Tejano Conjunto Festival Photos Flickr user thegiantagave has a great set of photos from last weekend’s Tejano Conjunto Festival in San Antonio, including shots of Eva Ybarra, Mingo Saldivar, and Santiago Jimenez, Jr.
If you live in L.A. and play the accordion, there’s a good chance you’ve been to Dave’s Accordion School. Located in Atwater Village, Dave’s has been offering accordion lessons and repairs since 1971. Run by Dave Caballero and his wife Veronika, the pair met years ago when Veronika wandered into the shop looking for accordion lessons. (Three children and three grandchildren later, I guess you could say the lessons went well.) Here’s a nice video profile of Dave’s Accordion School put together by a USC School of Journalism student.
Posted April 16th, 2008 in Profiles, Videos · Comments off
Texas Folklife has extended the deadline for its second annual Big Squeeze contest until next Friday, April 19. The contest is open to accordion players under 25 who will compete for a $500 prize and a day of recording time at the historic SugarHill Recording Studios in Houston. Four semi-finalists will be chosen to perform live on May 11 at Austin’s new Mexican American Cultural Center. Two finalists will then perform at the 19th annual Accordion Kings & Queens concert featuring Step Rideau & the Zydeco Outlaws and La Tropa F.
Fellow accordion blogger Squeezyboy tipped us to this crazy video by German accordionist Uwe Steger showing off some of his extensions for the Roland V-Accordion. I’m usually not a fan of MIDI accordions, but I’ll admit his bizarre demo makes me want to try one. And don’t be fooled by the zaniness — Steger is an accomplished accordionist, taking second place at Roland’s 1st annual V-Accordion contest last year.
Posted March 27th, 2008 in Bizarro!, Videos · Comments off
Accordion All-Stars at NAA 2008 Convention Missed the National Accordion Association’s recent convention in Texas? Luckily for us, YouTube user limbery has uploaded several videos of the event, including this jam by the Accordion All-Star band.
Russian Skydiving Bayan Player How do you combine your love of skydiving with your love of the accordion? By doing both at once, of course! Or maybe this is an elite Russian commando unit that parachutes into hostile territories and subdues them with accordion music…
Posted March 23rd, 2008 in Links, Videos · Comments off
You wouldn’t think one of San Francisco’s oldest law firms would have much to do with accordions, but then along comes this quirky commercial for Hanson Bridgett that incorporates not one, but three accordion players. Blending polka, zydeco, and conjunto, the three accordionists featured are Tom Torriglia, Gerard Landry and Miguel Govea. I still have no idea how they relate to law, but I like it.
Documentary filmmaker Les Blank offers glimpses into the lives and music of passionate people on the periphery of American society. Over the past forty years, he’s covered a wide variety of ethnic cultures, from rural Louisiana French musicians to Mexican-Americans in border towns to polka nuts in the Midwest. And these aren’t stilted, Travel Channel-esque accounts; his films are warm and intimate, deftly capturing the context (food, faces, scenery) from which the music originates.
Chulas Fronteras was one of the first films to document traditional conjunto music, including rare footage of artists like Lydia Mendoza and Santiago Jimenez Sr. (The film was deemed “culturally, historically, or aesthetically important” enough to be included in the Library of Congress’ National Film Registry.) The clip below comes from his 1984 polka documentary, In Heaven There Is No Beer (1984); it features a colorful performance of “Who Stole the Kiszka?” by Walt Solek and his band.
You can easily lose an afternoon watching clips of Blank’s films on YouTube or at UC Berkeley’s Media Resource Center and — my apologies to your boss — I highly recommend it. Or you can order the full-length films directly from Les Blank’s website.
Legendary Cleveland-style polka band leader and accordionist Johnny Vadnal passed away yesterday at the age of 84. Vadnal was the first polka band leader to have his own major market television show, performing every Sunday afternoon on WEWS Channel 5 in Cleveland from 1949 to 1961. In 1949, Vadnal won the title of “Cleveland’s Polka King” in a vote held by a local radio station.
A prolific songwriter, Vadnal penned such polka classics as “Yes, My Dear”, “No Beer on Sunday”, “Wayside Polka” and many others. Here’s Johnny and his band performing one of his later hits — written for his wife — “My Alice Waltz”:
What would happen if the king of Chicago-style polka met the king of champagne music? It actually happened back in 1966 when Lil’ Wally Jagiello performed “Johnny’s Knocking Polka” on the Lawrence Welk Show. I could watch that chemnitzer concertina shake for hours…
The accordion has always seemed like the perfect movie subject. Its story features a glamorous past, an unceremonious fall from grace, and now a lively renaissance. What audience wouldn’t love that story?
Thankfully, Steve Mobia agrees and is putting the finishing touches on Behind the Bellows, his documentary chronicling the accordion’s “variety, history and rise and fall in popularity.” It includes interviews and performances by Anthony Galla Rini, Stefan Hussong, Guy Klucevsek, Carmen Carrozza, and more. In the trailer below, you can see clips of Those Darn Accordions, Henry Doktorski, the Great Morgani, and Jason Webley, among others.
On Mobia’s site, the documentary is listed as “unfinished”, but I’ll post an update as soon as we hear it’s ready for public consumption.
Documentary filmmaker