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LOS FRESNOS — For five years, Mariaelena Villarreal’s camera has been flashing a national spotlight on the Narciso Martinez Cultural Arts Center’s Conjunto Festival, the rousing two-day show that helped put San Benito on the map as the birthplace of conjunto music.
On Friday and Saturday, Villarreal, the Hohner music company’s official photographer, will be showcasing the center’s 31th Annual Conjunto Festival, featuring Joel Guzman and Sarah Fox y Conjuntazzo along with 14 bands at Los Fresnos Memorial Park.
Now, Villarreal’s documenting conjunto music, the genre which Narciso Martinez, the master accordionist from La Paloma, pioneered in San Benito’s cantinas about 100 years ago.
“I really like this festival,” she said. “It’s one of a kind. They’re pretty awesome. If you want a conjunto festival, this is what you’re going to get. I’ve been photographing conjunto music for at least 15 years. I decided to document it. It’s kind of been my life’s work just photographing and writing about it. It’s my contribution to keeping the tradition alive.”
At 10 p.m. Friday, Guzman and Fox, his wife and collaborator, take the stage with their flashy conjunto style.
“I’m going back to the roots of the music in San Benito,” Guzman, a master accordionist who serves as a music professor at the University of Texas, said.
“I come to honor one of the great accordionists of conjunto music. Narciso, with his music style, put a lot of focus on the music.”
Coming off of four years of world tours with singer Paul Simon, Guzman’s been pushing the boundaries of conjunto music for three decades, spiking it with tangs of jazz, blues and country along with tropical sounds like cumbia and salsa.
“We love those traditional conjunto songs but we also want to create a new discography,” Guzman, who’s promoting his new album “Puro Tejas,” said in an interview. “It’s evolving. I play with artists of different genres but I can’t erase my heart — conjunto.”
Growing up, Santiago Almeida, Martinez’s bajo sexto player, taught him the music, Guzman said.
”The centerpiece is our song, the Mexican-American blood line — Mexican soul,” he said. “I pray someday I can leave something behind.”
This year, the festival’s lineup includes 15 bands “filled with the most highly skilled musicians who continue to keep the conjunto music tradition alive,” organizers said in a news release.
The lineup includes Los Tremendos De Juan P. Ramos, Jesse Perez y Los Compadres Alegres and Los Chachos de Jesse Gomez.
In 1992, Rogelio Nunez co-founded the conjunto festival, showcasing the genre’s leading bands while making its mark at the Smithsonian Institution.
“It’s the longest running conjunto festival in the RGV working to develop, preserve and promote an important musical genre developed on the U.S. side of the Texas-Mexican border,” he said.
A year earlier, Nunez co-founded the Narciso Martinez Cultural Arts Center, dedicated during the celebration of Martinez’s 80th birthday — shortly before his death.
By 1999, the Smithsonian Institution was lauding the center’s Conjunto Festival with a CD titled “Taquachito Nights,” featuring recordings of several conjunto pioneers who played the previous year’s shows.
From its opening in San Benito to Los Fresnos’ Memorial Park, the center has become a showcase of Mexican-American arts.
“The festival pays homage to the father of conjunto music, Narciso Martinez,” Nunez said. “The Narciso Martinez Cultural Arts Center was founded to create the space for Mexican-American artists to create and showcase their unique artist skills. Our Raza needs role models and mentors to keep our voice, history and culture alive.”
From across the country, conjunto fans travel to the festival for its traditional brand of music, turning Los Fresnos Memorial Park into one of the area’s hottest dance floors.
“This is dance music,” Nunez said. “It motivates the crowd to want to dance. It’s a good dance beat. The music and the dance are important to keep the tradition going.”
This year, Nunez is expecting a crowd of up to 2,500 fans, about half of whom are coming from outside the Rio Grande Valley.
“They book rooms, go to restaurants,” he said. “It’s an economic engine.”
Tickets are $10 per day.
Here’s the festival’s schedule:
FRIDAY: October 4, 2024 5 p.m. – 12 a.m. (Midnight)
>> Fruty Villarreal y Los Mavericks 5 p.m.
>> Los Chachos De Jesse Gomez 6 p.m.
>> Conteño 7 p.m.
>> Linda Escobar y Su Conjunto 8 p.m.
>> Los D Boyz 9 p.m.
>> Joel Guzman/Sarah Fox y Conjuntazzo 10 p.m.
>> Santiago Garza y La Naturaleza 11 p.m.
SATURDAY: October 5, 2024 4:30 p.m. – 12 a.m. (Midnight)
>> Conjunto Halcón (Los Fresnos High School) and Los Fresnos Elementary Conjunto 4:30 p.m.
>> Juan P. Ramos Y Grupo Tremendo 5 p.m.
>> Jesse Perez y Los Compadres Alegres 6 p.m.
>> Riley y Los Gilitos 7 p.m.
>> Los Monarcas 8 p.m.
>> Gilberto Perez Jr. y Sus Compadres 9 p.m.
>> Los Cucuys de Rodney Rodriguez 10 p.m.
>> Los Telles 11 p.m.
