Bobby Galvan plays a saxophone, owns and runs a music store just off Crosstown Expressway in Corpus Christi, and is a mainstay in the music tradition of south Texas.  Yes, he's Mexican/American and one of the more prominent citizens of a city he was born and raised in, and that has a lot to do with what this blog's all about.  I'm not the only person to discover Bobby Galvan, not by a long shot.  He's been around a while, for about three-quarters of a century, and folks in south Texas know him well.  I'm still mad as hell at myself for missing another Texas Jazz Festival, held Oct. 19-21.  I had planned on being in Corpus that weekend, then postponed my visit a week and missed the festival again.  I missed what about 50,000 people saw and appreciated - an even held in the historic district of the city where the old Galvan home now resides.  Bobby Galvan is one of the founders of that festival, now in it's 47th year.

Bobby grew up in a prominent Corpus Christi home, the youngest son of Rafael and VIrginia Galvan.  Rafael built the ballroom that attracted big time musicians and orchestras to the town, and we're not jut talking a few local bands here.  Bobby's music store walls are lined with pictures of those who played in the ballroom above - Duke Ellington, Tommy Dorsey, and many more.  It was a time when the big band sound was hot, when people came to the ballroom to dance to music that's hard to find these days.  And Bobby was a part of all that back then, even toured for some time as a band member with the Art Mooney Orchestra.  In time he settled down and married and raised his own family, taught band locally and eventually opened a music store.

I got up early last Friday morning, took my granddaughter to school, then drove across the bridge from Portland to Corpus Christi to have morning coffee at the Aqua Java on Water Street.  An entire block is taken up there with not just the Aqua Java coffee shop but with the Water Street Oyster Bar, the Water Steet Seafood Restaurant, the Executive Surf Club, the Texas Surfing Museum and Record Shop, and other assorted businesses.  The walkways around there are dedicated to Texas musicians, the walk of fame area.  And there's a star for the Galvan Brothers . . . and I saw that star and remembered meeting one of them the year before.  I had time to kill, and Bobby Galvan's music store was not far away.

I got the same reception anyone who walks into Bobby Galvan's music store gets - a greeting with a big smile and sincere approach to old time salesmanship.  All you have to do is look around and you know you've stepped back in time, and not just in the way you're treated.  The store is full of band instruments, for this is what he specializes in.  His stock of goods leans toward the Latino, for here you can find the stringed instruments they play - the guitaroon and the bajo sexto among them.  There's sheet music and assorted music accessories in cases you won't find in the trendy corporate music stores at the malls.  And you get waited on by someone who knows music inside and out.

I visited with Bobby for a short while, then excused myself to go take care of grandkids.   But I made an appointment for later that day, saying I'd like to come back and visit with him about the music - not the music business, but about the importance of music to a community.  He agreed to talk more, even seemed eager to do it, so I promised to come back in a few hours.  This time I took a pencil and note pad to make sure I got names right.  I don't do biographies, I told him, but was more interested in the cultural things.  We talked about the importance of music to a community, how it sometimes binds people together in ways we don't quite understand and perhaps don't need to.  When the music dies in a community, something is lost that can't be replaced.  I already knew he'd feel that way.  I knew him the moment we met, and not just from what I'd read about him.

Corpus Christi has a rich music tradition, one that's imporant to the city in lots of ways.  Not only has it produced some outstanding Tejano groups, it's important to country and pop and jazz as well.  Freddie Fender, who died recently, lived there.  Don Williams, the country legend himself, went to school at Del Mar College and sang with a group called the Pozo Seco Singers.  They too are in the walk of fame at the Surf Club downtown.  Selena was from Corpus Christi.  Music has been important to them for a long time . . .and still is.  I get the feeling that many people aren't aware of just how important music can be to a place.  If you need a lesson on it, go to Nashville or Austin.  A year ago just before watching a show at the Surf Club, I spoke with a local musician who said they'd like to be another Austin.  He even said the words, "We're just a little Austin waiting to happen."  

Bobby talked to me about what Corpus Christi was like fifty years ago, before the section of town where his music store and ballroom are located went down.  "Booming!" he said, his eyes lighting up.  "We were a big cotton town back then.  It was a good time."  And we talked of when the prosperity ended, when the community started to go down.  We didn't talk about what took it down, but we didn't need to.  We did talk about how important it is to keep the music going.  "Why are you still working?" I asked.  He shook his head, looked a bit sad and said he needed to let go and retire.  He wants to spend more time with his wife, Alicia.

For the moment, however, Bobby is still in the music store doing business as ususal.  He's aware of how important his presence in the community is, what he provides in the way of services and goods.  I didn't ask and don't know for sure, but he's probably aware of how important he is in cultural ways.  If and when he closes down the music store, his many customers will miss him from a material standpoint.  That old style music company will be gone, and a little bit of history will be gone with it.  But what of the music itself?  What is lost when we no longer hear the kind of music Bobby makes and loves?  

These are questions nobody can answer for sure because when things of intrensic worth are lost, we may be years in figuring out the costs.  Just knowing it's a loss is enough to make me a little sad . . . and concerned for the future.  I'm concerned because Bobby's music is not the sound of angry, frustrated people, but rather of people who are hopeful and looking forward to better times.  It's the music of people rejoicing and celebrating life and not the ranting rhythms of the angry.  It is the sounds of divided people that threaten to replace this beautiful music, the sounds and rhythms that bind us together, that frighten me.  With that in mind, any idiot can figure out what is lost when good music dies out and is forgotten.

And so I sat there for a couple of hours and talked with Bobby Galvan about a wide variety of things.  I watched him work, answering the phone, jumping up to wait on customers who drifted in from time to time.  He was here and there, back and forth, all over the store and always busy doing something . . . and I needed to leave him to his work.  He said when I left that I should come back so we could talk more about music.  I promised to do just that, but I couldn't help making one last observation before leaving, "You'll never retire.  Like me, you're too restless to do that.  You may shut this place down, but you're not a sit down person."  He nodded and smiled.

I drove back across the bay after that encounter with mixed emotions, thrilled at having met the man but knowing that some day I'll drive by that place and Bobby will not be there.  I hope someone keeps the historic ballroom going, or at least preserved, but I hope Bobby gets to spend more time with Alicia.  His only son just got elected to a judicial office, something he was proud to tell me.  And he spoke often about his wife.  There's more to life than work, that's for sure, but it's sure hard to put aside your life's work.  With Bobby Galvan, that's music, and it's been a good life - not just for him and his family, but for all of us.

D. Paz, 10/29/07