Dennis González, whose career as a jazz musician and artist took him all over the world when he wasn’t teaching music and mariachi traditions to kids in Dallas, has died. He was 67.
González told The Advocate in October that he’d been very ill since 2019, but he collaborated on an art show with his 8-year-old granddaughter, Isabella Sisk-González.
Family collaborations were a big part of his work, which included Yells at Eels, his band with his sons, Aaron and Stefan. The band released an album with Pinkish Black in 2020 called Vanishing Light in the Tunnel of Dreams.
González moved to Oak Cliff in 1976 and was married to wife, Carol, for 48 years. He worked as a music-show host at KERA for over 20 years according to his Wikipedia page. And he was a Dallas ISD music teacher for decades.
La Rondalla, the Oak Cliff-based music nonprofit that he founded in 2010, not only taught mariachi music and traditions to children and teens all over Dallas, but it also kept a few full-time musicians employed as teachers.
In addition to his immediate family, González is also survived by siblings Sylvia Villareal, Scott González, and Steve González
Stefan González announced the loss on social media Tuesday night, and memorials have been pouring into his dad’s Facebook page from friends and fans here and all over the world since then.
