A plaque remaining from the Big Apple Night Club at West 135th Street and Seventh Avenue in Harlem.

Above, a 1934 plaque from the Big Apple Night Club at West 135th Street and Seventh Avenue in Harlem. Discarded as trash in 2006. Now a Popeyes fast food restaurant on Google Maps.

Recent entries:
“Shoutout to ATM fees for making me buy my own money” (3/27)
“Thank you, ATM fees, for allowing me to buy my own money” (3/27)
“Anyone else boil the kettle twice? Just in case the boiling water has gone cold…” (3/27)
“Shout out to ATM fees for making me buy my own money” (3/27)
20-20-20 Rule (for eyes) (3/27)
More new entries...

A  B  C  D  E  F  G  H  I  J  K  L  M  N  O  P  Q  R  S  T  U  V  W  X  Y  Z


Entry from March 31, 2007
Tejano

“Texas” comes from “Tejas” (supposedly meaning “friendship”), and “Tejano” is derived from this native word. “Tejano” means a native or inhabitant of Texas, especially of Mexican ancestry. “Tejano” also means the culture of Tejanos, such as Tejano music.
     
     
Wikipedia: Tejano music
Tejano (Spanish for “Texan”) or Tex-Mex music is the name given to various forms of folk and popular music originating among the Hispanic-descended Tejanos of Central and South Texas. In recent years artists such as La Mafia, Selena Quintanilla, Emilio Navaira, and Selena’s brother A.B. Quintanilla’s band, Los Kumbia Kings, have transformed Tejano music from primarily a local, ethnic form of music to a genre with wide appeal in North America, Latin America, Europe, and beyond.
 
Tejano Roots Music Hall of Fame Museum
Alice has long been recognized as “The Birthplace of Tejano” dating back to the mid 1940’s when Armando Marroquin, Sr. of Alice and partner Paco Bentacourt of San Benito, Texas launched what was to be the first home based recording company to record Tejano artists exclusively. Ideal Records, which was based in Alice, the heart of South Texas and under the direction of Marroquin became the perfect vehicle for Tejano groups and artists to get their music to the public. Marroquin, who also owned and operated a jukebox company, insured that Ideal recordings would be distributed throughout South Texas. The songs recorded, which were contributed by Tejano and Mexican composers became very popular through jukeboxes placed in restaurants, cantinas or any other establishment that would have them, and the then very scarce Spanish language radio programs.
   
(Oxford English Dictionary)
Tejano
[Amer. Sp., formerly written Texano, f. Texas TEXAS.] 
A native or inhabitant of Texas, esp. one of Mexican stock; a Texan.
1925 O. P. WHITE Them was Days 75 The fear of God, as represented by the wrath of the Tejanos (Texans).
1933 H. ALLEN Anthony Adverse III. IX. lxiv. 1175 The convoy, when it did start, consisted of about sixty unfortunate mestizos and Indians bound for the mines at Chihuahua as well as the captured Americans, or ‘Tejanos’, whose cases were to be disposed of by the Viceroy Calleja at Mexico.

DRAFT ADDITIONS MARCH 2004
Tejano, n. and a.
A. n.
2. Any of various styles or genres of music associated with the Mexican-American inhabitants of southern Texas (see sense B. and TEX-MEX n. 3), esp. a traditional form of this music, played by small groups featuring accordion and guitar and deriving elements from Mexican-Spanish vocal traditions and from Czech and German dance tunes, or a popular modern form of this music, influenced by pop, jazz, country, and contemporary rock, and often characterized by the use of synthesizers and orchestration. Cf. NORTEÑO n. 2.
 
1989 Los Angeles Times (Nexis) 4 Aug. I. 1/1 In Texas, with its large Mexican-immigrant population, the preferred sound is called Tejano, or Tex-Mex, a bouncy blend of traditional Mexican and American country and Western music.
1994 Hispanic Dec. 38/1 From the pop-influenced dance-club mixes of Selena, to the country-ish polka flavors of Emilio Navaira, as long as the singer is from Texas, and the music contains a hint of conjunto influence, the music can be labeled tejano.
 
B. adj.
Also tejano, tejanos. Of, relating to, or characteristic of the Mexican-American inhabitants of Texas; spec. designating or relating to tejano (see sense 2). Cf. NORTEÑO a.
 
1978 D. W. DICKEY Kennedy Corridos iv. 19 This four-piece ensemble of the accordion, bajo sexto, bass and drums, the conjunto norteño, playing mainly polkas with vocals became in the early 1950s and remains today the mainstay of the Tejano recording industry.
1988 P. MANUEL Pop. Musics Non-Western World ii. 57 Norteño (northern Mexican) and Tex-Mex or Tejano musics although similar enough to be regarded by many as identical developed along paths which are best seen as closely parallel rather than fused.
       
12 February 1859, State Gazette, pg. 3:
A gifted genius named John B. Hickey, lately died from dissipation at Jefferson. He was the author of many beautiful fugitive pieces under the name of Tejano.
 
18 November 1876, Galveston (TX) Daily News, pg. 3, col. 3
The Mejico-Tejano is subjected to laws he can not understand.
   
26 September 1878, Galveston (TX) Daily News, pg. 2, col. 4:
A rumor prevails that members of the Mexican Tejano club essayed to pronounce against quarantine last night and were dissuaded from it by their president, Juan Pecina.
 
18 March 1989, Gettysburg (PA) Times, pg. 7A, col. 2:
Ms. (Vikki—ed.) Carr, who along with comedian Cheech Marin will cohost the Tejano Music Awards Friday, also accepted a plaque from the school.

Posted by Barry Popik
Texas (Lone Star State Dictionary) • Saturday, March 31, 2007 • Permalink


Commenting is not available in this channel entry.