Jazz duet, a memory for a lifetime

Mario Dueñas has never had a piano lesson, but his performance recently with Alex Herrera on saxophone melted the hearts of his audience.

"God blessed me a lot with developing certain techniques for self-teaching and for developing diatonic and non-diatonic structures for the study of music," said Dueñas, a 24-year-old Ecuadorian native, who performed four jazz numbers recently at Galeria 409 in Brownsville. Diatonic refers to a seven note musical scale.

"When I’m not playing, either I am composing or arranging or studying by myself music through certain structures and ideas that I have, since I have not studied in any academic place before," Dueñas said. "I have never had a teacher. God is my teacher. I’m not a religious person, but God is really important for my life."

Herrera said Dueñas’ lack of formal training didn’t concern him — he was more interested in his innate talent.

"He can still perform to the full capacity," said Herrera, who plays a very sensuous saxophone. "He doesn’t read everything, but everything’s by ear. The way he plays, I can really connect with him. He’s very spiritual, the way we connect."

Herrera, 28, has played the saxophone since age 15.

"It sounds to me more human; I feel like my soul is singing," said Herrera, who also sings and plays guitar and even a little piano. He’s studying Spanish at the University of Texas at Brownsville and Texas Southmost College, but jazz is his real love. Jazz, to him, represents freedom.

"It’s not really a structure, where we have to like ‘Oh, note by note, this is a quarter note, this is an eighth note,’ " he said. "It’s more you can connect, spiritually for freedom. You get to improvise to the notes."

The most difficult part about playing jazz here, he said, is getting people to understand what he’s trying to do.

"More than half the people, they don’t understand the significance behind it," he said. "They believe that jazz is very easy, and it’s not, it’s actually a change of chords; it keeps changing. And there’s no rules for jazz. And that’s what they don’t understand."

Dueñas is also eager for people to understand what he’s trying to do as a jazz piano player so he can perform with more people.

"It would be really nice if I could get a little more attention so I could play with more people," he said. "I love to play with more people. I love to play with different people, different cultures. Music is a way of communication."

Dueñas can be reached at 956-970-7390 and Herrera at 956-589-1017. Both are Valley residents.