments were accordion,
the bajo sexto, a twelve-string guitar, and a slap bass. It
was mostly instrumental in the old days: polkas, waltzes. My
grandfather learned from Europeans that settled around us in
the San Antonio area, the Germans, the Polish and the Czechs.
He used to go to their dances just to watch how they played.
So, the main sound comes from Europe. Polka, "oompa music",
we liked it and up to now it's the same feel, though it has become
more electronic. We still play the old traditional stuff too."
Flaco's must have played with every musician worthwhile playing
with from Ry Cooder and Doug Sahm to the Rolling Stones and Bob
Dylan and he must have recorded just about every polka, waltz,
bolero, cumbia, ranchera and corrido under the sun. More than
hundred albums carry the signature of his squeeze box
Does he still know himself how many albums he made and does
he recall his first recording?
"I'm not sure, but I must have made close to 65 solo
albums, but I recorded a lot of 78s and 45s also. And, yes,
I can recall my very first recording. It was like a dream come
true, when it came out. I couldn't put it under my pillow, because
it would break (laughs) but I was so excited. And even, when
I heard myself on the radio, I thought, oh man, what a treat!
Those were just local radio stations, they didn't travel that
far, you know."
It's a long way from local Texan music stations to recording
with the Rolling Stones and playing in a film with Woody Allen
and Sharon Stone.
"I just did one track on Voodoo Lounge, but that's
enough," Flaco grins. He is proud that his mission as an
ambassador of conjunto and tex mex has been successful. "It
is played in all corners of the world now. In Japan, you have
a band called Los Gatos. They sing in Spanish, they sing in
Japanese. I would recommend them!"
Flaco is also proud of his young band featuring lead singer
Raul "Nunie" Rubio and his son David on drums. "Yes,
they're young, "he chuckles, that makes me feel young myself.
They have new ideas; they got a lot of future ahead. They're
following me and I'm following them."
Needless to say, I have followed Flaco closely since our
brief encounter and a new Flaco album is always a major event
in my home. Squeeze Box King, his first release in three
years, shows the maestro in great shape. It's a "straight"
conjunto album, no rock or pop or country traces on this one,
even though the instrumentation consists of drums, percussion,
bass and saxophone added to the traditional bajo sexto, guitar
and, of course, accordion... And, for the first time, Flaco
has produced his own work.
Squeeze Box King starts with a curiosity, the polka
"En El Cielo No Hay Cerveza" ("In Heaven there
is no beer"), a ditty no European can possibly escape from.
Flaco sings it not only in Spanish and English, but also in Dutch,
thanks to a translation by Rubio's Dutch wife. It's a happy
and hilarious party tune with Flaco squeezing the sparks out
of his instrument. It gets more serious from here with the melancholic
bolero "Tan Solo," another homage to the Old Continent,
as it is written by a French friend of Flaco's, Antonio Grazanieto,
front man of Parisian outfit Los Gallos.
The rest of the songs is a mixture of traditional conjunto
standards like "Prenda del Alma" and "Un Viejo
Amor" and songs written by contemporary writers like Salomé
Gutierrez and Steve Ortiz. The mood swings from happy go lucky
and frivolous to romantic and sad, and it's Flaco who creates
the mood on his three-row squeezebox. He makes it cry and sob
and scream with joy and the band follows. Rubio's young tenor
blends beautifully with Flaco's battered voice: their harmonies
on "Un Viejo Amor" are stunning. Louis Chavez makes
his saxophone melt into the melody lines of the accordion, the
rhythm section switches effortlessly between the different styles
and guitarist Roger "Rabbit" Garza know how to fill
the gaps smoothly.
Flaco and his boys are at their best when they enter the tragic
and dramatic world of tex mex rancheras. "La Rosa Negra"
and "Tumba Sin Flores" will haunt you even if your
Spanish is not good enough to understand every word. Like in
all good music, you can feel what the song is about.
Squeeze Box King is a celebration of South Texas conjunto
in all its diversity. At 64 and with a career lasting more
than half a century, Flaco Jimenez, who has just become Honorary
Chair of the Texas Music Project, does not have to prove his
musicianship anymore. He is the squeeze box king. I
hope he will stay that for a long time to come. Heaven can wait
after all, there is no beer.
www.compadrerecords.com
www.flacojimenez.com
Contact Marianne Ebertowski at ebertowski-at-rockzilla.net
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