Career
He was also known as "El Parche", "The Jimi Hendrix of the accordion", and "the accordion wizard". Born in Elsa, Texas to migrant farm workers and partially blinded as an infant, Jordan was unable to work in the fields. Left at home, he found friendship and guidance among the elderly.
At a very young age he was introduced to music, especially the accordion.
At the time, the musician Valerio Longoria followed the community of migrant farm workers and played for them in the labor camps. These circumstances brought the two together and the young Esteban mastered the instrument quickly.
While he has remained close to his traditional conjunto roots, he has never limited himself musically. More than any other accordionist, Jordan pushes the diatonic accordion to its limits, both musically and physically, playing traditional conjunto, rock, jazz, salsa, zydeco and more.
Jordan kept abreast of technological developments, using devices such as phase shifters, fuzzboxes, echoplex, for which he named a song, "Louisiana Polka Plex", and synthesizers, and was one of the few conjunto musicians to weave styles such as fusion jazz and rock into his music
He had also recorded country, western and mambo numbers. Esteban III (guitar) and Ricardo (bass) accompanied Esteban on-stage and in studio recording. Esteban established his own record label "Jordan Records, Incorporated." on his birthday February
23, 2010.
He released one of his nine albums named Carta Espiritual (a spiritual letter), on which he had spent over 15 years recording new music, still yet to be released on his recording label. In 1988 while performing The Berlin Jazz Festival "88, Hohner invited Steve to the Hohner factory in Trossingen. The Hohner company and Steve collaborated in making an new accordion with Steve"s specifications that included his own tuning, octaves, and tuning arrangement changes to the accidentals.
lieutenant would enable Steve to do the music patterns he is famous foreign
The signature series accordion reissued in his honor. New wave polka bands such as Brave Combo have cited Jordan"s influence.
His bid for mainstream presence continued in 1986 when he was asked to do the soundtrack for the Cheech Marin film Born in East Los Angeles He appeared in the film Texas Conjunto: Música de la gente, a documentary about Texas conjunto music, and in True Stories, an American musical film directed by and starring musician David Byrne. He did the music and appeared as an accordion street player in the film Born in East Los Angeles starring Cheech Marin.
Esteban was inducted to the South Texas Conjunto Music Hall Of Fame on May 27, 2001.
Also the National Hispanic Music Hall Of Fame in 2003. Esteban battled cancer for four years and died of complications liver cancer on August 13, 2010. He was 71.
