In its nearly 200 year history, the accordion has undergone constant technical refinement, and there have been virtuosic performers in every era and seemingly wherever you go. In Squeeze This, author Marion Jacobson ably tracks the changes affecting the piano accordion and accordion players, including the varieties of accordion technology and decoration, the dress of accordion entertainers, the kinds of places featuring accordion music, improvements to accordions, and the accordion repertoire.
The first chapter deals with the rise of the piano accordion. This is followed by chapters that follow the accordion over time, from the early focus on classical music, through the accordion’s assault on pop, and the twenty-first century reimagining of the accordion. Folklorists may be especially interested in chapter 4, “Crossover Accordionists: Viola Turpeinen, John Brugnoli and Frankie Yankovic.” Jacobson’s portrayal of each of these artists fits the current interest in folk musicians that position their work to serve a variety of publics. Turpeinen, Brugnoli, and Yankovic were each attempting to be more than Finnish, Italian, or Slovenian. Their quests were to create music that would appeal to a wide swath of Americans, particularly working class Americans.
In each accordion era, Jacobson references the most important movers and shakers in the accordion world. To her credit, the analysis considers much more than music sound. For example, the 1930s were an era of accordion studios. Accordionists would set up businesses in major cities. They and the fellow accordionists they hired taught the accordion to mostly young students. They would also sell accordions to the students and create performance opportunities for them. However, the sun was setting on this system by the end of World War II. By this time, electronic media were playing greater roles in creating musical tastes and supplying music to members of the public. Through a study of accordionist Dick Contino, Jacobson shows how, in the more media-influenced post-WW II era, the interest in the accordion shifted from the participatory impulse of the studio era to the accordionist as entertainer. Through live and radio performances, Dick Contino was becoming something of an idol for teenaged people. He played a flashy repertoire to appeal to them, but also included standards in his shows to appeal to older people. Jacobson reports that the 1950s were the era of conformist, consumer culture, when artists such as Lawrence Welk and Lawrence Welk Show accordionist Myron Floren created a sound that was professional and stressed songs and styles within the listening experiences of most listeners. Welk’s TV audience consisted of millions of unconnected people with varying tastes and varying levels of sophistication. With that kind of an audience, validating, and not challenging, the tastes of listeners became the overarching need.
The history of the accordion consists of periods of popularity mixed with periods of unpopularity. After the accordion’s biggest sales year, 1955, the instrument entered into a decline. Jacobson writes of the 1990s as a sort of rebirth. A chart labeled “Accordion Articles” lists a total of fifteen print and broadcast pieces in national media for the twenty-six-year period, 1980-2006. Another chart lists a total of eleven national television commercials that used the accordion in the 1990s. However, these figures do not seem to indicate a rebirth, but something resembling a bit of quirky interest instead.
While ours may not represent a new era of accordion popularity, it is hard to argue against a new cutting-edge “cool” for the accordion emerging in recent times. It seems like an underground and represents premises that differ from those of past decades. Jacobson ably describes the combination of festivals, fans, recordings, and artists that is home to the new accordion cool. To these accordion people, including Jacobson, the accordion represents indie and not the standard music business as usual. Despite that the accordion is sometimes wed to electronic gadgetry, to current accordion people the accordion represents something “real,” an antidote to the phoniness of pop.
In her introduction, Jacobson writes about her discovery of an emerging instrument-centered culture of the accordion. Throughout the book, and especially in the final chapter, she references many things that accordion players have in common: interest in all accordions, idealization of the past, and collecting accordion memorabilia, for example. It would have brought the idea of an instrument-based accordion culture to life, had Jacobson included a transcription of members of the culture in conversation with Jacobson commenting on the conversational themes shared that validated the speakers’ cultural membership. As it stands, the book documents the multiplicity of accordion cultures; but as far as a widely shared culture of the accordion, the book asserts that it exists but does not offer detailed analysis of it.
Squeeze This is centered on the accordion in the United States, while The Accordion in the Americas considers both North and South America. But the differences between the two books are more than their scopes. Where Squeeze This treats the development and changes of the accordion in the United States in general, The Accordion in the Americas is a book of readings that after the introduction and the first chapter treats individual accordion traditions separately.
Reading the bulk of the individual chapters of The Accordion in the Americas puts meat on the bones of the contention that the accordion is usually involved with genres that are under duress or at least not mainstream. For example, the chapter about Cajun accordion tells how the popularity of Cajun tradition in Cajun country and elsewhere has much to do with self-conscious cultural revival against the onrush of mainstream American culture. Cathy Ragland’s chapter, “Regional Accordion Traditions of South Texas and the Border Region,” shows how, to people of the region, the accordion represents the combination of Spanish and Anglo elements that reflects the area’s self-image. To supporters of this music, the button box represents the music and the working class experience. Most players play it rather than switching to the piano accordion because they hold that the button accordion has the real Tejano sound. In the Dominican Republic, merengue is the music. However, there are two types of merengue. The orchestra-based type was brought in by former dictator Trujillo and appeals to middle and upper class people. However, the merengue típico is accordion-based and is the type favored by migrants returning to the Dominican Republic.
The chapters in The Accordion in the Americas relate to individual traditions, though in many cases, the individual traditions are known to be combinations of two or more traditions. Jim Leary’s article, “Accordions and Working-Class Culture along Lake Superior’s South Shore,” shows how in social occasions, accordion styles representing a variety of nationalities were welcome. Leary documents many players who formed a multi-ethnic musical community in the period 1880-1930. Young people representing many cultural backgrounds sought out the music and musical settings for partying.
Participants in each of the folkloric accordion traditions testify to the existence of a shared past for those in a particular tradition. Even in formal composition, it seems that the accordion is involved in works that refer to a shared past. Squeeze Me author Marion S. Jacobson contributes “The Accordion in New Scores: Paradigms of Authorship and Identity in William Schimmel’s Musical ‘Realities’” to the Accordion in America book. Schimmel is an American composer who has written over 4,000 works based thematically and structurally on the works of others. The message one gets from this is that there is something about the accordion that causes composers, players, and audience members to enter into worlds of memory, tradition, and community.
From the perspective of this North American reader, The Accordion in the Americas serves as an introduction to a number of genres uncommon in North America. The accordion world has its set of colorful characters, including Luiz Gonzaga. His career in his native Brazil seemed destined not to take off. Sambas were popular, and he could not play them well. But the day he was asked to play something from his home region, Pernambuco, Gonzaga’s luck changed. The piece he played made a hit with the audience, so he continued to emphasize his background. Eventually, by his talking about northeast Brazil as a region, it entered the minds of audiences and his music was positioned as the style representing the region.
The differing scopes of the two books work well together. Squeeze This tells readers about the changes in the accordion’s history in North America, from the perspective of the accordion. The Accordion in the Americas tells of the symbolism of the accordion and the role the instrument and its genres play in a variety of cultures. Few world instruments are as pervasive as the accordion and few are as under-represented in scholarly literature. The two books discussed here represent welcome additions to the study of the accordion and its cultures.
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[Review length: 1464 words • Review posted on November 7, 2013]