Daniel Jasek: A genuine article
Moulton’s Daniel Jasek did something few people will ever do on Sunday, April 23. He played his 52nd annual Fiddlers Frolics, and by “played,” we mean competed, live and on stage, in front of a packed house at the Hallettsville KC Hall.
Of course, he played with many of those same people for years before they had a thing called Fiddlers Frolics. Back then, it was just what you might call a get-together, over at Cliff Fryer’s place out near Ezzell. But it already begun to outgrow his place, which is why they started thinking up the Frolics, anyhow.
Jasek played those, too, for however long those get-togethers took place before the Frolics came into existence. He even took home that coveted Texas State Fiddle Championship prize himself, a time or two.
And Sunday’s contest was no exception, though instead of that golden fiddle and belt buckle the state champions take home, he seemed more than content working his bow through the senior rounds of competition.
While his buddy Brad Riley of Waller may have walked away with the top prize that day, Jasek didn’t do poorly at all, pulling second in a field of nine. Fair enough, anyway, because while they may indeed all be seniors, ol’ Brad there is still a quarter century his junior.
For a fellow who’s 91-years young, his bow work is still amazing spry, especially for a guy who’s seen half as many sights as he has. He shared a few of those Sunday with event emcee Wes Westmoreland from Taylor, a kid who hadn’t done too poorly either through the years. With 10 of those Texas state championship buckles to his credit, Wes is one of the winningest fiddlers ever there in Hallettsville
But it wasn’t Wes or even Brad, the fellow who beat him that day, that one of the fans in attendance came to with a special request after the seniors contest was through. For this, only Daniel Jasek would do.
“Today is my dad’s 100th birthday,” the man told him. “I don’t suppose you could maybe play him a few bars and let me record a message to him, could you?”
Of course,” came his reply. And not only did he play a few bars, he gathered up a few of his old bandmates in the shuffle to a side room, where he played a whole set, all behind the scenes, faraway from the limelight.
It was only after all that he learned he held a certain kinship with said birthday boy. Ol’ Daniel, it seems, played Mr. Birthday’s wedding, just a few months before that second world war got fired up good, some three decades before somebody even dreamed up a thing called Fiddlers Frolics.
How likely do you suppose it might be, even if I lived to be twice as old as Daniel Jasek is now, that my eyes might ever witness the likes of something like that again?
