The Baca Family Orchestra was the first Czech band from Texas. While their influence outside of Texas wasn’t recognized outside of Texas until the late 20th century, their importance stretches beyond the being the first Czech Texas band as they represent their culture through repurposing folk songs for the communities of Czech Texans and other Texans who lived in the surrounding communities. Their legacy continued through the 20th century and is still the most well known Czech band from Texas today.
Early Czechs in Texas
Since the last post was heavily focused on why Czechs moved to Texas, I thought it’d be important here to set the scene of how Czechs started to make a home of Texas.
It is the 1850s in Austin and one of the First Czech settlers by the name of Rev. Ernst Bergmann, originally a protestant minister of Bohemia arrives in Cat Spring, a German settlement established in the 1830s by early German settlers. Understand the potential for people to flourish in this “new land” he sends letters overseas to Bohemians looking for a new home to escape the tyranny of the Austrian empire. Unfortunately, these settlers would arrive just in time for the American civil war to start in 1861, cutting off immigration entirely in the south. Since Czech settlers were trying to avoid war in their own country, they did their best to avoid conscription either by helping transport materials for the confederate army or by hiding in the woods or near river bodies. While Anglos and Czechs would “coexist”, Czechs didn’t have any need to fight in the war as they usually provided their own labor and had no desire to own slaves. This only lead to further isolation of Czech communities and began to distance relations between Anglos and Europeans. This is an important detail as Czechs made the choice to avoid assimilation, and as immigration was reintroduced in 1866, Czech and German communities would begin to form creating a unique Euro-American culture.
One of the most prominent part of Czech culture in Texas was language. Unique Czech schools were beginning to arise in these communities in the late 19th century that taught Czech language to the emerging children of these communities. As Czech American newspapers from the from pro-union journalists became blacklisted by pro-slavery rebel groups, Czech Texans began to print their own papers. While the first Czech-Texan newspaper, Texan, began its print in 1879, Svoboda (“Freedom”) was the most influential bringing community members new important to their communities such as where the next dance is occurring, what farmland is for sale, and how those of the community can contribute to “civic participation”. These Czech newspapers continued for about a century and were the precursor to La Grange Journal as a way of advertising the Czech music and culture surrounding Fayette County.
The Baca Family Orchestra
Frank Baca was a clarinet player in the Fayette county band at the young age of nine. His parents moved to Texas from Moravia in his infancy carry the roots of the Czech-Moravian culture with them to America. He married Marie Kovar and over the span of 1892-1899 had 13 children. These children would be the foundational members of the first Baca family Orchestra. Due to the Czech and Moravian blend of cultures, the orchestras mix of brass and the hammered dulcimer became a staple of the Baca Family’s sound and many other family orchestras to follow. While Franks son Joe would take the helm after Franks death in 1907, he would eventually pass in 1920 handing the leadership of the band to John R. Baca in 1920. During this time, John would promote the band to a Huston radio station KPRC and was able to play live over the air to listeners. John also made the band the first Czech band in Texas to make records. Throughout the 1930s Johns Baca family orchestra would record records for Okeh, Columbia, and Brunswick. However, this would not be the only Baca Family orchestra performing in 1930 as John’s brother Ray would break away from the group and create his own Baca Family Band. John’s band disbanded in 1952 when John would pass. Ray and his son Gil would continue to perform and would eventually be recognized outside the state of Texas in 1967 with their first out of state performance at the Smithsonian Institution’s American Folklife Festival.
The Legacy of the Baca family orchestra lives on in Fayetteville, Texas. Baca family orchestra memorabilia would be put on display in the Fayetteville Area Heritage Museum and in 1994, Gil Baca, the grandson of Ray and the latest head of the family orchestra, opened a bar called the Baca Saloon and Confectionery in Fayetteville Texas. This saloon would host Czech bands from the local area to play at the bar. While under different management today and rebranded as Joes Place at Baca Saloon, The frames of the family portraits and pictures still remain in the restaurant as well as the restaurant being recognized as a National Historic Landmark by The National Register of Historic Places. Gil Baca’s final performance he gave was there at the bar’s recognition ceremony in 2008. This would be the heart wrenching last performance of a Baca family member as Gil would pass shoetly after. Below is a news story on a segment called “The Eyes of Texas” on the Baca family Saloon and Gil Baca celebrating cultural phenomena that made the lone star state special (ironic name don’t you think?). Can you recognize the first song?
