One of the ideas we try to promote here is that the accordion isn’t just a polka instrument, or a Cajun instrument, or a Tex-Mex instrument: it’s all those things and much, much more. For well over a hundred years now, accordions have been an essential player in genres ranging from avant-garde jazz to zydeco, in countries from Albania to Zimbabwe.
This past weekend, I stumbled across a great video that captures this idea. “The Accordion Party†is a medley of songs showing how the accordion has been a key player in party music the world over since its invention in the 1800’s. It’s by no means complete, but it’s a fun survey of the accordion’s global reach.
The video was created by cdza, a group of musicians in New York who create “musical video experiments.†They’re incredibly talented and I highly recommend checking out their other videos, including “Journey of the Guitar Solo†and “An Abridged History of Western Music in 16 Genresâ€.
1 Comment:
So happy to see you back!
Funny bit in that film, they have Dale Wimbrow down for writing the song “Accordion Joe,” but I thought the accordionist who played with Ellington, Cornell Smelser wrote it. It seems like it might have been some kind of co-writer thing, I don’t know. Wish we could ask him, but he died about ten years back.
According to Cornell’s family a jazz writer interviewed Cornell in the 1980s, but we haven’t figured out who that might have been yet. I’d love to interview that interviewer.
Great to hear from you!
by Bruce Triggs on February 5th, 2014