Squeezing out sparks

Originally published June 7, 2001

When he walked onstage at the Tejano Conjunto Festival in San Antonio May 11, Steve Jordan was resplendent in a purple jumpsuit with gold buccaneer sleeves. But what stood out most was how frail the 62-year-old accordion legend looked. Like a skeleton clinging to its last layer of skin, Jordan appeared so gaunt that his right eye patch seemed to cover half his face. A strand of his jet black mane, brushed back to shoulders which meet at the neck, stuck to his lips. His eyes darted around from band to audience as he strapped on a red diatonic button accordion bearing his name. He moved herky-jerky, this cholo pirate, as if controlled by a puppeteer.

Then came the smile, that ear-to-ear endorsement of the moment. To other entertainers, a grin is a given. But on the mouth of a pioneer prone to bitterness, who rarely plays in public these days, the upturned corners meant more. Jordan smiled like he knew something the audience didn't -- that they would soon be blown away.

It's not often that an enigma comes to life before your eyes, so when "Estay-bon Hor-don," as he was introduced, took off on a jazzy tangent to start his set, the audience of about 2,000 erupted. Fans of traditional conjunto and its schmaltzy stepchild, Tejano, haven't always followed Jordan's freaked- out musical explorations, but on this night they urged him to go wild. When he punctuated the perfect night with his trademark girlie yelp, the Tejano cowboys in their white straw hats raised their cans of light beer and the women swayed against the up beat.

"Voy a cantarles un corrido muy al albla" ("I'm going to sing you a great corrido") he vocalized on a traditional Mexican folk song that he would "Jordanize" with a skronking solo closer to be-bop than Tex-Mex. "Esta es la historia de un pachuco muy rocote," he sang in an unharnessed voice.

This is the story of one bad pachuco.

The way you interview Steve Jordan is to drive to San Antonio and just show up at his door in the smaller house behind another house on the far west side. Appointments don't mean much to the man who wears silver bracelets instead of watches. He's been known to take off on impromptu deep sea fishing and casino gambling vacations off South Padre Island.

But on this day you're lucky. It's four in the afternoon and Jordan's home, but he's still sleeping. "He was up all night recording," his 19-year-old son Steve says. "Give him another hour or two." A polite and soft-spoken kid, Steve III (he has an older half-brother also named Steve Jordan) gives a tour of the studio that dominates the living room. The only TV is tuned to a surveillance camera outside. The only stereo is a big wooden console, on top of which several Ampex reel-to-reel tapes are stacked. The famous red " Steve Jordan Tex-Mex Rockordeon" is on the floor next to a chair. There are musical instruments everywhere -- guitars, drums, saxophones, timbales and two or three other button accordions. Jordan can play them with the virtuoso skill another man named Jordan once displayed on the basketball court.

"How do you like my little set-up here?" Jordan asks sleepily, extending a hand. It's been less than half an hour since the knock on his front door. "You meet my 280 musicians? Right here, man, in my synthesizer. Best musicians I ever jammed with, bro, cause they all play like me." There's that exaggerated snicker and the slap on the back. He's wearing sunglasses instead of his patch.

You don't need to ask a question to get him to take off on any given subject in his hipster growl. "I hate digital, man," he says pointing to his ancient reel-to-reel decks. "Music is not this," he says chopping the air like the vertical coding on CDs. "It's like this," he says, rolling his hand in circles.

Steve Jordan doesn't do interviews, he holds court. He tells stories, recounts old gigs and goes off on riffs, jumping from an explanation of why he used to own a hearse ("I didn't want my first ride in one to be in the back") to his assessment of other accordion players ("That dumb cowboy's pretty good, but he can't play with me," he says when the name of a prominent Tejano musician comes up).