The Hurricane of the Valley

We spent this week learning about the elemental music genres that formed the foundation of Mexican-Americn conjunto. Despite the excitement of decades of cultural cross-pollination, conjunto only truly came into its own in the 1930 when Narciso Martinez stepped up with his accordion. In the ’20s American record companies, trying to replicate the success they’d found marketing African-American music, had begun to support Mexican-American recording artists, pushing songs by their chosen musicians into jukeboxes, onto the radio and into public dance performances. Musicians like Martinez, who became known s “El Huracan del Valle” — “The Hurricane of the Valley” — took this support as a license to experiment. Mexican-Americans had been attending dances by Texan bands such as Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys. They were also submerging themselves in blossoming genres like country, blues, European fiddle music and swing. All this musical exploration helped inspire Martinez to depart from traditional German accordion techniques and develop a prancing style that allowed him to focus on creating melodies while his musical partner Santiago Almeida played the bass notes on the bajo sexto. Martinez’s style became a staple of the genre; the cascading accordion defines conjunto music today. Enjoy!