• KPBS > Jeffrey Broussard and the Creole Cowboys Perform in Studio
  Listen to an in-studio performance and interview by Jeffrey Broussard and the Creole Cowboys, from KPBS public radio in San Diego. They’re playing at the Gator By The Bay festival in San Diego this weekend.
• MySA.com: Annual Music Festival Returns To Its Roots
  Juan Tejada, curator of this weekend’s Tejano Conjunto Festival in San Antonio, talks about this year’s incredible lineup which showcases “the six distinctive styles in the evolution of conjunto.”

Every day, I come across interesting accordion links — to bands, videos, photos, etc. — that I don’t have time to work into full-blown articles. Instead of hoarding these links (and then forgetting about them), I’m going to start posting them daily as “Quick Links”:

• Picture Show: NOLA Jazz & Heritage Festival
  Photos of last weekend’s New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, including shots of Nathan and the Zydeco Cha-Chas and — my favorite new band name — Why Are We Building Such a Big Ship?
• Review of “It’s Happiness: A Polka Documentary”
  Nice review of the “It’s Happiness” showing at the Wisconsin Film Festival last month. The screening was followed by a Q&A with the filmmakers and an impromptu dance.
• YouTube: Frankie Yankovic interview on the Tonight Show
  Great clip of two legends together: Frankie Yankovic interviewed by Johnny Carson. This appears to be from 1986 since they’re discussing the addition of the polka category at the Grammys.

Let me know if you have any cool accordion-related links to share!

Lo Zen e l’arte dell’organetto (Zen and the Art of the Organetto?) is a new blog on diatonic accordion music written by Gianni Ventola Danese, founder of the Diatonic Accordion Academy. While it’s best enjoyed by someone who understands Italian, there are plenty of excellent photos and videos that need no translation. Fisarmonica fantastica!

Many sites claim that today (January 13) is the anniversary of the day the first U.S. patent for an accordion was granted to Anthony Faas in 1854. A quick look at Faas’ original patent, however, reveals that it was filed on April 7 and granted on JUNE 13 (not January 13). I’m guessing that, somewhere along the line, someone mistook “Jun” for “Jan” and the mistake was unwittingly perpetuated. Let it stop here once and for all!

Faas’ patent wasn’t even the first relating to accordions. The first (non-US) accordion patent was actually granted more than twenty years earlier to Viennese instrument maker Cyrill Demian on May 23, 1829. And Christian Friedrich Buschmann invented the first hand-held bellows-driven free-reed instrument (the hand-aeoline) as an aid for tuning organs in 1822. (Brush up on your accordion history at the Classical Free-Reed.)

For more accordion-related patent fun, give Google’s Patent Search a whirl. I found a couple of odd patents granted to Lawrence Welk — one for an accordion-shaped lunchbox and another for an accordion-shaped ash-tray (which we saw on eBay several months ago!).

My laptop is in the shop, so I’ve had a tough time staying on top of accordion news lately. Fortunately, some friends of the site have been kind enough to keep us up to date on the latest squeezebox happenings:

• Tom Torriglia just got back from the 25th annual Reno Italian Festival, which was crawling with accordionists, including Michael Maffei, Ray Massa of Eurorythms, US accordion champion Anthony Rolando, Tom Serafini with Oro Puro, the accordionists from TDA, and Tom himself with Bella Ciao.
• Skyler Fell’s San Francisco repair shop, Accordion Apocalypse, is hosting an eclectic, circus-themed show this Saturday night. Experience the gypsy/klezmer sound of Portland’s Vagabond Opera, acrobatics and juggling from Circus Finelli, the foot-stomping energy of One Man Banjo, and an appearance by the Accordion Apocalypse Circus Sideshow.
• East Bay accordion guru Henri Ducharme pointed us to a “musical epistle” about a recording session he recently did for composer, Jorge Liderman. It’s a fascinating look at how a professional accordionist attacks a difficult piece. You can listen to a clip, and view a page from the (daunting) score, on Henri’s site.

Thanks to Henri, Tom, and Skyler, for sharing their news. Remember, if you have any accordion-themed news to share (an event, a new album, etc.), just let us know and we’ll spread the word.

Admittedly, when most people think of John Lennon (who would have been 66 today), they don’t think of him playing the accordion. But he actually picked up the accordion long before he ever touched a guitar. In the excellent companion book to the Beatles Anthology, John remembers his early accordion playing:

“I also had a little accordion which I used to play — only the right hand — and I played the same things on this that I played on mouth organ, things like ‘Swedish Rhapsody’, ‘Moulin Rouge’, and ‘Greensleeves’.”

The photo above was taken in June 1967 during rehearsals for the first live international satellite broadcast, Our World, where the Beatles debuted “All You Need is Love”. (He was probably just messing around — he didn’t play it during the show.)

Beatlefans should check out accordionist Harry Doktorski’s article in The Free-Reed Journal about the Beatles’ use of harmonicas, accordions, harmoniums, and other free-reeds. And if you’re curious to hear how some Beatles classics translate to accordion, don’t miss Domenic Amatucci’s Accordion Beatles; he’s covered everything from “A Day in the Life” to “Yesterday” on solo accordion.

There’s a spirited discussion going on over at alt.music.polkas on the current state of polka music. It started with some criticism of recent polka albums and has gone on to cover the role of disc jockeys (online and offline) in promoting polka, what current (often older) fans want to hear, what might draw in a younger generation of polka fans, and more.

It’s worth checking out if you’re interested in the future of polka music, particularly what can be done to further its appeal. Personally, I don’t think it matters whether bands are playing originals or the old standards, as long as they’re playing good music and are trying to reach out to new fans (particularly online; how many polka bands have MySpace pages?).

In the meantime, if you’re looking for some new polka music, Nostradamus’ exhaustive page of polka album reviews and Jimmy K. Polkas are both great places to start. Especially if, like me, your local record store’s polka section consists of nothing but Frankie Yankovic and/or Jimmy Sturr CDs.

Kris Hughes, an accordion teacher in Edinburgh, Scotland, has just started a new blog called BoxTeacher, where she shares her experiences and challenges as a teacher and invites students from all over the world to ask her for advice. Kris has been teaching the piano accordion for over 20 years and, though she’s played in several folk and ceilidh bands over the years, her first love is clearly working with students.

In his first entry, she talks about her lessons with a couple of longtime pupils and it’s fascinating to see how she helps each overcome their musical obstacles, whether it’s mastering a tricky rhythm or trying to find the right feel for a particular piece. If you’re an accordion student looking for guidance, but you can’t find a local teacher, I’d highly recommend checking in with Kris.

Want to help a prospective accordionist? Then head over to Yahoo! Answers and check out this question posted earlier today:

“How hard is it to play the accordion? I’m thinking I might want to learn. I think it is such a neat instrument. Is it expensive? Hard to learn?”

Yahoo! Answers is a place where you can ask questions on any topic and get answers from other users; you can also help people out by answering their questions. (Unfortunately, so far, the answers to this question are pretty bad.) So step up, lend your squeezebox expertise, and help a potential player in need of guidance.