Parlor Showcase

Sometimes, without planning or advance warning, something happens that brings about a convergence of culture, life experiences, hard work, and a synthesis of musical variations that creates a special, one-of-a-kind person. Jaime Valle is that special person. A native of Tijuana, he played the bars along Revolution Avenue: the Convoy Club (where Carlos Santana began his career), Bum-Bum Club, Blue Note, Blue Fox, Aloha, and Mike's Bar. As he played those smoky barroom clubs, Jaime got his early musical education. He played the blues of Muddy Waters, Jimmy Reed, Johnny "Guitar" Watson, and Ray Charles. He also played the rhythm and blues that predated much of the Beatles music heard in Tijuana during the 1960s. At some point during these journeyman years, he heard Wes Montgomery on jazz guitar. Those octave phrases that Wes played caught Jaime's ear and touched his soul, setting him off on his journey into the world of jazz guitar.

When you watch Jaime perform, you immediately notice that he's completely at ease and doesn't hide behind his guitar as he plays with gusto and lives the joy of the music he's playing and improvising at the moment. You can't help but be drawn into the music, connected to his jazz lines, his sense of swing, and his emotional road map.

I've known Jaime for almost three decades. During these years, I've seen his musical style mature - raw talent morphing into skilled musicianship. The music he plays is subtle and complex, but always very approachable. Jaime's music reflects not only his unique DNA but also his studious approach to learning his art and ongoing commitment to stay fresh and updated, all the while remaining connected to his roots and the jazz tradition he embraces every time he plays his guitar.

In Tijuana, Jaime worked along a porous cultural border where he lived a musician's life from early on. By the time he was 14, he was already playing all the music he heard from the U.S. in the clubs. He performed seven days a week to provide the bar crowds with the music he was continuously absorbing. This school of hard knocks, playing in smoky, crowded clubs, with the inevitable nightly tensions of the various groups that played there, was Jaime's first music conservatory. The clubs were his practice room and provided a taste of what was to be his life's journey of becoming a working musician.

As with all musical borders, the U.S. border was transparent, and Tijuana's proximity to San Diego and Los Angeles made the music flow even more seamlessly. While preparing to write this article, I mentioned my project to Lou Curtiss, who told me a story about how he and his friends would go to Tijuana to dance and listen to Jaime Valle and Carlos Santana in the clubs. The rock/dance clubs along Revolution Avenue had become Jaime's equivalent of New York City's 52nd Street jazz havens, a place of music fusion and cross-fertilization, a venue for oddball characters and underhanded promoters. To be sure, the clubs were where Jaime developed his street smarts, but they were also the places where he experienced a cross-cultural synthesis and discovered his place in the larger musical worlds on both sides of the border. 

In the late 1960s, Jaime eventually moved on to Acapulco to join Mexico's hit band the Love Army after being recruited by Alfredo Elias Calles, owner of the famous Acapulco club Tiberio's and other clubs in Mexico City. The Love Army was a group consisting of some of the best rock club musicians in Mexico. The band member photos looked like carbon copies of American psychedelic bands at the time, complete with Nehru jackets, paisley print shirts, Fender straits, and Beatle-like haircuts. Acapulco was a tourist town with a wild reputation, a place where Hollywood stars and the glitterati went to vacation, cut loose, and dance the nights away in a haze of smoke, noise, drinking, and the excitement created by the Love Army.

Over the following years, the more he played, the more Jaime became musically restless - always inquisitive and always questioning musical styles and concepts, including his own use of chord progressions. He was looking to get beyond the I, IV,V blues structure he loved, played by the old Chicago blues masters and rhythm and blues that he played nightly in his gigs. He wanted more out of the music and three chords were too limiting. British guitarists like Jeff Beck and America's Jimmie Hendrix (aka Jimmie James) caught his ear and sparked Jaime's interests and creativity. By the time he was a young man, he had already experienced the life of being in a successful band (the Love Army) and had lived and worked in Mexico City among its 20 million citizens as well as in Acapulco and Tijuana. During the time he spent in Mexico City, Jaime studied music at the Conservatorio Nacional de Musica and at the Escuela Libre de Musica. He learned music theory and the art of solfeggio and harmony. When he moved to Los Angeles in the early 1970s, Jaime's fertile mind had been infused with the Latin beats of his early musical experiences, American blues, and rock ‘n' roll. He took this all with him when he moved to States. He was ready to try to build his jazz chops. He studied at the Dick Grove School of Music, took improvisation workshops with his friend Howard Roberts, and studied with Joe Pass, Joe Diorio, and Ted Green.

