Like Bob Wills in Western swing and Clifton Chenier in zydeco, Don Santiago Jimenez Sr. was the founding father of conjunto, the accordion-fueled Tex-Mex dance music. Jimenez had two sons. The older, Flaco, modernized conjunto in the '60s with a driving R&B flavor, while the younger, Santiago Jr., chose instead to preserve his father's leaner, more lilting sound from the '40s. Santiago Jr. has become the greatest living practitioner of that older style of conjunto, and his album, Musica de Tiempos Pasados, del Presente, y Futuro, captures the pleasures of a sound that has all but vanished. This is a form of conjunto that's less forceful than what we're used to but is more intricate and sweet. --Geoffrey Himes