We’re big fans of Dan “Daddy Squeeze” Newton’s Cafe Accordion Orchestra, a Minneapolis-based band that (as their name suggests) evokes the sounds of French cafe music, but with shades of Latin, swing, and gypsy mixed in as well. They’ve just put out their 6th album, Cinema — a collection of songs featured in films from the 1920’s through today, including tunes from The Third Man, Singin’ in the Rain, and Kill Bill Volume 2.

If you’re in the Minneapolis area, you can catch the Cafe Accordion Orchestra performing music from their new album live tomorrow night at the Fitzgerald Theater in St. Paul (home of the Prairie Home Companion). Otherwise, check out sample clips (like the one below) on their site.

Cafe Accordion Orchestra: Harry Lime’s Theme (MP3 sample)

Accordionist.org is a new discussion forum for accordion players that I found via the Accordion Guy’s blog. Share news, promote gigs, swap tips, buy/sell gear, or just hobnob with your fellow squeezeboxers. It’s only been running for about a week, so spread the word and hopefully it’ll attract a critical mass of accordion enthusiasts.

Some other good places to rub elbows with accordionists online:

• Reyes Accordions forum
  Part of the excellent Reyes Accordions site, this is probably the best tex-mex/conjunto/norte?o accordion forum around. Lots of knowledge players (Joel Guzman drops in occasionally) and resources for beginners.
• AccordionFreedomForum
  A more general accordion forum hosted on Yahoo Groups. Members frequently share their own recordings (which are usually pretty good!) with the group.
• alt.music.polkas
  All polka, all the time. Sometimes gets sidetracked by polka community politics, but even those discussions are strangely interesting.
• Cajun Accordion Discussion Group
  Lots of good cajun/zydeco accordion news and tips, straight from the Bayou.

This is by no means an exhaustive list — just a few of my favorites, all of which have a pretty good signal-to-noise ratio. Leave a comment below if you have any other good ones to share.

Rock and roll had Elvis. Polka had Li’l Wally Jagiello, pioneer of the Chicago-style polka, who passed away yesterday at the age of 76. The son of Polish immigrants, Li’l Wally was a self-taught drummer and concertina player who revolutionized polka music by taking the frantic pace of traditional polka and slowing it down. In Charles Keil’s book Polka Happiness, Li’l Wally explained his approach:

“You see, a polka was never supposed to be played fast. If you play it fast, you modernize it. I went to Europe, all different villages. I never heard a fast polka there. So why should I hear a fast polka here? My beat is more ethnic. They used to tell me this is too slow… Actually, it’s not slow. It’s a bouncy beat, but not fast… Eastern style may be musicians’ music, but I don’t play for musicians, I play for the public. The public wants to hear melody, lyrics. They want to hear a song with a simple, real pretty story behind it that they can dance to. Real bouncy.”

Li’l Wally promoted his music tirelessly with live shows (as a trio — trumpet, concertina, and Wally on drums), a morning radio show, and his own record company, Jay Jay records. He wrote over 2000 songs — including his hits “Wish I Was Single Again”, “Chicago Is a Polka Town”, and “She Likes Kielbasa” — and during his 1950s heyday, he recorded between ten and twelve albums a year. Unlike most bandleaders, Li’l Wally eschewed sheet music; instead, he wanted his musicians to have room for improvisation and focus on their most important job: pleasing the audience.

One of the charter members of the Polka Hall of Fame (along with Frankie Yankovic), Li’l Wally was a polka legend and he will be sorely missed. To learn more about his life, check out this excellent in-depth feature from the Miami New Times, written in 1999. And make sure to drink a beer (or two) for Wally tonight.

Li’l Wally: In Heaven There is No Beer (MP3 sample)

Heralding a “new era for the polka industry,” the Polka America Corporation (PAC) has launched as a non-profit charitable organization dedicated to promoting polka music throughout North America. Their website is a little stodgy — which is strange considering the fun, bouncy nature of the people and music they’re promoting — but they’re clearly committed to their cause. Board members come from a variety of backgrounds and include folks like Don Hedeker (of the Polkaholics), Ray Zalokar (who runs 247PolkaHeaven.com), intrepid polka CD reviewer Barry Nostradamus Sher, Big Lou, and many more. Membership is open to the general public and only costs $5 (no word on whether that gets you a swanky membership card for your wallet). PAC has the potential to be very influential in the polka community and I’m looking forward to hearing more about their plans.

