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:

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…

Along the lines of the story on Alex Carozza I posted about previously, Inforum.com brings us a look at some other accordion die-hards: Dilworth man keeps accordions’ bellows breathing

I wasn’t around during the “accordion boom” when people like Dave Kolle were selling several dozen accordions a week and teaching a full roster of students. Must’ve been a heck of a time. But I’m glad to see people still keeping the torch alive as best they can. Like Linda Gylland, also featured in the article:

“They talk about how North Dakota is the No. 1 state in drinking alcohol because there’s nothing else to do,” she said. “I thought, ‘These people should throw the booze away, find some accordions, and start having some real fun.’ ”

Well, I don’t know about throwing all the booze away–drinking songs do make up an important part of the accordion repertoire, after all–but I like the rest of her idea!