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The Texas-Mexican Conjunto
. . . "conjunto" continues to represent an alternative musical ideology, and in this way it helps to preserve a Mexican, working-class culture wherever it takes root on American soil. Endowed with this kind of symbolic power, conjunto has more than held its own against other types of music that appear from time to time to challenge its dominance among a vast audience of working-class people.
--Manuel Pena
One of the most enduring musical traditions among Mexicans and Mexican Americans is the accordion-based ensemble known as "conjunto" (and as "musica nortena" outside of Texas). Popular for more than one hundred years, especially since its commercialization in the 1920s, this folk ensemble remains to this day the everyday music of working-class Texas Mexicans and Mexican "nortenos" (northerners). During the course of its long history, the conjunto evolved into a tightly organized style that speaks musically for the aesthetic and ideological sentiments of its adherents. In the process, this music of humble beginnings along the Texas-Mexico border has spread far beyond its original base, gaining a vast audience in both Mexico and the United States.
The diatonic, button accordion that anchors the conjunto made its first appearance in northern Mexico and South Texas sometime in the 1860s or '70s. The first accordions were simple one- or two-row models, quite suitable for the musical capabilities of the first norteno and Texas/Mexican musicians who experimented with the instrument. A strong regional style developed by the turn of the century, as the accordion became increasingly associated with a unique Mexican guitar known as an "oajo sexto." Another local folk instrument, the tambora de rancho (ranch drum), also enjoyed prominence as a back-up to the accordion. In combination with one or both of these instruments, the accordion had become by the 1890s the instrument of preference for working-class celebrations on both sides of the Texas-Mexico border.
In Texas, these celebrations were organized frequently--too frequently for some Anglos, who voiced their disapproval of fandangos, or "low-class" dances, in the newspapers. For example, the Corpus Christi Caller and the San Antonio Express on more than one occasion expressed Anglos' negative attitudes toward tejano music and dance. In one report, the Express equated music and dancing with idleness and concluded that "these fandangos have become so frequent they are a great curse to the country" (August 20, 1881). This typical attitude developed early on and persisted well into the twentieth century.
Despite Anglo disapproval, the conjunto and its dances thrived among tejano workers, eventually eclipsing all other forms of music for dancing. Yet, popular as it was, the conjunto remained an ad hoc ensemble until the 1930s. No permanent combination of instruments had been established prior to that time, perhaps because creative and material forces had not yet crystallized to spur radical stylistic development. To be sure, some changes had been wrought by the 1920s, as the button accordion and the bajo sexto by now formed the core of the emerging style, while such common European dances as the redowa had been regionalized and renamed. The redowa itself had been transformed into the vals bajito, in contrast to the waltz, which was known as a "vals alto." Indeed, most of the repertory for the dance, or fandango, was of European origin and included the polka, mazurka, and schottishe, in addition to the waltz and redowa. One regional genre from Tamaulipas, Mexico, the huapango, rounded out the usual repertory of conjuntos until World War II.
Beginning in the 1930s, an innovative surge rippled through the emerging conjunto tradition, as performers like Narciso Martinez (known as "the father" of the modern conjunto), Santiago Jimenez, Lolo Cavazos, and others began to strike out in new stylistic directions. This new surge of innovation must be attributed, at least in part, to the active commercial involvement of the major recording labels in the music of the Hispanic Southwest. From the 1920s, companies such as RCA Victor (Bluebird), Decca, Brunswick, and Columbia (Okeh) began exploiting the musical traditions in the Hispanic Southwest, hoping to repeat the success they had experienced with African American music since the early '20s. Under the commercial impetus of the big labels, which encouraged record and phonograph sales, radio programming, and especially public dancing (much of it in cantinas, to the dismay of Anglos and "respectable" Texas Mexicans), musicians like Narciso Martinez began to experiment. By the end of the 1930s, the conjunto had begun to evolve into the stylistic form the ensemble reached during its mature phase in the post-World War II years.
Without a doubt, the most important change came in the 1930s, when Narciso Martinez began his recording career. Searching for a way to stamp his personal style on the accordion, Martinez abandoned the old, Germanic technique by virtually avoiding the bass-chord buttons on his two-row accordion, concentrating instead on the right hand, treble melody buttons. His sound was instantly distinctive and recognizable. Its brighter, snappier, and cleaner tone contrasted with the older sound, in which bajo sexto and the accordionist's left hand both played bass-and accompaniment, creating a "thicker," drone-like effect. Martinez left bassing and chordal accompaniment to the bajo sexto of his most capable partner, Santiago Almeida.
Narciso Martinez's new style became the hallmark of the surging conjunto, just as Almeida's brisk execution on the bajo sexto created the standard for future bajistas. Together, the two had given birth to the modern conjunto, a musical style that would challenge even the formidable mariachi in cultural breadth and depth of public acceptance. Indeed, by the 1970s it could be said that the conjunto, known in the larger market as musica nortena, was the most powerful musical symbol of working-class culture. Martinez, however, remained an absolutely modest folk musician until his death. He never laid claim to anything but a desire to please his public. Yet, as Pedro Ayala, another of the early accordion leaders, acknowledged, "after Narciso, what could the rest of us do except follow his lead?"
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