May 2012 - Arizona Accordion Club

Page 4
The Arizona Accordion Club
SQUEEZE THIS! Kirkus Reviews April 15th, 2012
A solid, readable academic inquiry into accordion technology and culture, showing
how the instrument has adapted to changing times and trends.
This book holds plenty of interest for those who love accordion music, not merely
academics who study the instrument or musicians who play it. (The author is both.)
What Jacobson terms a “biography of the accordion” traces the development and
popular appeal of an instrument that could function as a whole band, is much less
expensive and more portable than a piano, followed the immigration patterns of Italians
and Eastern Europeans and flourished in the American cities where they clustered,
was all but killed by rock ’n’ roll, yet has found new life in a variety of different
contexts. “The story of the accordion after 1908 is about people who at critical
moments redefined the technology of the instrument as well as the culture surrounding
the instrument,” writes the author. She documents the instrument’s various image
makeovers, striving for the legitimacy of high culture while attempting to shake
its associations with cheesiness, tawdriness (the instrument of the bordello and the
saloon) and working-class ethnicity. Jacobson deservedly shines the spotlight on a
variety of accordionists: Guido Deiro, who “experienced the most dramatic rise to
success in accordion history” and was once married to Mae West; Dick Contino, a
would-be teen idol; Myron Floren, far more of a virtuoso than Lawrence Welk; and Frankie Yankovic, a huge crossover
recording success. Yet the author slights the likes of Clifton Chenier and zydeco, Flaco Jimenez and conjunto, Los Lobos
and Cajun accordion music, focusing more on the less-indigenous Brave Combo and They Might Be Giants. The
“Accordions Are In!” ad campaign for the Tiger Combo ’Cordion reflects the humor here that is too rare in academic writing.
A good start on a rich subject
THE KINGDOM OF ZYDECO
A lengthy and conscientious dissection whose studious tone seems diametrically
opposed to its subject, a Creole musical form known for playful, freefloating
rhythms. Tisserand, a music writer in New Orleans, probes the origins,
growth, and spread of Zydeco, the vivacious, accordion-based dance
music native to the Creole communities of southwest Louisiana and eastern
Texas. Calling on oral histories, contemporaneous accounts, and his own research
and experiences to support his effort, the author capably opens the
genre to the uninitiated. He explains the distinction between Cajun and Creole,
one dependent as much on race as on culture. He gives a short etymological
explanation of the word Zydeco, which likely stems from a corruption of
les haricots, the French word for snap beans—a staple crop for black Creole
farmers. And he offers profiles of such essential and seminal Zydeco legends
as the 1920s—’30s recording artist and pioneer AmÇdÇ Ardoin and “King of
Zydeco” Clifton Chenier, credited as the first to introduce R&B and rock
‘n— roll into Zydeco and as the inventor of the modern froittoir, or rubboard.
Also sketched is Buckwheat Zydeco, the performer who in recent years has
been instrumental (pun intended) in the music’s mainstream acceptance. Yet
in depicting the music’s popularity, particularly today, the author does miss a
step. By citing Zydeco’s presence in a 1980s-vintage movie, The Big Easy,
and its other uses as backup music in recent TV advertisements, Tisserand
overstates the impact of the form. This sort of hype, and the excessive detail
of his work, suggest the author’s passion for his subject. While everyone can
learn something from his book, a little passion will also help them to put up
with it. (b & w photos)