Jesse “Chuy” Varela grew up in a tight-knit Chicano neighborhood in Martinez in the late 1960s, but he really wanted to be part of the action in Richmond.
“Richmond was always the big city for us,” said Varela, one of Bay Area radio’s most recognizable voices as the “Jazz In the Afternoon” and “Latin Jazz Sunday” DJ at San Mateo-based public radio station KCSM (91.1 FM), where he’s also the music and program director.
“I came from a community of lowriders, and we’d come out and cruise 23rd Street,” he recalled. “It’s still a great cruising spot. And you could always find a lot of great music at the Richmond Auditorium, from Ray Charles to James Brown.”
With his boundless enthusiasm and trademark positivity, Varela has become a ubiquitous presence in the Bay Area — and not only over the airwaves. A true man-about-town, he’s often called on to emcee concerts and community events, from the recent SF Music Day at the San Francisco War Memorial and Performing Arts Center to the Lalo Guerrero Legacy Festival, which returns to Berkeley Nov. 6-7 for its second annual edition at the Freight.
A patriarch of Chicano music, Lalo Guerrero (1916–2005) spent his career in Los Angeles, but was tied to the East Bay via performances and collaborations with San Pablo-based Los Cenzontles, which included the 1996 Grammy Award-nominated bilingual children’s album “Papa’s Dream.” The Freight festival explores a wide spectrum of Guerrero’s oeuvre, which encompassed norteña, banda, rancheras, boleros, corridos, cumbias, swing, rock ‘n’ roll, blues and his original permutations of those genres.
“For a lot of us he really symbolizes everything that Chicanos are,” said Varela, who was born in Ciudad Juárez and moved with his family to El Paso as an infant. “He was a master of traditional Mexican music, but also an innovator who wrote songs about people around him, creating this pachuco boogie sound and expressing his own satirical sense of humor.”
Meet Your Neighbor: Jesse “Chuy” Varela
Who: Jesse “Chuy” Varela, one of Bay Area radio’s most recognizable voices as the “Jazz In the Afternoon” and “Latin Jazz Sunday” DJ at San Mateo-based public radio station KCSM (91.1 FM).
Neighborhood: 23rd Street
Resident of Richmond: Since 2012
He said: “I came from a community of lowriders, and we’d come out and cruise 23rd Street. It’s still a great cruising spot. And you could always find a lot of great music at the Richmond Auditorium, from Ray Charles to James Brown.”
Richmond is home to 40+ distinct neighborhoods, a fact that some residents have told us makes them feel disconnected to the city as a whole. This story is part of an occasional series to help Richmonders get to know their neighbors. Do you know someone we should feature? Email hello@richmondside.org or post a tip here.
Music and motor vehicles kept Valera coming back to Richmond
In many ways music and motor vehicles have brought Varela back to Richmond and its environs again and again over the decades. After graduating from high school he joined the Army, and, while his official duties as a supply sergeant kept him busy, he found plenty of time to play guitar. While stationed in West Germany near the Czech border, he met Sinti Hammond B3 player Pete Lancaster and started exploring his budding love of jazz guitar great Wes Montgomery.
Looking to pursue a career in music upon returning to Martinez in 1979 Varela knew he needed to keep growing. He found his way to the East Bay Center for the Performing Arts, where he studied with ace jazz pianist Mark Levine and Panamanian pianist Carlos Federico, who played a key role introducing salsa to the Bay Area in the 1970s.
“We’d get an hour lecture followed by a couple hours of playing,” he said. “Andy Narell was teaching steel pans and there was a lot of great Mexican music, a lot of dance. It was a centralized place for the arts in West Contra Costa, where there was not a lot going on as far as teaching and rec centers.”
Continuing music studies at Cal State Hayward (now Cal State East Bay), he realized that he didn’t want to scrape by as a professional musician, and turned his attention to majoring in mass communication. An internship at the defunct commercial jazz station KJAZ turned into an opportunity to learn about mobile sound recording when he (and his 1966 Chevy truck) were recruited to work with Bud Spangler, “hauling all this equipment to record Turk Murphy’s show at his club Earthquake McGoon’s on Pier 23,” Varela said.
At KPFA, Varela jumped from breaking stories to spinning records
Hired by KPFA as public affairs director, he delved into covering the news, working with Larry Bensky and Amy Goodman as they reported on elections in Central America and political conventions in the U.S. When Charles Amirkhanian stepped down as music director Varela jumped at the chance to move from breaking stories to spinning records. While engineering for jazz journalist Phil Elwood at KPFA he became friendly with Chris Strachwitz, who collected and recorded a vast trove of American roots music at his El Cerrito-based Arhoolie Records.
With his fluency in Spanish and love of Mexican music, Varela made an ideal companion for Strachwitz, who spent decades compiling the world’s largest collection of vernacular Mexican, Mexican American and cross-border recordings.
“The first time we hung out he laid this whole pile of records on me, the whole Down Home Tex Mex connection, and said, ‘Play these on the radio,’” Varela recalled. “He loved Mexican music, but he couldn’t speak Spanish. He’d ask me, ‘What are they saying?’ He loved the real deal, and would tell me about his recordings with Clifton Chenier,” the great zydeco accordionist from Louisiana.
He thought of Strachwitz in 2012 when he and his wife bought a house blocks from his old lowriding stomping grounds on 23rd Street. He’d grown up thinking of Richmond as quintessentially urban, but a close friend who encouraged him to move there often described it to him as “country.” Always looking for music, they ended up at a community festival on Macdonald Avenue, where accordionist Andre Thierry had the audience moving.
“All these things clicked, seeing this whole community doing these line dances, singing along to these songs,” Varela said. “I remember Chris talking about Clifton Chenier and the Black community with Louisiana roots.”
Valera’s favorite places to eat in Richmond
Music has defined his life in Richmond ever since. “In the summer we hear these live bands playing birthday parties or local taco truck stops,” he said. “Sometimes the juxtaposition with that and lowriders bumping their music, that meshing of sounds is so Richmond. The vibe here is so friendly and family-oriented.”
He knew the move was right during the first year when he ran into blues great Jimmy McCracklin at Nation’s. And don’t get him started about his favorite places to eat. There’s a taco truck that frequents Rumrill Boulevard, “and around the corner El Chaparro makes a really good plate of tacos,” he said.
“And the pupusas. A lady around the corner has a little portable wagon. The Central American community is happening and you hear a lot of folks blasting their cumbia. There’s another lady with a little wagon doing Guatemalan food, which is different. Living in Richmond you gain some pounds!”