Jaime was on the move musically and moved to San Diego where he worked at Apex Music, located among the tattoo parlors and sailor bars downtown. He soon became involved with the music scene in Mission Valley's many hotels and clubs when Curt Bates, who booked those gigs, came into Apex and asked him to audition at one of the clubs. Jaime was visible, available, and always the "go-to" guy when musicians were needed for local performances. During the 30 years that followed his move to San Diego, Jaime performed with a wide cross section of accomplished local and national musicians, including Steve Allen, Frankie Laine, Sammy Davis Jr., Dave Valentin, Eddie Harris, Joe Farrell, Kenny Burrell, Ron Eschete, Russell Malone, Ramon Banda, Ernie Watts, Alex Acuña, Tania Maria, Bob Magnusson, Big Joe Turner, Larry Vuckovich, Jeff Chambers, John Lee Hooker, Salomon Burke, Dave Pike, Joe Pass, Mike Wofford, Lamont Johnson, Mundell Lowe, Howard Roberts, Poncho Sanchez, Mongo Santamaria, Otmaro Ruiz, Steve Tavaglione, Luis Gasca, Gilbert Castellanos, Duncan Moore, Rob Thorsen, Bunny Brunel, Anthony Ortega, Luis Conte, Allan Phillips, Holly Hofmann, and Rob Thorsen.

When you hear his music, you immediately understand that Jaime has always held on to his Latin roots. He began to do what Dizzy Gillespie did in the 1950s when he incorporated Afro-Cuban rhythms and changes into his be bop jazz repertoire. Over the years he played every possible club, saloon, and music stage in our town. He began to tire of breathing in bad air and smoke while trying to entertain uninterested bar patrons who would rather drown their sorrows than listen to his music. Jaime wanted much more. In the 1980s Jaime put together his own band called Equinox, a Latin, salsa group that would play at the U.S. Grant Hotel every Friday and Saturday night for 13 years. The band got the audience's attention with its updated Latin sound and Jaime's ability to transcend cultures in an entertaining and enlightening way. Equinox entertained, but also didn't condescend musically. The music pulled together Latin/salsa beats from Puerto Rico, Venezuela, and Mexico as well as samba sounds from Brazil, and also radiated Afro-Cuban influences and the sophistication of jazz charts with be bop themes. The band was like the United Nations of musicians. Along with Jaime Valle, band members included Allan Philipps, a Venezuelan pianist; Gene Perry, a drummer from Puerto Rico; Cesar Lozano, a drummer from Mexico; Kiko Cornej, a vibe player from the United Sates; and Peter Skrabek, a bass player from Czechoslovakia. The band was very popular among locals and the shows did very well, but Jaime wanted to do more. Although busy with Equinox, he also played at Tutto Mare in University City during the same years with a variety of musicians. When I heard Jaime play there ten years ago, I realized that he was playing more freely with a less structured approach and was improvising with more sophistication. But even in the midst of these musical changes, people still got up and danced to the music. The crowd seemed to be enjoying the performance and the dancing didn't get in Jaime's way. Over the years, he learned that people still needed to be entertained, but now he could offer them a chance to hear more complex music as well.

Jaime developed working friendships with many San Diego jazz musicians over the years, playing with such local musical treasures as Mike Wofford, Bob Magnusson, Holly Hofmann, and Mundell Lowe. His style has become almost classical as he plays in duets, trios, and quartets. In San Diego Jaime found the musical space to expand his improvisational skills, test his musical limits, and free himself as well as expand his musical comfort zone. He wanted to be free to test harmonic limits, build on the melodies, and find commonality in scale tones that are sometimes unusual, but also fresh sounding and not abrasive. The relationships he formed with some of San Diego's finest musicians gave Jaime inspiration and reinforced his confidence by providing him with new skills and recognition as a jazz musician.

Jaime and I lived in the same neighborhood for a while and during those years I would occasionally pay him a visit to talk jazz, get some guitar playing encouragement, and show him my guitars. Jaime is a Heritage Guitar artist and has represented the company for many years. During our talks Jaime would always generous in offering up some wisdom, a few suggestions, some insights into the music business, and musical ideas. He became my catalyst for starting to play music again. In his house, among the guitars, music stands, and guitar amps, you'd always see musical writings and many CDs; upstairs Jaime had a small studio where he composed music and sometimes wrote 30-second jingles, radio ads, and even movie scores.

Jaime has always had many talents and interests related to music. He recently scored the music for an award-winning film titled Tijuana Jews. A few days ago, when I spoke to him via phone from his house in San Miguel de Allende in Mexico, we discussed the film and he described how he created a string quartet and composed Klezmer music to fit the movie's theme. He told me that he's currently in the midst of scoring another movie titled Frontier Jews, a film about Jewish rabbis that emigrated to the Southwest in the 1880s. He also just scored a promotional movie for the city of Tijuana, a piece that deals with the local music. You quickly realize that Jaime is always thinking outside the box, listening and absorbing music's many styles. He is never afraid to duplicate and fuse the music with his own creative style. In addition to writing scores for movies, Jaime also teaches guitar, but since he spends so much time in Mexico and touring abroad these days, he probably won't be teaching in San Diego very much. In the past, Jaime has taught at Mesa College and says that he still enjoys teaching and doing workshops, but most of all he loves to play.

