Joe Morris: Tejano Trumpet Player
A Familiar Face in the Archives
My great-grandfather Joe Manuel Morris (b. 1935) performed for several regional Tejano bands, including the Oscar Martinez Orchestra. He played first trumpet, a title he earned back in his glory days at Roy Miller High School in Corpus Christi, Texas.
His passion for music was recognized by the director of the Del Mar College band in 1952, when Joe was seventeen. Music offered my great-grandfather an opportunity for success and creative fulfillment. He went on to play with his compas and industry legends, Pepe Cavazos and Rudy Alvarado, men who performed and worked alongside Martinez.
As the saying goes, the rest was history!
Life and Love
My great-grandmother, Ofelia Herrera Morris (b. 1934), met Joe at a baile. They shared a love for music and fun. The two were married on February 3, 1952; they were a young couple ready to start their lives. Already a traveling musician, she joined him in Galveston for an Oscar Martinez Orchestra residency. The couple moved into a small apartment, right above the bar he played in come nightfall.
After the Orchestra
As their family grew, Joe changed career paths to help Ofelia support their five children. Settling down in Portland, Texas, the couple undertook several employment ventures. Joe operated his own welding school, and Ofelia worked at the local high school as a cafeteria cook. They raised their kids, enjoyed road trips to Las Vegas, and on their weekly drives to mass, tuned in to Tejano 99.9, the definitive Tejano radio station.
Ofelia and Joe were married nearly seventy years before his passing in 2021; he fought a long and brave fight against Alzheimer's. This February of 2026, Ofelia celebrated her ninety-second birthday, a precious gift for our family. Their love nourished my admiration for history and the archive laid out before us.
Nuestra Antepasada
My great-great-grandmother, Ysidra Cano (b. 1910), arrived in the States from Nuevo León as a young girl. Her parents, Dionicio Cano and Refugia Cano Bazaldua, had eight kids, with Ysidra being one of three girls.
Ysidra had one son, Joe Morris, in 1935, but she died shortly thereafter of tuberculosis. My great-grandfather spoke of the tenderness of her love, language, and spirit. He was raised with his uncles and would be the first in his family to attend high school, where he discovered his knack for the trumpet.
In 2022, a year after my great-grandfather passed away, my grandfather John (Joe and Ofelia's middle child) and I were determined to find Ysidra's grave. When we located it, we were met with decades of grime caked over her name. I felt it in my bones that we had to give the headstone a new life. A wave of peace entered my soul after this day.