trío romántico
Mission, Texas
Trío romántico, a gorgeous music tradition from northern Mexico and the Rio Grande Valley, is often performed by groups with tres in their name, since the style is performed by three musicians. Tres en Punto, a trío romántico from Mission, Texas, adds a cheeky layer to this naming tradition, using a phrase with an everyday meaning of “three o’clock on the dot” to suggest that their trio is exactly on time as well. In their stylish attire—whether sharp traje suits or pressed white guaybera shirts and crisp slacks—and with their impeccable harmonies and fingerings, trio Tres en Punto are precisely the band to carry on the impassioned tradition of this elegant and romantic music.
The trío romántico style, with its poetic themes of unrequited love, took the Latin music world by storm in the 1940s, and retains a deep cultural resonance for generations of listeners in the Valle de Tejas. The trío romántico ensemble features close, three-part harmony singing and virtuosic guitar work—usually two guitars and a requinto (a small guitar tuned a fourth higher)—played by the singers themselves. Tríos románticos perform songs of the heart from a broad range of Latin American forms, particularly bolero romántico, but also Peruvian vals, pasillo, Cuban son, Venezuelan joropo, and Mexican son jarocho and ranchera, among others.
While bandleader Gerardo Calera’s family was full of jazz and classical musicians, he was captivated by the sound of trío romántico. Calera was 14 when he bought a CD featuring a song that had caught his attention, Los Tres Reyes’s “Ódiame”; to his surprise, he says, “I loved the whole thing,” and dedicated himself to learning the guitar and the requinto. In a region of south Texas rife with mariachi players, trío romántico was beloved, but musicians who played the form were few and far between. Eventually, friends connected Calera with Omar Javier, another young musician from Mission. The pair, who have played together for the last 15 years, caught the eye of Gilberto and Raúl Puente, the twin brothers from San Antonio who founded the legendary Los Tres Reyes (The Three Kings) in 1957; these elder statesmen became informal mentors. In 2012, Calera and Javier founded Tres en Punto, and have since built a reputation as leaders in the revitalization of trío romántico in their native Rio Grande Valley and beyond.
Tres en Punto’s primera voz, the melody and highest singing part, is beautifully interpreted by guitarist Alberto Ortiz. Omar Javier sings the second voice and anchors the music with his bass. Gerardo Calera adds the lowest, third voice, while picking out the high-string melody on his requinto. This year the trio has played a small series of shows with Cuban-born singer Bebo Cardenas, the final primera voz of Los Tres Reyes, a fitting tribute to that great band, which retired a year ago. As Cardenas says, his dream for Tres en Punto is to continue to carry on their predecessors’ legacy of playing trío romántico at home and worldwide, allowing audiences to revisit the golden age of this romantic music—and perhaps their own youthful romances as well.