Jaime has a longstanding friendship with San Diego resident Mundell Lowe, a great jazz guitarist and mentor, and enjoys playing with him when he is in town or when the two of them are on tour in Europe. In the past ten years, Jaime has played in New York City and in several European capitals. He finds it musically inspiring and invigorating to tour. While describing the differences between European and American audiences, Jaime recently told me a story about a moment of stage fright he experienced at Europe's oldest jazz club, Jazz Land, in Vienna. He said that here in this country, we're used to people talking during shows, drinking noisily, and basically using the music as background to other club activities. In Vienna, after he performed with Mundell Lowe, the audience sat stone silent, not moving or getting up, and not clapping spontaneously. Jaime felt uneasy and asked Mundell what was going on. Jaime wondered if he wasn't playing well or if the audience didn't like him. Mundell explained that Europeans were like that and were intensely respectful in their love of jazz performances, which they treated as audiences would treat a classical music performance. Jaime understood and his stage fright disappeared.

Jamie commutes back and forth to his second home in Mexico. He and his wife, Elaine, have family here in San Diego, but he finds that he is also well suited to life in San Miguel de Allende, a central Mexican mountain town founded in the 1500s and a UNESCO Heritage of Humanity designated city that is also an international center of Mexican arts and music. He feels the town is well suited to him, too. There he can perform and create as well as travel to gigs around the world.

When we spoke last month, Jaime described some of the changes he's experienced and why he feels that San Diego musicians need to get out of the city to find venues. He thinks that in order to grow musically, you need to expand your safety zone and then, when you return, your experiences will enrich your music. He spoke about the unease he felt when he first went to New York to perform. New York's cachet as the center of the jazz world for many years has had a reputation of being closed to performers from outside the city and high expectations for musical competence was intimidating. Jaime said it was liberating and musically very satisfying to open that door and realize the universality of his skills and music, even in so daunting a city as New York. We talked about San Diego, its clubs, its musicians, its history, and the well of talent who live and play here. Jaime thinks that one becomes oversaturated and overplayed in San Diego and the expectation is that you always play the same thing in the same places.

For him it was eye opening to go beyond the borders. The journey he started in Tijuana clubs continues today. As a 13-time San Diego Music Award winner, he is also experienced in all aspects of the music business, including serving as an agent. A few years ago I was playing the slots at Viejas when Jaime walked by. He was there to check on the music programs and to check on a band performing there that he hired and agented. Jaime knows the music business and in every talk we've had, he has offered me great advice and suggestions. I recently read the November 2009 article about Jaime in Just Jazz Guitar magazine by Dr. Steven Kinigstein that contained a quote from Mundell Lowe about Jaime. "Before he said anything about Jaime as a musician, Mundell insisted on saying a few words about Jaime as a human being. ‘He's a great guy, a wonderful person. As a guitarist he's excellent. Jaime is one of the tastiest Latin and jazz players around; everything he does makes musical sense.'"

I reviewed Jaime's first CD in 1996 (Round Midnight on Amazon.com.). It was a breakthrough CD, setting out a clear statement of his musical background and establishing him as a jazz musician who was not going to deny his Latin roots. Since then Jaime has released three other albums: Different Worlds, Third Voyage, and Vital Signs. Each one provides a new window into his amalgamation of musical style, cultural sound, and jazz chops.

Jaime is a skillful performer and an entertainer who not only brings musical knowledge and years of experience to his performances, he also plays with a hint of humor that displays his virtuosity and life experiences through his music. Jaime is unique without being unapproachable. He wants you to enjoy his work, to come away with some insight into the music process, to let you get beyond the usual, but still feel satisfied and entertained. Jaime is the totality of his roots and connections to his past. Above all, he is an example of how one's roots and traditions don't detract, but rather add to the core of your musical skills and ability.

When I spoke to Jaime at his second home in Mexico, the lake outside, and the satisfaction that comes with the continuing expansion of life's musical journey, I realized that it wasn't just luck and talent that made Jaime an outstanding musician. It took more than four decades of hard work - developing his guitar chops, seeing and exploring the world around him, breaking free from the routine of being a musician in his hometown - that made Jaime the international performer he continues to be. Borders have been bridges, not barriers to Jaime and he has never lost contact with his past and present selves. Jaime's musicianship is an excellent example of how you can carve out your own place in the world of music, if you are inquisitive and "borderless." During the last conversation we had for this article, Jaime expressed an interest in what I was doing and wondered about what other musicians were doing in town. He still has a stronghold in San Diego and was recently here to gig at Dizzy's as well as Harry's Bar and plans to be back in April. He's writing a new book about improvisation and looking forward to doing lectures and teaching in Mexico. As I look at the photos he sent me, I imagine Jaime, the kid smiling in those 1960s days at Mike's Bar in Tijuana, sitting on his amp, lovingly holding his guitar, dreaming through his music, and taking us with him on his journey through two worlds and beyond.