Texas Czech Music Venues
Prior to dance halls, bandstands were the most primary place for Texans to watch live music. These were rather small stages or gazebo like structures that would sit in the middle of a town park or near a town landmark. While some of them were temporary and made to be moved and removed easily, others were permanent spots that townsfolk can expect to see events around town. One of the earliest infamous bandstands was located at the town center of Praha, a Bohemian community with the saloon using the bandstand as a places to host live bands outside the bar. While dance halls would eventually become the primary place to see Czech bands in Texas, A bandstand in named the “Fayetteville Courthouse Square Bandstand” would be built in 1932 dedicated to hosting the Baca Family Orchestra and other Czech musicians for years to come. Eventually, Czech dance halls came along with the popularization of Czech fraternal organizations. These fraternal clubhouses would host events for those in the Czech communities and served as a central hub for Czech culture in their respected towns. One of the parts of culture Czech fraternities wanted to preserve was music. These clubhouses then would be repurposed as Dance halls for these events. Eventually the dance hall would branch out and by 1980, 250 Czech dance halls had been built in Texas by SPJST, a local Texas organization.
Oklo Mesice
Czech music, as discussed before, revolved around popular folk songs passed down through generations. In 1819 while under the Austrian Hungarian Empire, Count Furstenberg in order to validate the locals of the region called fro a collection of peoples songs after years of being oppressed and having no political power due to being part of the empire. The collection of these songs, traditions, and fairy tales became integral to the preservation of the culture despite the constant oppression. These folk songs made the Baca Family Orchestra unique from the other brass bands within America as they drew from these folk songs for their repertoire of music to perform. These lead to these Czech folk songs becoming popluar with Czech Texans and Anglo Texans alike.
Okolo Mesice (Around the Moon) is one of these Czech folk songs. This song in particular describes the desire for poor young people to dream of wealth and luxury. “looking for thousands” is what “tisice hledaji” translates to. The song desribes how men and Women look for trousers and dresses, but all they can afford are the simple clothes they are wearing. In Czech culture, this song appears in the novel The Good Solider Svejk written by Jaroslav Hasek. The book a dark satire about being drafted into the Austrian Hungarian empire in World War I with Hasek as a World War I veteran himself. The context in which this appears in the novel is when an army chaplain blurts this song drunk while Svejk struggles to carry him back to his quarters.
Its important to recognize the importance of these lyrics to Czech people as riches were constantly dangled over them by royals while most of those living in the country were poor. War and being being drafted as a soldier was also constantly looming over Czech people as well as the empire fought to keep serfdom. This makes the song all the more important to the Baca family Orchestra as underneath John Baca. In the 1930s, Czechs had been living in Texas for almost a century and found success in the agricultural industry. Being able to afford some of the luxuries their Czech ancestors believed in most likely brought pride to their heritage and their communities established in America, making this song appropriate to record.
The song was recorded with Columbia records in an San Antonio session August 28th, 1935. Columbia came to San Antonio in 1927 and bought Okeh records, a record company out of Atlanta famous for their early adoption of “ethnic recordings”, or music made by non-Anglo musicians. The recordings usually included black and Tejano musicians. Primitive recording technologies contributed to the defining sound that was both low quality and imperfect. While not a financial success story as America was coming out of a depression, these recordings kept the music of the Baca Family archived for generations. As you listen to Oklo Mesie, you can listen for differences in orchestration to other Czech songs we had listened to before. Its important to note that that their performance mimics the American brass march associated with traditionally patriotic bands such as Jon Phillip Sousa’s Orchestra. However unlike those Sousa bands where the goal was to set the mood for a march, here the brass instrumentation is played to be danced to, just as lots of other Czech music to follow.
Another important defining character of the Czech brass band sound is the Hammered Dulcimer. The Hammered Dulcimer is a Middle Eastern instrument that made it’s way over to Europe and became the precursor to one of the most popular European instruments today, the Piano. Unlike some other instruments, the dulcimer continued to coexist with the piano due to the control the player had over the instrument as they held the hammers and hit the strings themselves. You can hear the hammered dulcimer used in Lesni Zabava to give a lighter less aggressive solo over the music while keeping the energy of this song.
Sources
Barton, Frances A., et al. Czech Songs in Texas. University of Oklahoma Press, 2021.
Hall, Michael. “Music Clubs.” Texas Monthly, 20 Jan. 2013, https://www.texasmonthly.com/travel/music-clubs/.
Hickinbotham, Gary. The History of the Texas Recording Industy. 2004, https://gato-docs.its.txst.edu/jcr:53ffdc9f-94be-4597-bc90-e1dcb10df5f3/Volume_4_No_1_The%20History%20of%20the%20Texas%20Recording%20Industy.pdf.
Mikus, Helen, and Linda Dennis. “The Baca Family Band.” Footprints of Fayette A-E, http://www.fayettecountyhistory.org/footprints1.htm.
Schnautz, Brandy. “Bacas of Fayetteville.” TSHA, 18 Oct. 2015, https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/bacas-of-fayetteville.
Smithsonian Institution. “The Hammered Dulcimer.” Smithsonian Institution, https://www.si.edu/spotlight/hammered-dulcimer.
