Some Questions I've Been Meaning to Ask

[Henke]

Re the accordeon music I don't know that much about American stuff but I love some other accordeon music.

In ITM there is Sharon Shannon and Mirella Murray, two fine ladies that plays some wonderful ITM accordean music. Mirella is more trad oriented, Sharon has some wonderfully inovative stuff that strays pretty far from pure drop trad some times but I love her music, she's also a skilled fiddler.

And as chas mentioned Finnish Accordeon. I have a background in Finnish Traditional Dancing and the accordeon is a mighty popular instrument in all Finnish trad. There are a lot of good 5-row button players such as Pekka Pentikäinen, Hannu Kella, Maria Kalaniemi and others. But I think some of the best stuff comes from Markku Lepistö, an extremely talanted 2-row accordeonist. Check his website out http://www.markkulepisto.com/ He does alot of Finnish trad but also some Kletzmer music and he is extremely good at what he does. Check out the soundclips under Discography. I'm particularly fond of the last solo album Silta (note that the first track was recorded when he was 6 years old or something like that).

[happyturkeyman]

I never finished looking through my gigantamongous farside collection, but the lack of accordian comics disturbs me. Seems right up his alley.
He loves his cookey musical jokes.

On the bright side, there were oodles of Tarzan comics - everything from "vine repairmen" to a classroom full of monkeys plus a young tarzan complete with a teacher saying "The great thing about this jungle is that ANY one of you could grow up to become King of the Apes."

[Montana]

Hey for the folks who play accordian, it's cool. There's a big accordian festival in Philipsburg, Montana, and people come from as far as Maine to participate...
http://accordions.com/rmac/

But you know the definition of a gentleman, don't you?
Someone who knows how to play an accordian (insert banjo also) but doesn't.

Don't get me started on the accordian jokes....

I would say that concertinas/button accordians are cool but those big ivory/marble-y multi-button, multi-key things that look like Liberachi should be playing them (the ones that Lawrence Welk played) leave a little to be desired on the coolness factor.

[Ro3b]

When somebody asks me why I shave my head, I shrug and say "well, I play accordion." I wonder if the accordion's lack of coolness has to do with its strong ethnic/immigrant association (in America, anyway). I can easily imagine American-born children of immigrants hating the accordion because they identify it with their parents, and how uncool is that?

Maria Kalaniemi RULES.

[Pat Cannady]

I suspect the accordion became uncool in suburbia sometime after May 15, 1954, when the first few shipments of Fender Electric Instruments' newest guitar began shipping to music retailers.

http://members.aol.com/aeropl/history.htm

[mvhplank]

Oh my...the Quartetto Gelato is on NPR's Performance Today even as I type (see http://www.npr.org/features/feature.php?wfId=3847540 and http://www.quartettogelato.ca/) and they have the most awesome accordion player. The personnel has changed a bit since the last I heard them, but they're still very WOW. Part of the fun is the quirky instrumentation: accordion/piano, oboe/English horn, cello, tenor voice/violin/mandolin.

"Light programming, like comedy, is serious business. Quartetto Gelato has the stuff. Dry humor and occasional clowning are part of the quartet’s arsenal, yet first it meets the requisite virtues of skilled music-making. Its pleasure-giving is consistent." --Los Angeles Times

And the sexy oboe player does circular breathing. Check 'em out!

M

[Jack]

The day before yesterday I saw Sarah McLachlan (and Butterfly Boucher) perform, and one of Sarah's band members was playing an accordion. At some point, my friend turned to me and said "What is that?" and when I said "an accordion", he made a weird face, almost to show disgust that somebody would play an accordion.

It reminded me of this thread.

[Beoracha]

The mainstream is wrong.

I must admit, I thought accordions were uncool until I lived in south Louisiana for a few years. Got to see a lot of good players. Zachary Richard is one of my favorites. His band has some excellent CDs. Zydeco Rocks!

Tarzan just needed to make a sound that would come out loud on the poor frequency response of the old film. (That's just a guess) or else it had something to do with poison ivy.

Never watched Passions.