House of Spirits Starring Jake Cortez
By David Robeldo

NASHVILLE is a dark gold Ram Charger that Jake Cortez has toured his band in three times during the last decade. He drove the Charger to Nashville those three times, hence the vehicle’s name. It’s the one car he always knew would never break down, he explained, talking about his cars like they’re people. Jake’s father, a guitarist and mechanic by hobby, taught Jake early on how to dismantle a transmission as well as how to play guitar. Rarely at home, his father would clock out from Weslaco’s Texsun juice factory, head home to eat and change clothes, then enter the Mid-Valley night with his guitar in hand — singing at cantinas like the Sunshine Bar, El Chaparral, and La Oficina, filling the rustic watering holes with sounds spanning Los Cadetes de Linares, Jose Alfredo Jimenez, and Cuco Sanchez.

Once in a while, his dad would let Jake tag along.

“When he played the cantinas, he wouldn’t get shit faced. He’d just have a couple because he had to go to work in the morning. My father worked like ninety hours a week ....They don’t make ‘em like that anymore,” Jake says sipping a shot of Patron tequila, remembering a man who died two years ago — a father to Jake, his four siblings and two half brothers.

Jake refers often to his father. You get the sense that something painful was left unfinished between the two ... maybe something as wistful as not having played a final corrido together. Like his struggle with his father’s memory, Jake’s talent is complex. He’s practiced enough to have mastered the Flamenco technique, but raw enough to use it for the purposes of Tejano, Conjunto, Metal and even ’80s Pop. But despite the complexity of his approach to music, his perspective is as simple as black morning coffee.

Existence and music are one and the same.

“I just want to find a way to play music for the rest of my life,” Cortez said in an interview at McAllen’s Santa Fe Cantina, where he’s performed solo on Monday and Tuesday and with his band on Wednesday for three years straight.

His tenure at the Santa Fe marks a significant shift his career. Before residence there, Jake’s goal was to be on the road, destination Nashville, where he hoped to be discovered by someone who could break a musician into the industry’s limelight. He turned a lot of heads there in the home of country music, and wore himself down. But he’d heard story after story of musicians caught in the web of corporate recording labels, owing money to the labels themselves after years of playing, recording and touring. After years of trying, but not getting noticed by industry big boys, Jake felt like he’d hit a wall.

“I wouldn’t say I came back with my head up high,” Cortez said.

But returning to the Rio Grande Valley, and his musical roots, he’s continued building a reputation that sarted at 10 years old playing cantinas with dad. Now 31, he’s booked most every day of the week from South Padre Island to San Antonio. His music is stronger, now, and he’s developing recording and production skills that allow him to collaborate intimately with numerous local musicians.

THE FUEL INJECTED NORBY

Some describe Norby Gomez using the term Fuel Injected. Others, who know him as having more to musically offer than simply being the guitarist and founder of the Fuel Injected Norbies, call him the grandfather of punk — for a literal reason. He’s given dozens of Rio Grande Valley punk-rock bands free use of his amps, stage, and recording studio throughout a decade, and hired them at his pest control company when business has been good. With long, gray hair tied in a pony tail reminiscent of a Grateful Dead head (one whose daughter became an architect and his son a bassist in a noted local band), Norb commands respect and gratitude from those in the local music scene who want the region’s talent to flourish for its own sake. He’s one of several local musicians launching independent music labels whose mission is to put the artists first. At Dark Pony records, Norb asks for a standard management fee of about thirty percent from the bands he represents. For that, he’ll throw his $30K of recording equipment at you, help you record, produce and master your CD, then send you home with a demo you can be proud of. For free. Such was his service to the 13th Victim. a McAllen punk band that, armed with a demo from Norb, launched into Austin to be recently signed by a thriving independent label.

LOCAL CONNECTIONS

Jake Cortez is one of quite a few local artists who Norbie has collaborated with. When Norbie talks about Jake, it’s with the respect and sense of enigma that some reserve for referencing institutions like marriage, the judicial system. or NASA.

“Jake’s probably the most talented musician south of Dallas,” Norb says.

And Norb knows what the hell he’s talking about. His band toured with The Outfield a few years back after opening for them at the Tejano Saloon. The Outfield liked The Norbies so much, they simply packed up their equipment and took The Norbies on tour. It’s one of several colorful industry connections Norbie boasts.. Norbie was with Jake when he played the House of Blues in Las Vegas last year, helping Jake accommodate to the venue’s sound system.

“You don’t just walk into House of Blues,” Norby states matter of factly.

“And you don’t just walk into the House of Blues and play Charles Mingus”.

But Jake did. He had so much material ... classics, flamenco, blues, country, and his originals ... that he played two hours. The crowd was there to watch Jaguares, but they stayed to hear Jake.

Maybe the right music executive never showed up on the nights Jake’s played similarly established venues throughout the U.S. in the last decade. Maybe Jake is so past the genres that no one knows what to do with him. But after touring Nashville three times, and playing numerous national venues like House of Blues (where The Killers are scheduled in late October), Jake remains an independent musician.

SPINS CASH LIKE A TOP

Cortez’s rendition of Johnny Cash’s “Sunday Morning Coming Down” has more notes than Cash could have possibly ever played and probably could have even conceived could exist in the song. Cortez reconstructs the country classic, spins it like a top to dance in the soft dirt of his musical homeland.

“We’re just like the Tejanos,” Jake says, talking about many local musicians steeped in varied genres.

When the Tejanos sprouted the phenomenon of baby-blue tuxedos and a synthesizer to accompany smooth conjunto rhythms, they blew up on their own. They started and manned the record labels to light themselves on fire. That’s why Jake’s in the studio every week, with guys like Norby.

Such collaborations are happening everywhere in Deep South Texas, with producers and musicians who’ve worked with bands spanning L..A..’s Ozomatli to Brownsville’s Del Castillo, a Latin Rock band who recorded the soundtrack for Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill.

Jake mentions Danny Rodriguez, a McAllen metal-head who Jake hired to play with him at The Cantina for a few weeks.

“I’ve hired, and fired, at some point just about every musician down here,” Cortez relates. Aware of the breadth and skill of local musicians, Jake says that the region has what it takes to exist as a music scene in its own right — like Austin, Seattle or New Orleans. But he seems in no rush. With a weekly gig and plenty of weekend bookings, he’s set. And with a paperless marriage to the locally famous poet known as Lady Mariposa, Jake said that insisting on leaving the region to get discovered can potentially be a stupid thing, especially when you have the option to foster a local music scene you respect by applying various industry-related skills.

THE OTHER SIDE

On Mondays you can find Cortez all but alone at the Santa Fe Cantina, a day he refers to as Suicide Monday. The first tequila shot of the week is on Monday. Good tequila that awakens your senses, and that makes you aware of the spirits around you. Maybe that’s why Jake’s Mondays are Suicide Mondays. Because in order to get to the other side, you might have to actually leave this world.

That’s the level Cortez is at with his music. Like an elite group of the greats ... count Jimmy Hendrix, Willie Nelson and Bob Dylan in them ... Cortez seems to be using his music for otherworldly purposes, whose goal isn’t necessarily a three-record contract and a tour on the Sunset Strip. Jake is on the edge, in a way that might relate to history and culture more than to anything. else — constantly remembering and inventing who he is in relation to the South Texas conjunto legends, while reaching far, far beyond.

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