Noah Adams: The Grammy Awards are tomorrow night. The ceremony's in Los Angeles. It's the music recording industry honoring its own for the thirtieth time. Today we talk with Carl Finch of the Texas group Brave Combo. Brave Combo has been around since the late 1970s, playing lots of high-energy music styles and this year they've been nominated for a Grammy Award in the polka category. Carl Finch says his group is honored by the recognition for their kind of polka.

["Eloina's Marbles" by Brave Combo playing in background]

Carl Finch: Southern Texas has the tejano music, the conjunto music, and northern Mexico has norteño music, which all of that is polka-based or waltz-based. And there are also a lot of Germans and Czechs in Texas that play an older style, a much more traditional style than you'll find in the Midwest, upper Midwest. And most of the hard-core polka action of that sort is Polish and it happens around the Chicago area and stretches to the East Coast, New York and Connecticut and Massachusets and Pennsylvania.

Noah: How closely have you studied the classic Polish-based polka music that you'll hear there?

Carl: Oh, very closely. I've been listening to it ravenously for fifteen years at least. And one thing that really excites me about the Polish music especially is that it started in Poland, obviously, but as immigrants moved to the United States and settled in urban areas the urbanization of the music is what I think has given it a lot of power and a lot of its grit and emotion.

[end music]

Noah: Hmm. You have brought into the studio there at KERA in Dallas a couple of examples of your fellow Grammy nominees. Tell us who you brought.

Carl: Well, I have a CD here by Jimmy Sturr that features his sound. This is a clarinet song and it's just an amazing arrangement. A couple of things about his sound -- it's a big band, he has a very large band, between ten and fifteen people and they play little a bit faster style than, like, the upper Midwest style.

[Excerpt from "Polisky's Polka" played by Jimmy Sturr and his Orchestra]

Noah: Now that sounds like an entire polka orchestra there.

Carl: His style, he is keeping that alive. The big band polka sound that was made popular by Larry and his father Joe Chesky and a lot of other big band polka bands from the East Coast. And there aren't that many now and he's the most popular. He plays Vegas, he comes to Texas and plays big concerts, plays Nashville, is really getting the word out to a large group of the mainstream audience.

Noah: And who else did you bring?

Carl: Well the other artist I brought is sort of, in our opinion, the king of the polka world right now and a lot of people, his name is Eddie Blazonczyk, and he's considered the top dog in Chicago. This is an oberek that's one of our favorites.

[Excerpt from "When the Sun Comes Up" oberek played by Eddie Blazonczyk and the Versatones]

Noah: That's really kind of nostalgic. Is this Eddie singing here?

Carl: This is Eddie singing and that's his trademark, is his very sweet voice. He has a really high voice. He's just a phenomenal singer and musician.

Noah: Now I have read that Eddie Blazonczyk has had, is recovering from, heart bypass surgery may be the sentimental choice in this Grammy field here.

Carl: Well, it might be, and if Eddie wins he certainly deserves it. But let me tell you a really cool thing that's happening. We're going to Chicago next week and we're doing a concert with him, our first time to ever perform with him. We've hung out with him many times but this is our first time to actually play with him, and it's, it makes me a little nervous, [nervous laugh] actually.

Noah: At what point in the evening at a polka dance would Brave Combo get fired up to do "In Heaven There Is No Beer"? Is there a traditional time for that particular song?

Carl: [laughs] Wow, that's an interesting thing. Well, we do space that song very carefully and it's funny you would mention that, because the beautiful thing about polka music is its adherance, its strict adherence, to a tension-and-release policy. You know, you've got the verse that kind of builds the tension, then you just slam into the chorus section, and the idea there is, it's just -- it's like fireworks and it's a life-supporting thing, and when you're actually at a dance and that moment happens -- which we try to maximize, in "In Heaven There Is No Beer," for instance -- it's, it's just, it's fireworks you can almost see. It's really an amazing thing.

[Excerpt from "In Heaven There Is No Beer" played by Brave Combo]

Noah: ["All Things Considered" ending] We've been talking with Carl Finch from KERA in Dallas. Brave Combo's new recording is called Polkas for a Gloomy World.

Noah: ["Weekly Edition" ending] Speaking with Noah Adams that was Carl Finch of Brave Combo, one of the groups up for this year's Best Polka Grammy award. And the winner is (I've always wanted to say that!): Jimmy Sturr.