Alt.Latino: Los Texmaniacs keep tradition alive
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What is the Tiny Desk concert and why is Los Tex Maniacs featured?
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From MPR Music, this is Alt Latino. I'm Felix Contreras.
And I'm Ana Maria Sayer, let the cheese mate begin. And Felix, we do have some real cheese this week. It is September, which means, you know what it means. Yes, I can't. It means it's time for our annual takeover of the Tiny Desk Latin Music Month, or El Tiny. This is our sixth year doing it, Felix, and I think it's fair to say. This is my favorite lineup we've ever had.
Ooh, wow. On
the record.
Okay.
In case you haven't seen it, we announced who will be playing, which includes this year. Brrrr Drumroll, please, Felix.
Brrrrr.
We have the Chilean Mexican adopted Monlaferte from Peru, the legendary Los Miglos with their cumbia amazonica, the young Dominican vocalist Yendri, and also from the Dominican Republic, Alex Ferreira.
We also have some jazz this year, Anna, with Melissa Aldana and the great Cuban pianist Gonzalo Rubacaba. Mexican ska is represented by the veterans Pateón Rococo and Los Tex Maniacs offer up some music from Texas.
Of course, I had to sneak in some Brazil in there, Felix. One of my absolute favorites, Tim Bernardes, brought just a guitar to enchant us. We also have one of your all-time favorites, Draco Rosa, and of course losses de los jefes, loses this year, losigres del norte. So this year we're doing something a little different. We pulled aside a couple artists after their tiny desk to talk about some of their favorite music, some of their most inspiring music, their own music, and tell us a bit more, give us some more context, social, cultural, historical, personal around some of this music and how it's impacted them. So you kicked us off, Felix, with Los Tex Maniacs.
So if you don't know about them, Los Tex Maniacs are a Grammy-winning band from Texas that play that accordion-driven music that originated along the border called Conjunto. But they also include a healthy amount of blues, RB, and a dash of country. Max Baca formed the band in 1997. And the fact that he is from Albuquerque and he has mastered the acoustic guitar known as the Bajo Sexto shows how influential Conjunto is to all of the Southwest.
Marina, Marina, Marina. I love you with all my heart My love for you dearest forever And I pray that we'll never part.
The tiny desk from Los Tex Maniacs will be out soon, but in the meantime, here's my conversation with the band right after they played their show. Now our chat wasn't just about their music. They also shared their deep knowledge of the history of Spanish language music from Texas. First, let's meet the members of the band.
Hi, I'm Max Baca from Los Tex Maniacs, the Bajo Sexto player. Hi, I'm Josh Baca of Los Tex Maniacs, Accordion Player.
Hi I'm Noel Hernandez, I play bass with Tex Maniacs.
Hi, I'm Chris River. I play drums with Tex Maniacs.
It's always struck me how dedicated you guys are to tradition. And this is music that's conjunto, corrido, everything is so old. It's such part of a the Mexican, a Mexican American identity, Tejano identity. But you guys are like you keep it fresh, you keep it vital, you keep it young, you keep it dynamic. So what we want to do today is talk to you about what are some of the songs things that inspired you to play the instruments that you play, that turned you onto the music, or made you decide that this is the path that you wanted to take. Let's start with you, Max. Like what is you playing the Bajo Sexto, which is unique to conjunto?
Yes, it's vital to conjunto music. You know, and and the first time I heard about Josex though, my dad was practicing in his living room, you know, with his band, Max Baquejo conjunto no tengo. I was, you know, seven years old, something like that. And um the Bajo player, you know, was playing the Bajo and
the bass.
Yeah, it's well it's a Bajo the Bajo Sexto. He had a Bajo Sexto. And so I heard it and I got attracted to that b that instrument and this it has this attraction.
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