An open letter to Irene Haskins of the Columbia (MO) Daily Tribune:

Dear Irene,

As an avid accordionist, I read your recent piece, “Accordion out of tune with popular tastes”, with great interest. However, there are a couple small things I’d like to clear up:

First, you say that the accordion “was not designed to rest on the chest of any girl with more than a 34A bust,” and describe the only female accordion player you know as so flat-chested “she and her husband often go to one of those topless beaches and pass themselves off as brothers.” You may be surprised to learn that there are, in fact, many, many, many women (including my wife) who manage to reconcile their passion for accordion playing with their ample bosoms. There’s even an entire band of them!

Second, you pine nostalgically for Lawrence Welk (“the last of a dying breed”) by saying he “gave the accordion what it had never had — respectability.” Now I’m a bigger Welk fan than anyone my age, but even I admit his music played a large role in cementing the accordion’s “uncool” reputation in the minds of many Americans. Do you really think more “champagne music” would draw young people to the accordion?

And finally, we get to the heart of your piece:

“I?m worried, especially after hearing that even the Polka Belt?s supply of accordionists is dwindling; the veterans are dying out and not being replaced. We should all be worried… where are the accordion players of tomorrow coming from?”

I’ll admit, Irene, when I see photos of accordion gatherings where the average age of attendees is somewhere north of 70, I get a little worried too. But then I turn on the radio and hear the vibrant sounds of tejano and conjunto music from nearly every other station on the dial. Or I’ll take in the gypsy cool of Devotchka, dance to the creole/zydeco of Keith Frank, or raise a glass to the way the accordion drives the rowdy drinking songs of Flogging Molly. Or I’ll go to a local Punk Accordion Workshop and hear thirty people squeezing their way through a Ramones song. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg — I’m constantly amazed at the vibrant and diverse accordion sounds emanating from all over the world.

Now don’t get me wrong, there still a long way to go before our nation’s accordion teachers are overrun with kids clamoring for lessons. (Then again, I’ve seen small children go nuts for the accordion player in the Wiggles, so maybe we’re not that far off.) But the accordion is a resilient instrument, and despite all the flack it’s gotten over the past forty years, the tide is starting to turn. And the best, I think, is yet to come.

Eagle-eyed San Francisco Chronicle readers may have noticed a rather flattering writeup on us in today’s Tech Chronicles. (The piece is an extended version of a blog post that appeared on the Chronicle’s site on Friday.) Now you can learn more than you ever wanted about how Anna and I met, our accordion backgrounds, and the origins of Let’s Polka. Thanks to Chronicle writer Jessica Guynn for having the guts to promote accordions in the Technology section, and for calling Anna a “veritable Count Guido Deiro.”

A few months ago, we wrote about a grassroots campaign to get Weird Al Yankovic a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Well, the campaign was a partial success: they raised enough money to submit an application, but unfortunately, the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce passed Al over this year in favor of a list that included Matt Damon, Mariah Carey, and Erik Estrada. (Really. Erik Estrada!) So don’t worry, Al-coholics — if Erik can get his own star, Al’s can’t be far off.

Frank Cerebino wrote a great piece referencing Accordion Awareness Month in his blog for the Palm Beach Post. At first, I thought it was just going to be another excuse to make bad accordion jokes, but he instead writes about how he played as a youngster, abandoned the instrument, and then unexpectedly picked it up again after 25 years. Frank was lured back by his “accidental discoveries” of the instrument’s beauty, like strolling accordions in cafes, Yann Tiersen’s beautiful Amelie soundtrack, and the powerful tangos of Astor Piazzolla.

The whole piece is worth reading, but I wanted to share a fantastic Carl Sandburg poem he quoted. It’s called “Happiness” and was first published in Sandburg’s Chicago Poems in 1916:

I asked the professors who teach the meaning of life to tell me what is happiness.

And I went to famous executives who boss the work ofthousands of men.

They all shook their heads and gave me a smile as though I was trying to fool with them

And then one Sunday afternoon I wandered out along the Desplaines river

And I saw a crowd of Hungarians under the trees with their women and children and a keg of beer and an accordion.

Amen, Carl!

Even NPR can’t help getting excited about National Accordion Awareness Month. There was a segment on it yesterday during “All Things Considered,” featuring some friendly banter between Tom Torriglia and Gary Sredzienski (whose weekly polka radio show was profiled here previously). They talked about history, people’s reactions to the instrument, and their shared goal of bringing joy to people through the accordion. Check out the full clip here:

The Accordion vs The Beatles (NPR, 3:47)