Courtesy Picture / Jesus V. Garcia Archives
Joe Jama poses with longtime San Antonio TV anchor Fred Lozano. Each had been members of native music group the Radiants.
Singer-bassist Joe Jama, a key determine in San Antonio’s Chicano soul sound, died Sunday at age 74, in response to particulars shared on-line by family and friends.
Jama was a late-joining however key member of the Royal Jesters, a bunch fashioned within the late Fifties by Lanier Excessive Faculty college students. By the point Jama — by then a veteran of native teams the Radiants and the Revells — got here into the fold in 1968, the Jesters had been shifting away from their fusion of doo-wop and Mexican music right into a extra up to date sound reflecting a broader mixture of influences.
Courtesy Picture / Jesus V. Garcia Archives
Early on, Jama performed bass in Beatles-influenced act the Radiants.
Armed with a large vocal vary, an arranger’s ear and the power to put in writing memorable tunes, Jama helped shift the Royal Jesters right into a funkier, jazzier, horn-driven strategy that embraced the burgeoning Chicano motion, mentioned Hector Saldaña, curator of the Texas Music Assortment at Texas State College’s Wittliff Collections.
“While you noticed Joe Jama in his heyday, it was a robust factor,” mentioned Saldaña, who additionally penned a prolonged remembrance of the musician for the Categorical-Information. “He wasn’t only a soul shouter. He may carry collectively a whole lot of totally different components.”
Music historians credit score Jama and different architects of San Antonio’s Brown Eyed Soul motion with fusing the Mexican music of their upbringing with the blues showcased by Black musicians at venues together with the Eastwood Nation Membership.
“San Antonio musicians could be within the viewers and study rhythm and blues listening to Bobby Bland and all these guys that had been coming by,” Ruben Molina, writer of Chicano Soul, instructed the Present in 2015. “Doug Sahm, Randy Garibay, Joe Jama, Sunny [Ozuna]’s musicians had been all there studying.”
Courtesy Picture / Jesus V. Garcia Archives
The Royal Jesters, together with Jama (second from proper), performed their final gig as a bunch in 2010.
By the early ’80s, Jama struck out on his personal, main a wide range of different outfits, together with 100 Proof, that drew faculty college students and St. Mary’s Avenue revelers together with older followers of his funky West Facet soul. He continued to excel as a performer due to his vocal vary and soulful, dance floor-ready tunes.
Jama slowed his efficiency schedule round a decade in the past as he handled well being points, in response to Saldaña. Even so, he stays an influential determine in Alamo Metropolis musical circles.
“What set Joe Jama aside was that he had that vocal skill, , he may go excessive or go low,” Saldaña mentioned. “He additionally had the musical chops to again it up.”
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