A while back I was invited by the folks at The Recording People to add a dash of accordion flavoring to a couple of tracks they were producing for Zack Joseph.
Well those tracks, plus seven more, are now available on iTunes for your listening pleasure. Worth checking out–if not for the excellent, rootsy blend of folk and country, then for the cover alone, which features probably the most awesome photo I’ve seen all month…
Here’s yet another article about how accordion lessons are making a comeback, thanks to the whole “accordion is cool again” trend. Although this one gets bonus points for noting that, in some communities, the accordion never became uncool in the first place:
More Fans of the Accordion are Squeezing in Lessons
Thanks in part to […] a general trend of branding the once-weird as hip, the accordion has a new reputation: quirky, modish even.
(Incidentally, if the article inspires you to start taking accordion lessons yourself, well, let’s just say I know a guy…)
Got an accordion? Love cheese? Some folks in Wisconsin would like to have a word with you:
Send us your accordionists, Green County Cheese Days pleads
Turns out that the 100th year of the festival is coming up in September, and organizers are hoping to celebrate it with the performance of a 100-accordion orchestra.
Brie there or be square!
An article in the the Dallas Morning News profiles accordion-playing couple Elena and Gregory Fainshtein. It offers some good insights on keeping accordion alive in the modern world and the importance of spreading the accordion gospel:
“If we don’t get youth involved, we’re not going to have a future. We just need more people playing. They don’t have a resistance to it. They’ve just never been introduced to it.“
Lastly, legendary jazz harmonica player Toots Thielemans recently announced that he is retiring at the age of 91. Why mention this in an accordion blog? For one, the harmonica is a close cousin to the accordion (they’re both members of the free reed family of musical instruments). Secondly, as the highest-profile ambassador for harmonica in jazz, Thielemans created a level of respect for “unconventional” instruments that had to trickle down at least a little bit to jazz accordion.
And lastly, it turns out that accordion was his first instrument!
So I’ll wind up this post with one of my favorite Toots Thielemans tracks. He’s best known for Bluesette, but I really like this 1979 pairing with pianist Bill Evans on the Phil Markowitz tune Sno’ Peas:
If you’ve always wanted to beef up your knowledge of the basic nuts and bolts of music, you might want to check out the latest MOOC (“massive open online course”) from Berklee College of Music: Developing Your Musicianship.
The course starts on April 1st (no foolin’!), but registration is open now. It’s totally free, suitable for all instruments, and you can drop the class at any time if you decide it’s not up your alley.
The must-read of the month is this touching article about JoAnne Bjerke, who doesn’t let her age or her Alzheimer’s diagnosis keep her from sharing her accordion talents with others: 87-year-old accordion player sets toes a-tapping at Tri-City senior facilities
It’s the music, my dear, that keeps you young. I play almost every day, either for other people or just myself. It’s important that people keep music in their lives because they will not only live longer, they’ll be happier and feel better at the same time. […] Just wait until you’re old, you’ll see what I mean as long as you keep music in your life.
Actress Donna Garner was almost perfectly suited for the part of the accordion-playing Czech mother in the musical “Once”. The only problem? She didn’t know how to play the accordion, and the audition was in eight days… Once: A musical with a different kind of love story
After nearly two decades of entertaining, legendary street performer “The Great Morgani” falls victim to tougher city codes: No more Morgani: Santa Cruz accordionist says he’s sidelined by city enforcement
The Santa Cruz Sentinal quickly responded with an editorial.
Kudos to Arsenal player Laurent Koscielny for kicking in (see what I did there?) some of his own money to help save France’s oldest accordion factory. Yet another reason why Arsenal is my favorite Premier League team, even if they do always try to walk it in…
Finally, in defense of North Dakota’s decision to spend tax dollars to buy a certain piece of accordion history, Clay Jenkinson asks, “When did we get too sophisticated to honor Lawrence Welk?”
I know the Welk farm is out of the way… You have to want to go there, and when you get there, out there in the middle of nowhere, there is not very much to see. Maybe that IS the point. Welk should be a hero to every dreamy North Dakota kid who wants to start a band in his garage, every fifth grade doodler who dreams of being Michelangelo, every shy farm girl who dreams of being a Rockette or performing with the Berlin Philharmonic.
You might have noticed the appearance of a new “links” section on this website. I’ve finally collected in one place a list of the various things I wind up recommending to people from time-to-time.
I’ve included some of my preferred accordion music books, a short list of good accordion retailers and repair shops, CDs that are worth a listen, etc. There’s even the make and model of my favorite instrument of student torture (my metronome) for anyone who is curious. Check it out!
With apologies to Julie Andrews, my list does not include any bright copper kettles. (Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons)
Looks like Herman Fuselier, writer for Lafayette, Louisiana’s The Advertiser, has a response to the same article I just blogged about:
The accordion boom is interesting news for the rest of the country. But here in south Louisiana, that’s like reporting sugar is sweet, Halle Berry is gorgeous and Peyton Manning is a pretty good football player. ...the rest of the nation should know it’s only catching up to what Louisiana has known for a long time.
Good point! Be sure to check out the full article: Hot accordions are business as usual
Photo credit: wikimedia commons
You and I already knew this, of course, but The Atlantic has finally noticed that accordions are making a comeback… Accordions: So Hot Right Now
“I think in general people have felt a little bit braver about what kind of music they’re creating, and more interested in stepping outside of the realm of what pop or rock music is supposed to sound like.”
The owner of Petosa makes a good point in the article that the accordion is one of the “only instruments that’s basically found in every style of music throughout the world.” Truth be told, in most of those parts of the world, the accordion never really went away. So I suppose this “comeback” is mainly a United States phenomenon.
In any case, will we ever reach the levels of the accordion’s mid-century, pre-rock-and-roll heyday here in the States? When, as the article reminds us, “some towns had as many as four accordion schools in a couple of blocks”? We shall see…
As she has for the last few years, Rita Barnea has posted her list of suggested “Accordion New Year’s resolutions” over on the Accordion USA website.
I particularly like the first one: Practice every day. I know that it’s possible to carve out a few minutes each day to crack open the accordion case. It’s just a matter of prioritizing it. I know I could do a better job of that myself.
But just think of how much you could improve if you did this for a year? Especially if those few minutes were active practice, where you purposefully work on your weak spots (rather than just play through songs you already know well).
Regardless of your own accordion resolutions this year, best wishes for a happy and music-filled 2014!
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Update: I found another good “resolutions” article posted on the JazzAdvice.com blog. Check it out!
Today is the Winter Solstice, which is the perfect excuse to share this video of Lithuanian accordion virtuoso Martynas Levickis playing a wonderful transcription of the first movement of Vivaldi’s Winter…
Among other things, this is a great example of using the bellows shake in a tasteful and musical way.
I had always written off that technique as a bit of an old-fashioned gimmick, a la Lady of Spain. But Martynas’ performance has really inspired me to go back to working on bellows shakes myself.
And winter is the perfect time to hit the woodshed!