Accordian Legend Esteban Jordan

[ichabodius]

http://www.sacultura.com/Accordion_l...100675064.html
http://www.estebanjordan.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esteban_Jordan

[Nessa]

This is a different Esteban than the guy selling guitars on late night infomercials, correct?

[ichabodius]

yes

[Nessa]

Whew.

[STsFirstmate]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wd1znfhjL94

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HbgiP...eature=related
Wow too cool!
RIP Steve!
Regards,
Mary

[STsFirstmate]

Ich it is a very bad month for accordianists!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruno_Schleinstein

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2HzKr...eature=related
If I were Judy Tenuta I would take it on the lamb and hide my accordian for a while.
Regards,
Mary

[ichabodius]

Thanks for the links! That NPR clip was great!

[STsFirstmate]

Thanks for the links! That NPR clip was great!

My pleasure! looking around to see who is watching before I whisper I took 6 years of accordion as a kid and have still been known to break out my Honher Blue Mother of Pearl baby and break into the occasional polka after too many beers!
I am also a sucker for Zydeco and a good Tejano group!
There is a great indie movie called Schultzie Gets the Blues about a retired working class German miner who is a gifted accordion player who gets shunned in German Polka society for embracing Zydeco. He travels to La. to find the roots of zydeco first hand. It is a lovely gentle movie and a must for all closet accordion and zydeco fans.
http://www.zuguide.com/#Schultze-Gets-the-Blues
Regards,
Mary

[ichabodius]

http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/loc...101135439.html

The send-off was worthy of a scene in “The Godfather” or a New Orleans-style funeral.
Family and friends walked with Esteban Jordan III as he carried the cremated remains of his father, Esteban “Steve” Jordan, from their West Side home to San Martin de Porres Catholic Church a couple of blocks away for a celebratory Mass on Thursday.
A few fans followed in their cars, playing Esteban Jordan's music. One man carried a banner of La Virgen de Guadalupe.
Jordan, the defiant, genre-defying accordionist credited with introducing jazz, pop, blues and Chicano rock into conjunto music, died Aug. 13 from complications of liver cancer.
He was 71.
Inside the church, Jordan's ashes, housed in a small case swaddled in a purple veil, were placed on a table decorated with white linen in front of the altar. Nearby were two photos of the legendary musician.
“He wanted something muy alegre,” said his sister-in-law Aurora Jordan.
Jordan surely got his wish as his sons Esteban Jr., Esteban III and Ricardo — along with accordionist Juanito Castillo and longtime bassist Charlie Hettrick — performed “Jordanized” renditions of “La Enorme Distancia,” “Sufro Tu Ausencia” and “La Bikina.”
Several of the 300 people attending let out high-pitched gritos.
In attendance was saxophonist Louie Bustos, founding member of the West Side Horns. He and the late trumpeter Charley McBurney met and recorded with Jordan in the early '70s.
“We were hanging out at his ranch in McAllen, fishing, trying not to get bitten by snakes,” Bustos recalled, praising the accordionist.
“When I met him, he was already there.”
Father Gilbert Obin conducted the much-anticipated memorial.
“Our phones have been red-hot today,” Obin said.
Old friend Johnny Canales of “The Johnny Canales Show” said Jordan had gone to “el party mas grande.” Poet Nephtali De Leon read from his poems “Squeeze Box Man,” “Eye Patch Brujo” and “Esteban Jordan 2010.”
Earlier Thursday, Dallas lawyer Jose Angel Gutierrez, who as a young man shaped the Chicano movement as a founding member of the Raza Unida Party and with his book “A Gringo Manual on How to Handle Mexicans,” said Jordan's appeal went far beyond being “the skinny little guy that could make his squeezebox cry and talk.”
“El Parche” never changed, and never denied his roots.
“Like César Chávez, he personified what it was to be Chicano,” Gutierrez said from his Dallas law office. “He embodied Chicanismo.”
Pioneering Chicano filmmaker Efrain Gutierrez befriended Jordan in the '70s and was the first to feature his music on film in “Run Tecato Run.” The film's junkie life themes were embodied in original songs “El Cranke,” “Run Tecato Run” and “Soy de Tejas.”
Jordan's streetwise, sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll lifestyle added to the film's authenticity, said Gutierrez.
“Steve was a more flamboyantpachuco, the way he acted, the way he talked,” Gutierrez said. “He was a master of ‘la efe' (a nearly forgotten Chicano word game similar to Pig Latin known as jerigonza).”
His antics were the stuff of legend.
A gig in Laredo once left Jordan's hands bloodied, Gutierrez said. The accordionist had played all night on a borrowed accordion without a shoulder strap.
“I'll never forget it,” Gutierrez said.
Likewise, Action Magazine editor-publisher Sam Kindrick recalled Jordan playing a poorly promoted Cinco de Mayo festival south of town in the '70s when gunfire erupted. “Steve Jordan grabbed his accordion and jumped right over my head,” Kindrick said with a laugh.