Oscar Tellez and Max Baca - Photo Taken by Polka Dogg

May 29, 2002, 7:39PM

Musician Oscar Florentino Tellez dies in car accident Associated Press SAN ANTONIO -- Oscar Florentino Tellez, one of San Antonio's best-known bajo sexto players who was a regular with the Grammy-winning Texas Tornados, died in a one-vehicle traffic accident near Cotulla. He was 56. Tellez was traveling to the South Texas town, about 80 miles southwest of San Antonio, to visit friends. He was en route to a nearby ranch early Sunday when the accident occurred, said his brother Ruben Tellez.

"Oscar was funny, hilarious, and he was the best bajo player I had ever heard in this part of Texas," former Tornado Ernie "Murphy" Durawa said in Wednesday's editions of the San Antonio Express-News. "They loved him in Europe, where they called him the `Frito Bandito.' "

Tellez, a native of Laredo, taught himself to play music as a small boy. By his teens, he had learned to play the bass, drums, accordion, the keyboard and the bajo sexto, a Mexican bass guitar that resembles a 12-string guitar. "He was one of those people that come once in a great lifetime," said accordion player Mingo Saldivar, who also played with Tellez. "He just learned and learned. He was awesome."

Tellez is survived by a daughter, five sons and eight grandchildren.